[Piccolo]

It seems a lot of people are comparing her lyrics in the past and present and talking about the heavy changes in them. Personally, I read the lyrics for enjoyment and I find them interesting to analyze and what not, but when I listen to the song I do not particular pay attention to the meaning of the song, rather then the emotional effort put out in her voice. Instead of lyrics of which I'm suppose to understand, her voice becomes an instrument to me. When people say her songs are getting weaker and emptier, it kind of bothers me because I feel her singing has improved significantly, and her songwriting abilities have remained equally good. I enjoy her earlier voice, but I really do like her voice right now. I also like the direction of her new songs. I think she really does a good job on her newer pieces. I'd take fairyland and alterna over daybreak and dearest anyday of the week.

Like I said before, things like lyrics don't particularly affect me since I do not know japanese. I think I speak for a lot of people here when her vocals become an instrument as opposed to words we are suppose to understand. I also think that some of the meaning and emotions are lost through translations when they're put into english. So you can't say "these lyrics are cheap and meaningless" because perhaps we have missed something. Maybe it's just me, but I find a lot of her lyrics really odd, but not in a bad way. I feel most of her songs have many meanings, and are really open to debate and discussion of what they really mean based on the translations (masa, wataru) I have read.

If this doesn't make sense or lacks organization then I apologize, I'm just writing what I feel based on what I've read in this thread. I hope you all get what I'm saying though.