A Classical cover & tracklist - Page 7 - Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai
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  #121  
Old 10th December 2012, 04:42 PM
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Wow, you guys... So hateful towards this release. o_o;
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  #122  
Old 10th December 2012, 04:43 PM
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I love that A CLASSICAL is varied even though it's 70% Team ayu votes and 30% new songs, but it's way better than having songs just from one album =D
  #123  
Old 10th December 2012, 04:46 PM
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Originally Posted by YuriChan View Post
Wow, you guys... So hateful towards this release. o_o;
I think it's because the tracklist is basically all Japanese fan favorites which overseas fans never really agree with, haha.

Did people actually think there was going to be a new image taken for the cover? IMO, the illustration route they took was clever pretty neat. I wonder how big the first press poster will be.
  #124  
Old 10th December 2012, 04:56 PM
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Originally Posted by Pieces_of_SEVEN View Post
still can't believe this. fml.

she better make up for this with ayu trance 5 next.
im telling you! We need ayu-mi-x 8 series with a best album AND a new album come April of next year
  #125  
Old 10th December 2012, 04:56 PM
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Originally Posted by truehappiness View Post
Did people actually think there was going to be a new image taken for the cover?
I think even you mentioned that you hoped there would be, since it is one of these "five releases for the fifteen anniversary" releases. It would of been nice if she went a little old-school and released a new cover image alongside it. Either way, I'm just happy it's not just a logo. And I guess it's a nice extra that it's an actual illustration...

I had my hopes up for a photoshoot just for this, but I guess the only thing that matters is the quality of the music. I'm anticipating some great classical pieces; we have had remixes of these, but not classical ones. I'm interested to see how they'll sound with that different take, especially more upbeat ones like You & Me.
  #126  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:01 PM
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This is bullsh-- but predictable. February release already plz and just let it be the AT DVD because that's something they can't **** up too much.

An album of songs we already have like 10 variations/remixes/versions of each or are new and could have just been included as a remix/track on the next mini-album/single/whatever.

Last edited by ExodusUK; 10th December 2012 at 05:03 PM.
  #127  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:01 PM
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My old post:
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I think it's extremely likely we may get a logo for a cover. However, there is still a small chance we could get a photoshoot just for this since it's for a leading-up-to-the-15th anniversary celebration.
Well, we got something between that, I guess? I also said a logo was most likely but instead we got a (very good) drawing of a recent cover. Don't know if anyone could have called that since she's never had an illustrated cover of herself before, just on a CD with Rule, I think? I won't let it bother me too much (at all, really) because I really liked LOVE's covers and this is probably going to be standard if she does Classical albums in the future.
  #128  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:04 PM
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As I didn't expected to have Ayu on the A classical cover, I don't mind to get this cover.
As the tracklist is the outcome of poll I'm not surprised. I'm sure, even if TA member knew that it was for this kind of album, we'll get the same result.
I'm waiting to hear BLUE BIRD & Love songs.

Also, as Avex wanted to use a drawing as the cover, I think it would be cool if they made a contest " Draw a Classical cover" & took the best one. Unfortunately, they never have this kind of idea.
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  #129  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:04 PM
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it's a good thing i was never excited for this release in the first place lol.

i'm not really mad at the fans for this tracklist since they never knew what they were voting for. anyway because it's her 15th anni i think the album should have at least had 15 songs. one from each of her studio albums and then one from memorial address and FIVE.
  #130  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:07 PM
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maybe I got too excited and then i let myself down... really I think I would have been 100% happy if I woke up and saw evolution on there.
:*(
  #131  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:08 PM
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Originally Posted by truehappiness View Post
There are people who don't like LOVE's covers? What?! I thought they were a breath of fresh air (and I thought a ton of other people felt the same way) but 3 covers in a row with the 'simple' look Ayu (LOVE ~ again ~ A Classical) is a bit much. I wonder if the next releases will even have her on the covers.
I know a lot of people really liked LOVE's covers but I wasn't blown away when I saw them. I just thought they were nice and nothing too special. I know I'm probably the only one that thinks that but I also think I probably set my expectations too high.
  #132  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:09 PM
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Originally Posted by Delicious n Bold View Post
if i ever decide to download the album, I'm changing its name to that

i just realized: if people don't buy this, then that buy all 5 releases gift thing is crashed dead burned.
I think that was just a way to get people to actually buy all 5 releases. You'll probably get a free wallpaper for your computer from all that effort. I mean, it's not like Ayu is going to send you a personalized video recording or anything.

