The review of "&"

[isaac hiew]

The recent hit single “&” which was performed by Japanese songstress Ayumi Hamasaki, maintained at a steady rate of sales that grabbed the trophy of Oricon Ranking. Despite having a fierce competition with other singers’ single releases such as Zard or Da Pump, Ayumi topped the rank without any hassle, thanks to her very own band of fans.

As her usual perfectionism on her singles, Ayumi even included 3 new songs into the single for boosting the sales, not only that, she also paid much attention to her new PV, “Ourselves”.

However, criticisms regarding the single itself and the PV still slammed mercilessly upon the 25-year-old Fukuoka Perfecture born singer, despite the successful sales.

She seemed not having enough fun ever since she cloned herself in her last video, “Rainbow”, now she even being challenged by her evil self in the new PV!

In the PV, the “Evil Ayu” messed up the real ayu’s life by haunting her using her army of crazy hardcore fans that will not let Ayumi go, no matter what.

The video was somehow filled with the sense of a horror-film, where we can see that Ayumi’s creativeness overall. When enquired about the single’s concept, she answered, “It is a sequel of my recent singles’ theme, which is that, I wished to discuss a lot more about some of our views of life. I am expressing that everyone will always have their very own obstacle or unhappy times, but they have to overcome them by themselves.”

Translated by Isaac Hiew,
Sin Chew Jit Poh,
14th of July 2003