Quote:
Originally Posted by oaristos
I think the biggest problem is that Ayu seems to be very comfortable right now. She's the richest Japanese artist, the best-selling female solo artist of all time, and is already a legend in the industry. Sometimes I feel like she's very aware of that and that's why she doesn't feel the need to create anything new.
All of her recent released have been rushed, songs being written and recorded in only a couple days, all of her videos being single-shot (this is not an aesthetic decision anymore, it's just lazy). Every single song sounds like something she could have done at any time in her career, every single picture simply shows "Ayumi Hamasaki being pretty in a cute dress while standing in front of a pastel-coloured background." 
I miss when her albums used to deliver a message, or at least show a new side of her. I know it's impossible to always inovate, but everything she does nowadays is just too safe. Nothing changes, absolutely nothing. It saddens me to say that her last "unique" release was Party Queen. I hated the album but I appreciate the album lyric-wise and the attempt to try new genres. She complained her entire life for being "a product," but now that she apparently can be herself... it's just not interesting.  |
IMO her lyrics are sharp as ever, I actually can even relate to what she writes better nowadays than I do with her older lyrics, probably because at 29 I relate more with the adult Ayu issues than I do with the teen Ayu conflicts.
Colours and A One didn't had tight concepts like her other albums, but Colours showed she going a new direction for her (and mostly exceling on it IMO) while A One showed safe but extremely well crafted ballads. Made in Japan showed her feelings towards her homeland and another tight concept, and it's not her fault if western fandom expected sushi and ninja because it was based in Japan.
The last two tours had great concepts, depth, great amount of storytelling and comentary about her image (cdm) and the society she lives in (mij).
I don't get why people complain so much about that considering her tours from 2003 to 2009 were pretty much flashy for the sake of being flashy and her albuns from My Story to Rock n Roll Circus had poorly executed concepts and were constructed around summer and winter singles. Also, her fandom it's way more conservative than it likes to think it is, and everytime she really tried to shake things up she was shitted on by her fans...