ARENA TOUR 2012 A ~HOTEL Love songs~ information thread [II]

[mizuki-7]

Maybe CREA is not responsible to the arrangements but she is described like a person who choose each elements in her songs so i think it's her who decide how her arrangements must be ...

[TeamAyu2004]

Originally Posted by isthisLOL?

Are you kidding me or are you delusional enough to believe a song is born, no more words and Dearest aren't generic as hell? Which is a big part of the ballad-heavy second half I was talking about.
Holy ****, I didn't even call the album bad, just pointed out that some songs are very generic(that's not an opinion, that's not a judgement, that is a simple observation) and people jump my throath xD As a whole it's still less generic than other artist's entire careers(if I named people now there'd be a whole other shitstorm, but there are many, especially in the J-Pop world, that could be named), but that doesn't change that there are rather generic songs on it, amongst unique masterpieces surely, but they are there.

Um, saying something is generic is an opinion, not a fact.
You can see here by lots of people pointing out that they are not generic is what makes it an opinion.
I dont think people were jumping at you, they were just disagreeing with you.
I am is perfection. I dont think there is anything generic about it.
I think its her most creative and thoughtful creation that Ayumi has.
And I think rainbow gets bad flack because it came after I am, it was different from her other albums.

If anything I am is the most generic album she has. Ayumi broke the mold her mold to try and fit it into a more 'listenable' album across asia with all those english words.

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by mizuki-7

Maybe CREA is not responsible to the arrangements but she is described like a person who choose each elements in her songs so i think it's her who decide how her arrangements must be ...

As far as we know, Ayu did that before CREA and still does do it nowadays...

And I do agree Dearest, No more words and a song is born are all among her most generic ballads to date...

[jbrat2219]

Dearest is way overrated. And a song is born is just plan bad! Not even getting rid of KEIKO could save that song... just having it ON I am... tarnished the whole album for me.

[mizuki-7]

As far as we know, Ayu did that before CREA and still does do it nowadays...

Yes I know ^^

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by jbrat2219

Dearest is way overrated. And a song is born is just plan bad! Not even getting rid of KEIKO could save that song... just having it ON I am... tarnished the whole album for me.

endless sorrow is one of my favorite Ayu tracks... What I am... did to it is unforgivable

[Coelacanth]

lol @ people trying to bash her legendary early work so they can make her new albums look better. Is this really the first thing I have to see when I come back and lurk?

Party Queen sucks. The over-the-top arrangements can't even hide how truly boring all the melodies are in this album. The mixing is terrible on the rock tracks. Songs like NaNaNa and Shake It embarrassingly pander to effeminate, hedonistic gays who listen to Britney Spears / Lady Gaga and refer to things as "fierce." The Timmy tracks are utter camp garbage. She sounds emotionally distant (perhaps even bored?) while laying down her vocals for most of the album.

Doesn't help that she's constantly coddled by her staff and people like Timmy and Leslie Kee - she readily accepts their sub-par work because she's friends with them and they tell her how fierce she is every single day. If she actually looked at the A SUMMER covers and okay'ed them, well.. she must be absolutely loony. You don't even need to have a keen eye for art to recognize how awful those covers are.

Her older work was more minimalist, mature, unpretentious. It was theatrical, yet subtly - not forced or over-the-top. She's regressing.

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by Coelacanth

lol @ people trying to bash her legendary early work so they can make her new albums look better. Is this really the first thing I have to see when I come back and lurk?

Party Queen sucks. The over-the-top arrangements can't even hide how truly boring all the melodies are in this album. The mixing is terrible on the rock tracks. Songs like NaNaNa and Shake It embarrassingly pander to effeminate, hedonistic gays who listen to Britney Spears / Lady Gaga and refer to things as "fierce." The Timmy tracks are utter camp garbage. She sounds emotionally distant (perhaps even bored?) while laying down her vocals for most of the album.

Doesn't help that she's constantly coddled by her staff and people like Timmy and Leslie Kee - she readily accepts their sub-par work because she's friends with them and they tell her how fierce she is every single day. If she actually looked at the A SUMMER covers and okay'ed them, well.. she must be absolutely loony. You don't even need to have a keen eye for art to recognize how awful those covers are.

Her older work was more minimalist, mature, unpretentious. It was theatrical, yet subtly - not forced or over-the-top. She's regressing.

Respect: Lost

[Ayu-me]

Originally Posted by Coelacanth

lol @ people trying to bash her legendary early work so they can make her new albums look better. Is this really the first thing I have to see when I come back and lurk?