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Originally Posted by Uemarasan View Post
Yeah, 2012 definitely is the worst year Ayu has ever had, musically speaking. I hope her fans cease from buying into this kind of lazy, uninspired work to force her into seriously rethinking and reconsidering the future direction of her musical career. Frankly, this kind of garbage is a one-way ticket to dinner theater and discount bins. She needs a healthy shock to her system to get that creativity flowing again.

I'm always optimistic when it comes to Ayu, but seriously, from Five onwards she has been nothing but a major disappointment. Hikki released one song and one video this year, and both of those blew away all that Ayu had done for the past couple of years. At this point, Ayu should think about collaborating (it worked for Namie) with REAL artists and younger composers and not just random and old people she likes. Superfly, Yasutaka Nakata, Funky Monkey Babys, Naoto Inti Raymi, Jake Shimabukuro, Mr. Children, Kuwata Keisuke, Ikimonogakari. You know, COOL people. If she continues on this track, she'll most likely end up as an irrelevant fossil before her time.
No kidding. At this rate, it's not that the music has been a complete waste, but that the effort to promote and put on a show for it is really about Dollar-Store quality here. I've never seen cheaper, more uninteresting videos from Ayu in her entire career than in these last 2-3 years. The only video that didn't feel cheap was Why....

And I keep shopping this picture of Seiko Matsuda around so people understand what direction Ayumi is heading in:



I really don't want to see Ayumi get to the point where she's as lazy or annoying as Seiko Matsuda became.

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Originally Posted by Didz-19 View Post
can't really blame Avex or Ayu~~since the fans who voted the songs they like~but hey, let's just wait for the album....but I definitely will buy..oh wait!...i did pre-order this album last month~HAHAHAHA!
Yes, we can definitely blame them. They honestly could have put more remixes on the album, or picked a better cover, or said, "No, we'll have to scratch the whole idea and go with something else." And they'd probably have a better "gift" than this garbage.

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Originally Posted by truehappiness View Post
That's a bit harsh imo. (not just a bit, a lot actually) 'again' seems to be rather loved by most people (PV-wise, snowy kiss/Wake me up not so much but Sweet scar is liked) so it's not like she's spiraling into nothingness at the moment. These releases are meant to be a celebration and people don't seem to realize that WE'RE GETTING 5 RELEASES IN 5 MONTHS. For the majority of 2012, we had Party Queen and A SUMMER BEST and now we've got 2 new minis, a classical album, and two other releases to look forward to.

BTW, FUNKY MONKEY BABYS announced their disbandment and most (all?) of those acts would definitely NOT mesh with Ayu as 'cool' as they are. Unfortunately, I don't think Ayu will collaborate much anymore after the whole JUNO/Urata thing that went on at a-nation. She tried it out and then it kind of just went boom on her, but it's likely because a-nation ended up being Ayu+Urata instead of mainly Ayu.

And I don't think she's working necessarily with all 'old' composers since her most recent release had a track composed by a duo from a British production group which is a step in the right direction in terms of finding 'new people' to work with. (Though she could have just gotten the demo because she liked it)
No, she's not spiraling into nothingness. But she is spiraling into an abyss where there's little to zero actual artistic output on her part. Every song these days is the same: The song is about parting ways with someone, she wants to do the breakup thing in the music video, and then she wants to have the cover be some really plain shot of her. We've seen it a good 3 or 4 times in the last two years.

FMB is disbanding because one of them is becoming a priest, right?

