(Artist) Hamasaki Ayumi

[Mikitty-saikou]

^__^ Man~

Everytime Ayu releases a new single, the cover arts always look great.  Can't wait for it to come out.  ^o^

[hiba]

haha yeah her cover arts are always great... but i still like her old music better ~_~

[aedon]

Amazon > HMV : P

Tracklist:
CD
1. Not yet
2. until that Day...
3. Startin'
4. 1 LOVE
5. It was
6. LABYRINTH
7. JEWEL
8. momentum
9. taskinst
10. Born To Be...
11. Beautiful Fighters
12. BLUE BIRD
13. kiss o' kill
14. Secret
DVD
1. Startin' ＜video clip＞
2. Born To Be... ＜video clip＞
3. BLUE BIRD ＜video clip＞
4. Beautiful Fighters ＜video clip＞
5. 1 LOVE ＜video clip＞
6. JEWEL ＜video clip＞
7. momentum ＜video clip＞
+ < making clips > for all 7 videos
http://www.avexnet.or.jp/ayu/news/061109.html

Also,
Ayu's gonna be on HEY!HEY!HEY! on 11/13, and on Music Station & Music Fighter on 11/24!
I guess she'll perform JEWEL again, but who knows if she might perform 1 LOVE

[DroolBoy]

She will be on CNN International's Talk Asia on 12/8. Watch out for it!

http://www.jctv.co.jp/cnnj/japannow/index.html

[thenik]

ive only listen to two tracks on her new album but it seems it's going to be good. probably better than my story.

[Linus]

Fuckin' awesome covers I think the black part of the dress is all photoshop.

[Masabi]

^ trying to get rid of the pregnant rumor maybe :[

[xxbakaboi808xx]

...is ayu back to her old singing style yet?? i stopped listening to her for a while. lol after her my story album i just stopped. i hope this one will go back to her roots...

[BoUnCeR]

MAAAN i love the song startin'
its the best song !!! its for onimusha
awsum stuff

[Shinora]

is it just me or does the whole cover look amazing photoshopped? not in a good way either, the picture of her looks amazing as usual, but the text and her dress looks like its done by an amateur...

[DroolBoy]

Well, I think that they didn't wanna go for gaudy fonts..

Think of I am.. and how it had like, Times New Roman 'I am..' on the front. D:

[shadowstar]

is it just me or does the whole cover look amazing photoshopped? not in a good way either, the picture of her looks amazing as usual, but the text and her dress looks like its done by an amateur...

Actually, I'm kind of glad they went with a very simple font, the cover overall still looks very good. I think it would have been a wee bit too much if they decided to use big, super swirly, artistic font or anything

[DroolBoy]

Anyone in Japan can watch Ayu's BEST of COUNTDOWN LIVE 2006-2007 on TBS <3

http://www.tbs.co.jp/tbs-ch/ichioshi/special/ayu2006-2007/

And some even larger covers

[wakaba_doll]

^ Ayu looks soooo skinny on this cover!! Gorgeous, but still really skinny... It's like that perf of JEWEL where she looked a little healthier never happened! LOL I'm really digging her elegant look though^^ And that unicorn tattoo is actually kinda sexy!

[Masabi]

Can't wait until CDL 2006-2007 is ripped and uploaded at the end of the year.  Just watched CDL 2002-2003 and she amazed me by how on key she was.

@wakaba_doll:  I'm 99% positive that her body is just a vector/drawing in photoshop, not really that skinny.

[DroolBoy]

Well, she's that skinny in some encores..





Ayu being skinny from the side, as always. <3

[DroolBoy]

I can't copy the word from this... so pls don't ask about it!

Please translate if you can... thank you so much in advance

Thanks to Yamayumi from AHS.
Anyone able to translate, please try! <3

Secret - JEWEL TV-CM for mu-mo
She looks AMAZING.

[aedon]

It's kinda mean to post just caps >_< So here's the vid -> leechleech.

[DroolBoy]

:<

The CM wasn't much, so I didn't think you guys wanted it ;_;

Thanks to the lovely evolusean at AHS <3

Okay, here are the first 5 tracks.  I will try to keep up with each song as the interview gets updated, and then I'll get to the big introductory blurb at the top.  I think we'd rather hear all the song-specific info first, anway.



01. Not yet
words: ayumi hamasaki
music & arrangement: CMJK

Pretty much the album opening!  I guess it's a flat-out question.  I've encrusted the entire album with secrets... secrets of people... secrets which have various meanings of various assortments.

And also, the miracle leading up to here.  The term "miracle" is close to my heart...  Finishing this album -- that has been a miracle = my heart.  I didn't make this miracle happen, but I feel like it has happened because of various people other myself = the staff involved and everyone else related.  Those 2 have been the base of this album.  This opening song is really a question to everyone listening to these "secrets" and "miracles", asking if they will find them in the album.




02. until that Day...
words: ayumi hamasaki
music & arrangement: CMJK

ayu: This was originally a song made by CMJK to be used as an instrumental.  It was really short, but I really loved the feel of the guitar and the B-melody, so told him I'd love it if he could make it a full-length song.  Ever since I first heard the song, I had in mind what I wanted to write about.  The lyrics I wanted to express were in my head, so I was just waiting for CMJK's song.  So I waited, but once it came, it was so hard to fit the words to it! (wry laugh)

mister kaz: It's rattled off pretty fast, huh?

ayu: Yeah.  It was so hard to make the words hit right on the notes.  I had something I wanted to say, but fitting the words to the notes, as well as having to always cut at a good spot for breaths, it was difficult.  I made a kind of word puzzle at home.

mister kaz: Like... you wrote down and combined synonyms with the same meaning as those of the words you wanted to express?

ayu: Yeah! On pieces of paper, I would put down words I wanted to write, as well as synonyms for those words.  Then, I'd line up the papers, and combine them as I changed around the order.  I made this song very differently from the way I usually write.

mister kaz: Like "This won't work because it has 5 characters..."?

