Quote:
Originally Posted by Corvina
Yeah, I sadly have to agree.
In the last Heisei poll I saw, made by one of the big newspaper companies, they randomly asked about 5000 Japanese people and Ayu didn't even pop up (Namie Amuro won).
Granted she's in most the others I've seen, but you guys talking about it reminded me of that.
And I've also seen several articles about her losing her own identity as an artist and more and more copying other artists like Namie Amuro and Koda Kumi.
I've also skipped through the Numero Tokyo interview now and one answer struck me.
She was asked what's the most important thing for her regarding her 20th Anniversary and she answered "the pride for the brand Ayumi Hamasaki".
Couldn't help but chuckle a bit about that answer.
Sure, if you look at those 20 years as a whole her career is absolutely amazing and she achieved what nobody else achieved. A legend!
But looking at the past few years I can't help but feel this answer is a bit of a mocking.
Even though she does acknowledge the achievements as well as the mistakes in the sentence after that, I do feel like she and her team lost the connection to the industry as well as the audience in recent years to handle "the brand Ayumi Hamasaki".
That answer makes it sound like she does rely on her past instead of moving forward.
I guess that really shows one of the main problems - objectively she's giving a lot and is not lazy at all with touring, but subjectively people are coming out of her concerts and feel like they've seen the same again?
Simply changing the songs probably is not enough if you're constantly touring.
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Except I think ayumi has changed more than the songs. But nothing (no new prop, now new routine, no new stage) is enough for Ayu. If she had set lower expectations or expectations for a different style of tour, she wouldn't have this issue right now. She's done a lot. There isnt much she can do on tour that would be revolutionary in her touring career. And anything else would just be considered being influenced by or copying someone else which is also a "problem" now even though not as many cared in the past.
I think ayu is in an unfortunate place right now. And I dont think there is much she can do that would gain public adoration. She lost that over a decade ago and even before that it continued to decline every year while she was supposedly "being the true ayumi hamasaki" as her fans might say. She can keep going musically, but it will have to be because she is truly inspired as there is nothing else to gain.
Ayumi doesnt do anything dramatically terrible. As I've discussed before I think, people blow things out of proportion because of who she is, and the negative narrative surrounding her career just builds over time. She was already very hated by many when I became a fan in 2007-2008. I didnt even like her at first because some toxic western Utada Hikaru fans I was (well technically still am) apart of and others (including ayu fans tbh) made it seem cool to shit on her as this joke of the jpop industry. And that was in 2007 lol.
Also when other artists do things that may not garner great pr, the narrative around it is completely different. Ayumi doesnt have that positive support from the media or wider community at all. It's easier to tear her down. Also lots of revisionist history.
Some artists may not do anything remotely as impressive as ayumi, utada, etc but it doesnt really matter because they never deal with this kind of negative scrutiny and although fans or the public may not admit it, their expectations for those other artists is different.
Also on Namie...love her. She retired at a perfect time and deserves the attention she is getting for her body of work. So I think its obvious why most heisei era discussion would be around her right now. She also (like Kumi) have always made the most mainstream appealing styles of music and do things that are on trend, more like western pop artists (but better tbh lol). I think that really still works now especially and more so than ayu copying anyone, I think she is trying this (in terms of style and tour setup)...obviously not the music...aside from Colours...which was not good.
I would love ayu to release music but only if it is interesting an inspired. Unfortunately I havent enjoyed as much from any of our jpop legends besides Utada recently, as much as I respect them. So I'm not in a rush to hear trouble part 2. I would prefer things like Love songs and Party Queen, which work well conceptually and provide great songs. But the former was deemed boring and the latter...well we all know how the fanbase responded. For this reason, I'm not sure how positively fans would respond to what im looking for from ayu personally.
Note: this turned into a long post of a lot of my recent thoughts lol, this is not necessarily all in response to you Corvina but just this general discussion