And that's awesome, HEY! we're getting FIVE releases in five months! But I also remember back in late 2009-2010, when we had You were.../BALLAD, RnRC, Moon/blossom, crossroad, L, and Ls all come out within one year. That was a good year compared to today. From 1999-2000, Ayumi had a new release almost every month, either a single or album or remix or DVD or something. And those didn't suck.

Ayu's collaborations don't stop at collaborations though. That's what I don't like about when she works with someone featured in her songs. The guy doesn't just appear for one awesome song, he ends up doing 17 remixes, shows up in 38 of her concerts, then ends up producing her next album. I don't get why it's so hard to say, "Hey Timmy, you were awesome for that one song, but I really don't need to gag everyone with your presence."

Quote:
Originally Posted by TeamAyu2004 View Post
the bolded part: If anything, I think this year she has shown that she is creative... just from Party Queen to You and Me and then to again, all this is hugely different. Just because you dont like it, doesnt mean its not creativity.

also I rather enjoyed FIVE and party queen... some of her best work, and then again. this is an amazing time in the ayu world and I hope she does continue down this path.
Creative? Sure. I know a lot of people who are "creative" and make complete, useless crap from their creativity. PQ was a great album for only a couple songs. After 20 minutes of listening, you have to be drunk and wearing a shoe on your face just to "imagine" where Ayu is coming from in the music. I'm still very angry with them for not releasing Return Road as a single, and I probably always will be. I would NOT, however, call anything at the end of PQ "creative". I would call it life threatening white noise.

I would never call FIVE or PQ some of her "best work". I think if you feel that way, you really don't have a well-rounded perspective on her career. I would say she's had some best work from points in her career, but her "best work" isn't anything released in the last 5 years.

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Originally Posted by AyuHamasaki01 View Post
Is this real? xD
Yes. It's OK. You can cry now.

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Originally Posted by Delicious n Bold View Post
praying for a NEW album.

but if a best album will help with her sales, then fine.
I'm not! I don't want a new record if this is what we've gotten from smaller projects!

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Originally Posted by truehappiness View Post
Because it's a gift for fans, everything got rearranged by Kousuke Yamashita.

The versions on LOVE will most definitely NOT be the same as what ends up on here. They should be utterly superior compared to her standard "Orchestra / Acoustic Orchestra / Acoustic Piano" mixes.

Hopefully if people haven't listened to MY STORY Classical and don't know the difference between the remixes that are on singles and what they will probably get with this album will do so because IMO the difference is HUGE.

However, GAME only had strings on MY STORY Classical -BUT- they were very powerful and a lot more full sounding than her usual string-only rearrangements. I think it's because there was an effort to make the track 'work' with strings?
This is a really rude gift. And I do honestly expect the same remixes from LOVE to be on the album... why? Because it's cost effective to reuse those songs and saves on the time needed to re-record them for this remix album.

I don't want to burst any bubbles here, but I don't have high expectations for this because, like when FIVE came around, it was really easy to have high expectations for something she hasn't done in a long time and have them very succinctly crushed.

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Originally Posted by spanishfan View Post
Musically is one of the best years for Ayu. Party Queen is amazing, You&Me bleh, but LOVE and again are amazing too.

But as an artist this may be one of the worst years for her, her fans are who are criticizing her, I bet she doesn't mind about media, but she love her fans and they are now who are not supportin her. That's sad. Fortunatly she's in love, that's the most important thing in life, even for Ayumi Hamasaki, no matter sales, no matther charts.
Musically, not one of her best years. Release-wise maybe. She's had a number of releases (apparently couldn't fit a SINGLE- SIIINGGGGLLLEEE in there anywhere!) but ultimately, musically, it's never sounded more disjointed.

And she's in love until maybe February at the latest, when she'll get another divorce or make another song about how distant she felt in that relationship. Ayu really doesn't seem like the type to last long in relationships. Maybe she's just too much of a workaholic?