Ayu: Right, right!  Like, saying "tanoshii" as 3 sounds = how would it be if I said a different 3 character word?  So at first it was a lot of trial-and-error, but this time it got to be so that I just had to express what I wanted to express.  It's most important to say what you want to say, but it's really hard to stick to that and still make the word-count match up.

mister kaz: And the tempo is pretty fast, too!

ayu: I hadn't had such a fast song that really kept more or less the same sound.  In the world of lyrics, I really try to be positive, but when I heard the impressions of my staff, there were some who got really heartbroken or sad and cried!




03. Startin'
words: ayumi hamasaki
music: Kazuhiro Hara
arrangement: CMJK

ayu: We did the recording for this song in New York, but the sound in the studio was so good it was so easy to sing.  There are a lot of people who have an image of "Startin'" being from dancing with the dancers during a tour or a-nation, but it was originally made to be a band-only song.  I've done rock songs like "GAME" or "is this LOVE?", but this is the first time I've challenged myself with a vocal style like "Startin'"!  While I was singing, I felt "You can sing like this too".  What really brought out that new vocal style was doing the recording in the New York studio with such good sound and nice atmosphere.

mister kaz: The PV, too, has a strong, new CG feel like never before, doesn't it?

ayu: Yeah it does.  I've known Director Ishii (Ishii-chan), who did "Startin'", since around high school, but even though I knew he was a director, we had never worked together.  I was a little at odds as to how he would go about it (wry laugh).  And even after knowing eachother so well from long ago, because it's work, you can't just go with it the way you normally would.

mister kaz: And like, your relationship in that case is that of artist-director!

ayu: Right.  So that made it kind of... too... humble?  So I guess it was a little awkward; it felt like a relative had come to work.

mister kaz: What sort of person is Director Ishii to you?

ayu: He gets it without me having to say it.  So it was really easy to do, and I have confidence that we were able to make something really good.  It was almost entirely CG, so there was a lot of performing in front of a green screen (to combine the images), but I felt like because it was Ishii-chan, we could do it!  Because he believes in it, we could do it!




04. 1 LOVE
words: ayumi hamasaki
music: Yoji Noi
arrangement: HΛL

ayu: This is another new vocal style.  I don't think I've had such strong vocals until now, like yelling...  I didn't make a conscious effort to, but the music (=melody) and words pulled that kind of vocal style out of me.  I made the new discovery that I had that in me.  The lyrics are really driving, edgy, and really powerful.  But I think that up close it's got a subtle heartbroken sadness to it.

mister kaz: The rock arrangement for the song was HAL, but it was a surprising!  Also that Mr. Sunaga did the PV direction...  Kind of like your inner Mr. Sunaga imagined making something that had a bright and fun side to it, like "Greatful days", but also a surreal side.

ayu: Yeah, maybe.  You felt surprised??  I had a feeling that Mr. Sunaga would come up with something, so I asked for something extraordinary.  Then, after we finished, it turned out to be a really awesome PV!  But!  The pole dancing hurt (tear).  The next day I was covered in bruises! (laugh)

mister kaz: Really??  You seemed totally fine during the filming!

ayu: When I was actually doing it, I was, but during the filming I was fine because I was concentrating on something.  I didn't feel the pain...  But the next day it hurt (laugh)!  Oh man, it was so hard to get out of bed.  I'd try to get up, but my neck and back hurt, and I couldn't move my body at all (laugh).  Even at the time, I had never really done so much tossing of my head and bending of my body.

mister kaz: What hurt the most?  Your neck or your back?

ayu: No, it was the palm of my right hand, which was holding on to the pole!  From the morning of the filming to the next morning, I was holding the pole only with my right hand to support my body... oh, it got bright red!  I reconsidered how amazing pole dancers are!




05. It was
words: ayumi hamasaki
music: Naruya Ihashi
arrangement: tasuku

ayu: This was one of the songs we had gathered up for the (miss)understood album.  I didn't use it then, but of course I really liked it and had tasuku arrange it.  I felt like I wanted the lyrics to not end very clearly, or like I wanted to make lyrics which ended on a confused note.  There were lots of different ones, but now I feel like... no, we went through several before getting out a (rough) ending, but it seems like it's still confused.  Sometimes people people drag around certain times and mistakes, and sometimes there are things that people regret, aren't there?  I wanted to write of a world that seemed to smell of real people.  Everyone's got to have those kind of feelings, so I felt I wanted to share that emotion.

mister kaz: In a sense... life is a string of regrets, but people have to go on living.  By the way, this song has a similar, but different ending from "Over".  

ayu: That would be because it properly "puts and end" to it.

mister kaz: But as far as life is concerned, there is more confusion and regret like in "It was", rather than as in "Over".

ayu: But it's not always going to be pretty, and you can't always just suck it up, can you?  There are more times when, no matter how bad it looks, no matter how pitiful it is, you have to go on with your life.  But "It was" isn't just about regret, but it has a "do your best to be positive" side to it!  As far as life is concerned, rather than worrying whether to regret or not to regret, or worrying about being cool or uncool, I think it's more important to try to be positive!

Doesn't it sound AMAZING?!?@!@!#

[Linus]

^It sure does

thanks!