Personas - Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai
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Old 20th July 2022, 12:50 PM
sxesven's Avatar
sxesven sxesven is offline
my name's WOMEN Initiate
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 6,526
Lightbulb Personas

Excuse the short ranty bit before I introduce the topic, I'd like to give some context.

So my fandom started in 2003 and for a few years I was very much on board, but by the time first GUILTY, then NEXT LEVEL, then Rock n Roll Circus and finally Party Queen rolled around, I steadily lost faith. I distinctly remember my own criticism of NEXT LEVEL back then: I felt it was a derivative, uninspired effort to jump on the electropop train that was mega popular back then. My problem with Rock n Roll Circus was similar, though it was not a matter of being derivative: I just felt the theme (circus aesthetic meets classic UK rock?) was lazy and lame. Party Queen really sealed the deal. Where had this woman of the inspired and profound works at display on so many of her previous albums gone?

(The problem, before I loop back into the actual topic at hand, was that I judged the albums too superficially and especially or entirely in the context of my perceived flaws: NEXT LEVEL, while its photo shoot and art direction certainly adopt the aesthetics of electropop, is certainly not an electropop album. And while Rock n Roll Circus occasionally flirts with circus and/or classic rock sounds (these are different? Sorry, easy joke at the expense of classic rock or circus music just kidding) they are only elements that play a small role in the larger musical picture. In other words: I should've (or should've been able to) disconnect(ed) my idea of what the album conveyed (to my eyes) with how it actually sounded. Now listening to NL and RnRC, I find myself surprised. They are solid as hell and stylistically present a similar blend of styles (with similar degrees of success, I'd even argue!) to the albums I had always held sacred!)

(Oof, fandom is a complicated thing, isn't it?)

In any case, the real topic at hand then emerges: of course, Ayu has not rapidly style-shifted for every album. And while, of course, there has been plenty of development, for most of her career you can trace a pretty clear progression. LOVEppears is not that radically different from A Song for ×× (controversial statement, perhaps? I'll add that in my head they were always extremely different but that for the first time in a long time I listened to them back-to-back the other day and was surprised to find LOVEppears much more a close partner to its predecessor than I had always thought, its main points of departure being its proper upbeat dance tracks), Duty perhaps more so from LOVEppears (but it's clear where it came from), and so on. Perhaps true stylistic departures occurred later on (I'm still catching up, though I'm inclined to say Colours is a bit of an odd duckling), but for at least 1999-2012 there is a certain common denominator in Ayu's music, and while she sometimes leaned more this way and sometimes more the other, pretty much everything from this era is easily and quickly recognizable as Ayu material.

("Get to the point already!" "I'm trying!")

If then the stylistic differences are not that spectacular (the quality of material may be, of course), the electro-poppy aesthetic of NEXT LEVEL was just that: a (visual) aeshetic choice, a persona adopted for the album (no doubt influenced by the era, but not to the point where the music followed suit blindly). Then it struck me: of course, this had been the game all along. Every album has its own Ayu persona (which, careful, then may sound like I'm suggesting it's all just pretend, which is not necessarily the case - it may be a matter of emphasizing certain parts of your personality/traits/interest more than the other, we're all such disparate beings after all: sxesven - Ayu fan, book nerd, hobby cook, English teacher, etc.), and that holds true too for the albums I had always loved unconditionally.

Long (looooooooooong) story short, what's your favourite Ayu persona(s)? And do they affect your love for the album/time period/material?

For me the fresh, summery, colourful RAINBOW persona is majestic, and yes, it definitely also affects my love for the material, though I also think it captures the visual aesthetic really well (or vice versa, or: does it really? Now I'm going to have to second-guess everything ). I also really like the NEXT LEVEL aesthetic (especially now that I can disconnect from it my views of the supposed derivativeness). I am... is also really solid for its Lady Justice / Bringer Of Peace persona (also reflected nicely in some sections of the album, imo). Memorial address, while less pronounced in its persona (it's not a leopard, or a rainbow, or a rockin' ringmaster), is also really great in that I feel it more illuminates a truly personal part of Ayu's. This was subsequently also played with for MY STORY and (miss)understood, though to a slightly less successful degree (imo, forever imo, in case I forget to mention it anywhere).

GUILTY I find to be a counterexample of the awesome personas mentioned above (damn, this album is really taking a beating from me at the moment, but I actually am pretty fond of it) mainly because it lacks any clear persona. When I was working on a concept for a vinyl release of it (see my artwork thread) I had so much trouble with it because I just couldn't see the persona at the heart of it. I browsed through the booklet a hundred times, but it just didn't have the same personality other albums have.

Also feel free to spout opinions about this analysis, of course (which, perhaps, was obvious to you all along, in which case great! It wasn't to me, so be nice about it ).
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Last edited by sxesven; 20th July 2022 at 12:55 PM.
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