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Originally Posted by harufi View Post
So disappointed The cover just screams laziness and I was expecting JEWEL on the tracklist.
So many other songs that ought to have been on this release.
I'm actually happy JEWEL is not on here. It's one less thing to be disappointed about when the album actually comes out.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Uemarasan View Post
^It's just really frustrating as a longtime fan because I know what she is capable of: incredible, game-changing music. Why hasn't she reached this level in such a long while? Her sound and image are indistinguishable and unremarkable in the current musical landscape. I actually think she should scrap her whole musical template and start from scratch. Ayu should start looking beyond the small circle of friends and collaborators that she has formed and which is now suffocating her aesthetically. The same boring old music, boring old photos, boring old makeup, boring old nails, boring old hair, boring old fashion, boring old concerts, boring old concerns. She should stop living in her glorious past and fossilizing herself.

Yes, many of these artists won't mesh well with Ayu. That is why I think that is something she needs. Some dissonance in her discography, some chaos in her complacent approach to music. Make videos with Mika Ninagawa. Have photobooks by Rinko Kawauchi. Have album covers by Miwa Yanagi, Ai Yazawa. Have concerts actually choreographed by a real choreographer (Rino Nakasone, for example). There is such a wealth of artists and designers in Japan I don't know why she can't manage to find them.

Personally, I found again "pleasant". But I don't want "pleasant" anymore. I want something great. It's still too early in her career to let retrospective ideas and fantasies of being a future legend dominate her work. She should wait until she's been around as long as Mr. Children, B'z, Southern All Stars, or Yumi Matsutoya before she can rest, take it easy, and be "lazy".
^^ You need to give a worldwide speech about this epidemic.

Quote:
Originally Posted by truehappiness View Post
Unfortunately, they normally mention in the descriptions if new vocals are involved, which in this case is -NOT- the case, so we'll probably get old vocal tracks like with MY STORY Classical.

I think she's fine doing things the way she wants, really. If she's changing 'just to be different' or to forcefully shake things up, it'd go against her 'code' as an artist. From the very beginning, she's just done what she wanted and that's been enough. Even now, imo, though it's a bit less well received than say, her work in the early to mid 2000s.

It's not simply a matter of "will they mesh with Ayu" I think, but also... will they even do it? Does she even want to? In this case, I think first and foremost, she has to have an interest in venturing into those other genres or other 'people' first compared to right now she has a team that 'works' with her style and what she wants. In the realm of her directors/photographers/etc., I don't see her ever really breaking away from the ones that she has like what she did in 2003 though that would be great. (for those who don't know, in 2003, she kind of took 3 new directors/filmmakers and had them make PVs for &.) It would be nice to have new anything really, but with the way Ayu works, I don't think she or her team are actively pursuing something like that unless they are approached first. Choreography-wise, I don't believe she really needs to have that done since well... she doesn't really 'dance'. But most choreography is handled by her own dancers which isn't too out of the ordinary for pop stars and it's not as though Ayu's music is very dance-oriented to begin with.

Designer-wise, I would say that she's never had an 'amazing' or even a forward thinking design team that does more than just enough to get by unlike a lot of acts. I would hope she could collaborate with Yellow Brain aka Kouki Tange's creative team or the people behind Perfume's normally flawless 'look/feel' but I feel the chance of her ever not using Takuma Noriage or someone from that 'old' team is slim to none. There's an awful lot of 'I want this and I want that' imo when it comes to Ayu fans and I feel like you have to just let things go if you're a fan of her, especially recently because you can't really always get what you want even though you ~know~ it would be good for her. There is talent in Japan, but I believe Ayu probably thinks her current situation is okay (barring that post-2009 staff thing where people got shifted around and RICE MOMOYA suddenly disappeared but perhaps was renamed brg) and she will be fine with what she has which is why it's gone on for so long.

