New single 'Dreamed a Dream' by Tetsuya Komuro out July 31st, 2020

[Cahz-]

I'm old school so I prefer playing the audio video on Youtube. Even when I'm outside I just use my mp3 files instead of Spotify and such.
What I also love about streaming on Youtube is that after the (Ayu/other artist) song ends sometimes it leads to some live performance I've not watched before.

[//ABEST]

WOW! finally managed to listen to it and all I can say is wow! it feels like continution from Song 4 U and I really like it! not a safe way to go but this might be her best work since idk, CoLOURS-era?

[AmyRoseM]

This is the first Ayu song in maybe 10 years that I’ve been so obsessed with! It has that magic Ayu spark. I don’t know how else to describe it! But the melody got stuck in my head right away (something that always happened with her older music), and I’ve pretty much listened to it on repeat for 4 days. : ) I’m just so happy to hear great quality music from her again after so long. It’s exciting to see what else she might have up her sleeve this year!

[truehappiness]

I thought mixing on this song was not quite as heinous as it had been for like Party Queen / A ONE / LOVE again... but she's also probably not had many songs that were as busy as Dreamed a Dream. Perhaps the sheer amount of aural things happening in this track is being mixed up with another issue that had been far worse before? For example, there's really weird loudness problems with Last minute that make it a little hard to listen to in its current state but this song only really has that kind of "mushed together" problem due to the way the arrangement is. I'd say the "mushed together" can be seen even in older songs like evolution when the guitars/synths/percussion all meet.

[Katsuyuki012]

Dreamed a Dream didn't manage to chart within the top 20. I think it could have with a few more days but oh well, what's done is done. Number 20 sold 5,411 units. DaD is probably sitting somewhere in the top 30.

It's at #19 on the Billboard Japan Top Download Songs Charts!

[maxikot]

She's #22 on Oricon weekly singles downloads charts selling 5,121 copies. Not bad! And this billboard info is even better!

[DavidChaiLatte]

This is the type of arrangement she should’ve gone with:

[Sky High]

Originally Posted by DavidChaiLatte

This is the type of arrangement she should’ve gone with:

Wow this is so good

[Chris85]

Originally Posted by DavidChaiLatte

This is the type of arrangement she should’ve gone with:

This is very good.

[MelKeigo]

Originally Posted by DavidChaiLatte

This is the type of arrangement she should’ve gone with:

WOW this is awesome!!
I just hope these talented remixers make the full version too

[Uemarasan]

Originally Posted by DavidChaiLatte

This is the type of arrangement she should’ve gone with:

I can understand how people would prefer this, but it sounds devoid of artistic personality. The original arrangement sounds like a true Ayu song.

Mirrorcle World should never have been made. The original was perfect as an introduction.

Honestly I stopped listening to her music from Party Queen onwards (except for bits and pieces and recently discovering Love Again; I think that album’s supremely underrated). It’s only now that I find myself genuinely interested in Ayu’s musical output again. The last decade was a nadir.

[Chris85]

Originally Posted by Uemarasan

Mirrorcle World should never have been made. The original was perfect as an introduction.

It turned out to be one of her best songs IMO, it was a great choice to make a full song.

[njanjayrp]

Originally Posted by Chris85

It turned out to be one of her best songs IMO, it was a great choice to make a full song.

This. I also used it as a ringtone (though it was the start of the song).

Also that arrangement - the idea was good, but the verses are super week it just doesn't work well with the song for some reason.

[Deep snow]

Originally Posted by njanjayrp

This. I also used it as a ringtone (though it was the start of the song).

I'm gonna out myself by jumping on this bandwagon. I was completely obsessed with Mirrorcle World. I loved this release so much (the song, the single, the PV) that I actually made custom ringtones from multiple parts of the song and used them for my call tone, text alert, and alarm

ah the good old days of custom ringtones

[MelKeigo]

Originally Posted by Chris85

It turned out to be one of her best songs IMO, it was a great choice to make a full song.

Completely agree with you, Mirrorcle world is one of my favorite ayu songs, I'm actually shocked people dislike it this much XD

[DonkeyKongRemix]

^wow, so awesome!!!

[truehappiness]

Koji Morimoto I believe is still in charge of mixing lately. It was Naoki Yamada though for a good amount of CD's mixes but Koji is usually always doing live mixing for Ayu.

[mizuki-7]

It’s strange then ? I don’t think he would deliberately lower the quality of his work could it be a budget issue then ?

[truehappiness]

He seems to share the job with Naoki lately, but for a while Koji Morimoto was absent for albums like A ONE and LOVE again but then they split sixxxxxx.

Party Queen I think also suffered from being mixed by so many different people that the sound was a bit inconsistent.

However for Dreamed a Dream, I feel like the song is handled better than most of the "worst" mixes from the 2012-2015 era. It's also been a long time since we had a song like this as well aside from maybe We are the QUEENS but even that was quite some time ago!

[*Petit*]

Originally Posted by truehappiness

He seems to share the job with Naoki lately, but for a while Koji Morimoto was absent for albums like A ONE and LOVE again but then they split sixxxxxx.

Party Queen I think also suffered from being mixed by so many different people that the sound was a bit inconsistent.

However for Dreamed a Dream, I feel like the song is handled better than most of the "worst" mixes from the 2012-2015 era. It's also been a long time since we had a song like this as well aside from maybe We are the QUEENS but even that was quite some time ago!

The first song I remember listening to thinking the mixing was worse than before is Talkin' 2 myself, where it sounds like a "wall of noise" during the chorus. But I think one of her worst song in terms of mixing is Tell all. I love that song, but it doesn't sound like it went through compression before being released. It's really rough around the edges in other ways too though. Another song that I can remember off the top of my head that has issues is Mirrorcle world.

If I had to make a guess as to what the issue might be... I think it could maybe a be a money, time and scheduling issue? Something changed entirely in the way ayu released music after (miss) understood, going from a regular pre-set schedule every year with 3 singles and an album to random releases, as well as a greater focus on live performances. The industry was and is under pressure making less money, people started listening to LQ digital tracks instead of CD... I'm sure they'd made some difficult priorities. Also Ayu seems to sometimes make last minute changes, which might be more difficult to handle when there's no regular release schedule anymore.
Mixing takes a lot of time, especially when you have many elements in a song like in most Ayu tracks.


If you'd like to hear another example of sub par mixing, head of to my instagram where I posted a rock mix of Dreamed a Dream...