Album flow - Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai
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  #1  
Old 20th July 2022, 11:51 AM
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sxesven sxesven is offline
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Album flow

Curious to see what album you feel flows nicest. This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether you think the album is good (but feel free to consider that, too), but more with the way it is structured - types of songs and styles, interludes, etc. I'll kick off.

I am... has always struck me as a very awesomely structured album. The title track is such a peculiar song in the grand scheme of things, it makes for a perfect opener. It sets the stage for something that will undoubtedly be epic, but in a sparse and unconventional way. It's like a full-song amazing prelude. opening Run then, an actual prelude/interlude, sets the stage: it picks up mood-wise where I am... left off but accelerates rapidly - things are about to go crazy. Connected then delivers that promise, and it also rounds off this introductory trio of disparate styles nicely. The following three songs feel like variations on a theme: stylistically, UNITE!, evolution and Naturally sit comfortably close and you could easily see it as 10+-minute medley of this particular style. This then gives way to another trio of rock tracks that each deliver a solid punch in their choruses, while providing very different experiences, moods and styles overall (the uplifting, daybreak-y Daybreak versus the more melancholy still alone provides a good example of this contrast). Another well-timed interlude sets us up for the amazing home stretch, which progresses through more expressive and outgoing (the masterfully skilled crescendoing M, the lighter, more subdued but bright A Song is born) to the more restrained (Dearest) and, finally, the utterly sober beauty of no more words. And while we would all love to have seen the original version of Endless sorrow on this album, perhaps it's good that its lighter cousin - the gone with the wind ver. - finishes things off, a palate cleanser of sorts after this beautiful but heavy stretch of songs. (And if it wasn't enough, here is flower garden to end on a truly bright, playful note.)

Obviously, you may think of this structuring what you will, but it always has felt entirely organic to me and it makes the best of the material in the context it places it in.

An album that is less succesfully structured I have recently been listening to quite a bit is GUILTY. It's not horrible, but it feels a bit disparate in its first stretch, lacking the strong sequencing of other albums. However, it really loses steam in the final stretch, with way too many interludes for its own good. Considering that of its 14 tracks, 4 are interludes of a sort (unless you want to discount the Marionette prelude), it seems a bit scant on actual material.

There's other good examples, but here's two to kick things off. How about y'all?
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Old 27th July 2022, 09:05 PM
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mi|kshake mi|kshake is offline
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I don't know if I'm biased because it was my first Ayu album but for me it was A Ballads. I love how it included remasters, remixes and new vocals and it added to the mood and made it flow perfectly.
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Old 27th July 2022, 10:00 PM
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For me I am... is also the best flowing album of hers.

The best in more recent times is Love songs.

I think most of her albums at least make sense flow-wise, thankfully.
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Old 28th July 2022, 01:44 PM
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Rainbow all the way! it's so coherent and so original <3
Then Guilty close second, and then maybe My Story.
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Old 28th July 2022, 04:12 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mi|kshake View Post
I don't know if I'm biased because it was my first Ayu album but for me it was A Ballads. I love how it included remasters, remixes and new vocals and it added to the mood and made it flow perfectly.
I'm sure we're all biased, but that's fine, haha

Quote:
Originally Posted by natalaxie View Post
Rainbow all the way! it's so coherent and so original <3
Then Guilty close second, and then maybe My Story.
Which indeed only goes to show as GUILTY for me is a counterexample of good album flow.

I can't help but agree on RAINBOW though, too, also really well-structured!

Biased? Who? Us?
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