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Originally Posted by Chibi-Chan
None of the people I spoke to said she was old or hated her. Actually they had a lot of respect for her and liked remembering the old songs. They were quite nostalgic about it.
The reason they don't like her anymore is that the image Ayu adopted somewhere around (miss)understood does not appeal to them anymore. Until then they liked her because of her rawness, her lyrical talent and themes and her down to earth girl next door image. None of them was a really big fan but a lot of them liked to listen to her and also bought some singles/albums. They said that they simply stopped to like her at some point. I tried to figure out when and why this was. The longer we talked about it it became clear they think she became like everyone else in the industry. They think of her today as a stuck up diva surrounded by a bunch of dogs and fancy stuff and so they aren't able to relate to her anymore. They don't care for any of that. Furthermore they find her music not to be unique anymore. Two of them said that when they go to karaoke with their friends one of their friends often sings newer Ayu songs and they could as well listen to some newbie's music who is hot at the moment and it would be as unimpressive as Ayu's recent stuff.
Because everone at ahs was like "A ONE is sooooo old school Ayu" I asked them if I could play it to them. They really liked WARNING and NO FUTURE as well as Last minute. But that was it (oh and they were interested in the Hikki cover). But mostly everything else did not impress them at all. They said if it would be some song from someone else who never released impressive music they might listen to it because it's easy to listen to. But if they ever go to actively listen to Ayu again they would always listen to her old stuff. That's what we did in the end. They had a lot of fun searching for Ayu songs in my music library and remembering all the songs they didn't listen to since quite some time.
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omg THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING THIS XD!!
I just wish Ayu could read it.
Having analyzed Ayu's lyrics and read every interview & report I could get my hands on over the years, Ayu has always struck me as a very insecure person. Back in the day her rebellious nature gave her this attitude of "Yeah, I'm insecure - so what? That's who I am! I'm gonna show you my insecurities and that's that!" and Max's comments that that's exactly what she should write lyrics about definitely helped.
But nowadays it's like she's trying SO hard to hide everything she's insecure about. Rather than honing a skill, she hopes from new skill to new skill, and each one is based on stuff other people are already doing. Because she doesn't want to take the risk of working REALLY hard on a particular thing for years and still failing at it. She doesn't want to be vulnerable to her own pursuits, I guess. And she's certainly not FAILING at making her concerts or making the music she's making, she's just not really succeeding at doing anything interesting. She'd rather be safe & "meh" than dedicate time & energy to something that people may not like, because the criticism & rejection will hurt more.
She'd rather be a circus performer than a singer/songwriter, which is really unfortunate to me because her talent lies in being a singer/songwriter. She'd rather be a stage show producer than a composer, which again is unfortunate because she's far more talented as a composer. She'd rather use compositions by established songwriters who aren't her like TK, GEO, JJ Lin, etc. then write songs herself or hand-pick compositions by newcomers that REALLY work for her material.
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Originally Posted by Chibi-Chan
This so much. She is so proud and satisfied with The GIFT and it's one of the worst songs sge ever made. Lazy composition, lazy arrangement. It's just kitschy and boring but she treats it as if it's the best thing ever.
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Holy hell yes. I don't doubt that Ayu did love the song - she does enjoy simple, straighforward ballads and midtempo songs - but I think its power was probably HEAVILY dependent on the way JJ Lin sings, and the demo probably had a much more stripped-down sound. Her voice sounded fabulous on the song, sure, but it wasn't suited for the song and didn't feel honest in its delivery at all (because Ayu is so reluctant to let flaws show through anymore)... and the arrangement was so layered and so evenly mixed that it's just.... meh.
Ayu needs to stop choosing songs to record based on what she likes to listen to - that's been a problem for her for YEARS now.