Party Queen sucks. The over-the-top arrangements can't even hide how truly boring all the melodies are in this album. The mixing is terrible on the rock tracks. Songs like NaNaNa and Shake It embarrassingly pander to effeminate, hedonistic gays who listen to Britney Spears / Lady Gaga and refer to things as "fierce." The Timmy tracks are utter camp garbage. She sounds emotionally distant (perhaps even bored?) while laying down her vocals for most of the album.

Doesn't help that she's constantly coddled by her staff and people like Timmy and Leslie Kee - she readily accepts their sub-par work because she's friends with them and they tell her how fierce she is every single day. If she actually looked at the A SUMMER covers and okay'ed them, well.. she must be absolutely loony. You don't even need to have a keen eye for art to recognize how awful those covers are.

Her older work was more minimalist, mature, unpretentious. It was theatrical, yet subtly - not forced or over-the-top. She's regressing.

This post: opinions opinions opinionated comments mixed with personal bias.
Ayu's "regressing" is not a fact, it's an opinion. I personally see Party Queen as her most mature, deep, and emotional album yet. Her vocals are awesome, the dance tracks are catchy and easy to listen to (as dance tracks should be) at the same time as having a subtle poetry, the rock tracks vary between being openly and subtly emotional, the jazz part is immeasurably beautiful with cynicism, playfulness, and dark reflections, and "how beautiful you are" is an amazing classical ballad. Party Queen, in my opinion, is her best album yet. "I am...", "MY STORY", "Duty", and most other Ayu albums aren't nearly as good, in my opinion. So my opinion is that Ayu keeps improving with time.
But my opinion obviously differs from yours, which is fine, except you paint your opinions as "facts", which makes your post very disrespectful.
So I will respectfully ask you to let your opinions be opinions.

[emi♡]

I see where you're coming from...but...ouch.


Although I do agree with the minimalistic, unpretentious part.

I can't really stand how contrived her sound/concepts/execution is these days.

But....well...seems to be quite trendy in our pop artists.

[jbrat2219]

Originally Posted by Coelacanth

lol @ people trying to bash her legendary early work so they can make her new albums look better. Is this really the first thing I have to see when I come back and lurk?

LOL at you assuming things you know nothing about. Some of us happen to dislike songs from her previous works. I know. SHOCKING. Some of us don't praise I am... like it was directly given to us from God. If people are allowed to state their opinions about how horrible her new albums are, other should be allowed to state their opinions about her past ones.

For me personally, I never cared for I am... when it came out. I almost gave up on ayu until RAINBOW.

[ayu_ready?]

Originally Posted by Coelacanth

lol @ people trying to bash her legendary early work so they can make her new albums look better. Is this really the first thing I have to see when I come back and lurk?

Party Queen sucks. The over-the-top arrangements can't even hide how truly boring all the melodies are in this album. The mixing is terrible on the rock tracks. Songs like NaNaNa and Shake It embarrassingly pander to effeminate, hedonistic gays who listen to Britney Spears / Lady Gaga and refer to things as "fierce." The Timmy tracks are utter camp garbage. She sounds emotionally distant (perhaps even bored?) while laying down her vocals for most of the album.

Doesn't help that she's constantly coddled by her staff and people like Timmy and Leslie Kee - she readily accepts their sub-par work because she's friends with them and they tell her how fierce she is every single day. If she actually looked at the A SUMMER covers and okay'ed them, well.. she must be absolutely loony. You don't even need to have a keen eye for art to recognize how awful those covers are.

Her older work was more minimalist, mature, unpretentious. It was theatrical, yet subtly - not forced or over-the-top. She's regressing.

and I will say - God bless you for this post!

[njanjayrp]

Originally Posted by isthisLOL?

Are you kidding me or are you delusional enough to believe a song is born, no more words and Dearest aren't generic as hell? Which is a big part of the ballad-heavy second half I was talking about.
Holy ****, I didn't even call the album bad, just pointed out that some songs are very generic(that's not an opinion, that's not a judgement, that is a simple observation) and people jump my throath xD As a whole it's still less generic than other artist's entire careers(if I named people now there'd be a whole other shitstorm, but there are many, especially in the J-Pop world, that could be named), but that doesn't change that there are rather generic songs on it, amongst unique masterpieces surely, but they are there.

So people are delusional for not seeing things the way you do? People do have different standard for generic music and even though you might know more things about actual music that doesn't make everyone else dumb or whatever.

While I enjoyed Party Queen a lot, Coelacanth has said quite a few things I'll agree with:

Party Queen sucks. The over-the-top arrangements can't even hide how truly boring all the melodies are in this album. The mixing is terrible on the rock tracks. Songs like NaNaNa and Shake It embarrassingly pander to effeminate, hedonistic gays who listen to Britney Spears / Lady Gaga and refer to things as "fierce." The Timmy tracks are utter camp garbage. She sounds emotionally distant (perhaps even bored?) while laying down her vocals for most of the album.

