[koumori]

I think by the time an artist has reached a certain amount of fame/exposure/reputation, a lot of people who didn't grow up with or pay attention to her debut years will automatically make their mind up about them and will just consider them outdated or not to their tastes. For example, I pretty much do (did?) that with Madonna and Britney Spears until the last few months when I realised I had all but discarded their entire discography without really thinking about it. I'm still slowly making my way through their back catalogue to actually form my own opinion on them.

I find this is quite common in general with people, so it doesn't surprise me that much when I hear of Ayu getting the same sort of treatment. She was (is) huge in Japan and dominated an entire J-Pop era, and hasn't reinvented herself since to front a new trend, like Namie Amuro. I also think she is generally disinterested in attempting to build a second wave of popularity for herself and is content with her current flexibility in organising her own workaholic schedule. It comes across that way, anyway