I think we've gotten great from her in the last few years, it's just difficult to gauge and compared considering that her past works were on a different level, or at least judged in a different way. I wonder if many of her tracks or covers that are so loved from 'back then; came out today, would they still be loved or would people sneer at them the way they do with almost everything they do nowadays?
I think the point here isn't that we want this or want that. It just sounds like that when we're complaining. The issue is that Ayumi isn't Mika Nakashima (Whom I honestly love, but I cry a little when she does horrible songs like Hatsukoi), she's not Utada, she's not Namie... she is honestly a game-changer. No one can do Ayumi's sound. alan has tried, and it's failed miserably. She is the only artist that hasn't literally fit snuggly into a very specific genre of music for her entire career, and managed to outsell everyone. What we really want to know is why she's giving up on that. That's all we really want to know.

And we want to know if we need to call A&E's Intervention. Because she has got to be ****ing drunk off her ass on a continual basis if she's filming PVs like these and putting together collections like she has lately.
  #133  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:15 PM
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Suuuuuuuuch a great opportunity missed.

Why didn't they just tell us what we were voting for.

I do like the cover though.
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  #134  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:16 PM
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Do you guys think the Ayu of 10 years ago would like the Ayu of today?
  #135  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:20 PM
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Gawd, these days you even have to pay for your so called "gifts". I'm going to download this "gift" and grant it some free space on my HDDs. That's what I do. Yes. Will do that. Like. Yea. Truly will.
  #136  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:25 PM
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Such a long discussion.

I didn't like the tracklist either the cover itself.
Tracklist is just a pure japanese selection, which turns out to be a unnexpressive and not exciting one. I'm still quite surprise that we have Love song there. Hoping for that.

And the cover, well, I was expecting just the logo in a classical version, I would find more exciting and well made than using the cover of LOVE reshaped.
I still think there's no excuses, MY STORY CLASSICAL, ok, you can use that, but A CLASSICAL, there's no real relation with the release of LOVE to begin with, in a point of using the same cover.

Oh well, I won't fed the drama of "AYU IS NOW *******, WHY AM I STILL HERE, SHE'S SUCH A ********** LAZY STUPID PERSON HOW I HATE HER NOWADAYS SHE SHOULD RETIRE HERSELF" just because we're in a forum of fans, people tend to forget this sometimes.

I would like to see her changing some things here and there, but I love her no matter what. I will just wait for the next 2 releases, she already impressed me so much recently.

Last edited by jyujiw; 10th December 2012 at 05:27 PM.
  #137  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:30 PM
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What we really want to know is why she's giving up on that. That's all we really want to know.
I don't think she's giving up on anything, you just need to wait and see with Ayu. I think she's done a bit less (maybe a lot) experimenting in the last few years for whatever reason but she'll eventually go back to being her usual genre-bending self. Maybe she's taken the last few years to get those ballads and mediums out of her system because I remember there was a period of time not too long ago when all people wanted from her were ballads and no more 'rockish' tracks. If 'again' is a sign of things to come, I think the future looks just fine.

Oh and about the "WHY IS THERE NO SINGLESSSSSS" thing, she may have been hinting that L was her last release. She said if she had to give it a Japanese title, it would be "Saigo no toride / さいごの砦" or "The last fortress". Almost as if she decided from there that she would only be doing minis/albums post-L. We'll see if she releases a single next year or the year after that but after two years, I don't know....
  #138  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:36 PM
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I expected that tracklist. The cover is huge joke though...

I'm only excited for Love song class. ver.
And maybe M/SEASONS a little
. I think Dearest/Voyage might be not so changed, cause their arragments are very minimalistic (Voyage itself is kinda "classical" in original)
  #139  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:37 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by YuriChan View Post
Wow, you guys... So hateful towards this release. o_o;
I think we have pretty good ****ing reason
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  #140  
Old 10th December 2012, 05:37 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by orbitalaspect View Post

And I keep shopping this picture of Seiko Matsuda around so people understand what direction Ayumi is heading in:



I really don't want to see Ayumi get to the point where she's as lazy or annoying as Seiko Matsuda became.


kinda playing devil's advocate here since I don't mind PQs covers but...
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