Doesn't help that she's constantly coddled by her staff and people like Timmy and Leslie Kee - she readily accepts their sub-par work because she's friends with them and they tell her how fierce she is every single day. If she actually looked at the A SUMMER covers and okay'ed them, well.. she must be absolutely loony. You don't even need to have a keen eye for art to recognize how awful those covers are.

Her older work was more minimalist, mature, unpretentious. It was theatrical, yet subtly - not forced or over-the-top. She's regressing.

Like it or not, the bold parts are pretty much TRUE.

[Andrenekoi]

^Nops, the first bolded part is pretty much homophobic, and it doesn't go much far from it...

And the rest is a opinion.. I, for example, am really liking all the results of Ayu collabs with Timmy, and enjoyed everything music-related she did with Leslie.

[jewelbox]

Originally Posted by TeamAyu2004

Um, saying something is generic is an opinion, not a fact.

EXACTLY. And I HATE the word generic.. Seriously..
And the fact that Timmy has a musical background means NOTHING. There are great musicians who cant even read notes and have composed whole operas (like Vangelis). It's the talent that matters in music. Most rock musicians have no musical background whatsoever...
I don't care if someone had 20 years of experience on classical music and composing if the outcome is ridicilous and crappy.
Some people love Party Queen, thats fine, but calling her older works generic is just ridicilous. What made you her fan if it's not her older songs (before NEXT LEVEL)?
I don't want to sound mean or anything but I'm just AMAZED.

Originally Posted by Coelacanth

lol @ people trying to bash her legendary early work so they can make her new albums look better. Is this really the first thing I have to see when I come back and lurk?

Party Queen sucks. The over-the-top arrangements can't even hide how truly boring all the melodies are in this album. The mixing is terrible on the rock tracks. The Timmy tracks are utter camp garbage. She sounds emotionally distant (perhaps even bored?) while laying down her vocals for most of the album.

Doesn't help that she's constantly coddled by her staff and people like Timmy and Leslie Kee - she readily accepts their sub-par work because she's friends with them and they tell her how fierce she is every single day. If she actually looked at the A SUMMER covers and okay'ed them, well.. she must be absolutely loony. You don't even need to have a keen eye for art to recognize how awful those covers are.

Her older work was more minimalist, mature, unpretentious. It was theatrical, yet subtly - not forced or over-the-top. She's regressing.

I deleted the part about gays, but everything else I wholeheartedly agree 100%.

[mizuki-7]

And the fact that Timmy has a musical background means NOTHING. There are great musicians who cant even read notes and have composed whole operas (like Vangelis). It's the talent that matters in music. Most rock musicians have no musical background whatsoever...
I don't care if someone had 20 years of experience on classical music and composing if the outcome is ridicilous and crappy.

This

[emi♡]

I didnt take it as homophobic. Necessarily...

But I think that it's an idea that's deeply rooted in gay culture.

And the song...does appeal to the ideas and valued of this subset of people.

That's not a bad thing, but of course, whenever you do that, you might alienate others...even if indirectly, or thats not what you wanted.

You never know how people are going to react to things. It doesnt HAVE to be this way, but some people dont like it, and some people dont find it necessary.


Im personally...I mean shake it was kinda bleh, but hbya was better I think, at conveying these values to japanese society....which IS important considering how homosexuality is treated there.

whatever...thats my 50 cents about it.

[Pieces_of_SEVEN]

This thread always makes me SOO envious of those who get to see her live! You are so lucky!

[Coelacanth]

The songs from LOVEppears, Duty, I am... only get better each and every time I listen to them. These are the songs people will remember forever. Someone mentioned cultural reasons behind her success during this period. Yes, of course. But if the Party Queen album was released instead of Duty in 2000, you cannot tell me that it would have reached the same level of success as Duty. No way. Ayu did not achieve super-stardom through mediocrity.

What is she contributing to the musical landscape right now? Nothing but gimmicks, it seems. I honestly do not think she's working at her full potential. J-pop is in a huge rut right now, and what does one of the most celebrated, iconic J-pop stars do? Release an uninspired mini-album full of Yuna Ito recuts and saccharine pseudo-R&B love songs. Worst of all, since the rise of social media, her AND her staff have been unprofessionally responding to criticism when instead they should just keep their mouths shut and focus on their work.

Regarding A song is born, no more words, Dearest... Perhaps these songs would be "generic" for any other artist to sing, but Ayu's vocal interpretation was nothing short of brilliant. She was a master of pathos in those days. I will say that I think how beautiful you are is a gorgeous song, and one of her better ballads in recent years.

[colorsofromance]

Homophobic fail in some of the posts in this thread. Seriously.