I'm late to this conversation (per usual), but if I had to choose three:
1)
MY STORY - This is probably her most cohesive album despite the amount of songwriters (compared to something like
Love songs. It's one of her darker albums, but HONEY & Replace really help lift it up towards the end. Best bang for your buck overall.
2)
(miss)understood - Best bang for your buck PV-wise. At the time I thought the Sweetbox numbers were a bit off, but looking back it really pushed Ayu into a completely different direction compared to all her previous albums. I think this is what preluded 3/4s of her material after this point (as in most albums can be traced back to this one as its starting point).
3)
Memorial address - Even with other artists, I haven't found a mini album that's quite as packed as this one. Even though you only get three album songs, you also get two songs not included in A COMPLETE and the PVs for four of them (of the five altogether). What's amazing is it actually feels like Memorial address and MY STORY go hand-in-hand—the 25 songs can be played consecutively without feeling disjointed.
All of these have a good balance of both Ayu-penned tracks (with Will being the last one we've gotten) and other songwriters that are still pretty active today.
