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Going for that Eras Tour minimalism.

ayumi hamasaki ASIA TOUR 2025 A I am ayu -ep.Ⅱ- (Fanmade Digest)

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This is what's been lost in the conversation about taste and debates about art; people are all too eager to turn what they love (or hate) into an entire personality and in turn get extra-sensitive about their shit. They perceive a bunch of critics panning an album or a movie (or just merely giving a less than glowing review) as being an attack on them as an individual. It could be helpful to turn to the ethos of the late film critic Pauline Kael, who mused that a movie can be "stupid and empty" but still contain something a viewer can find worthy: a captivating performance, an exchange of good dialogue. If it speaks to you, it speaks to you. The overpersonalization of pop culture begets acrimony and pathological obsession. It also encourages oversimplification, though it's never that simple. By all means, let's have spirited debates about the things we like or don't like, the questionable politics or behaviors of artists. Participate in any healthy fan-culture behavior that brings you joy. But let's not lose ourselves in the muck of performative fandom and animosity. Contrary to what the internet told us, everything is not personal, and what IS personal is exactly that. Aisha Harris, "Kenny G Gets It", Wannabe: Reckonings with the Pop Culture That Shapes Me (124)

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25th Anniversary

Ayumi Hamasaki: ayu-mi-x II version Non-Stop Mega Mix (2000.03.29)

Ayumi Hamasaki's ayu-mi-x II version Non-Stop Mega Mix is the final release in the ayu-mi-x II series which began with the trio US+EU, JPN, and Acoustic Orchestra, released on March 8, 2000. This one was released three weeks later (the vinyl version of JPN was released two months later), and interpolates an edited selection of remixes from all three in one continuous mix. All four of these releases are connected in multiple ways: cover art, concept design, and the inclusion of individual photos that create a larger picture when laid side by side, like a puzzle. The first-press edition of these were particularly spectacular. As if this remix bonanza wasn't enough (especially if you count all the remixes being included on her new maxi-singles released around the same time), this version includes a second disc which features even more full-length remixes, notably the first remix of "Far away," Ayu's newest and as-then still unreleased single, which would come out two months later.

The ayu-mi-x II series is my absolute favorite series of remixes by Ayumi. ayu-mi-x II version US+EU was one of the first Ayu albums I ever bought, and as someone raised on dance music, it was a good gateway into her original material. I love everything about these: the various genres of dance music presented by the dozens of unique producers, Ayu's four different chic, 60s/Shibuya-kei inspired looks on the jackets, and the first-press editions which featured glitter embedded in the jewel cases and a cool transparent design on the back. This mega-mix gives you a great sampling of all of the remixes contained on the other discs, except for maybe the Acoustic Orchestra one, as pieces of those include extra beats added to keep the uptempo momentum of the mix going. Most of the best remixes are packed at the front, but I'm hard-pressed to find any moment of disc one that gets boring until the very end.

Disc 2 has some memorable remixes, including the very first version of "Far away" that was released on CD, "HAL's MIX 2000," which was used in the commercials for the TU-KA cellphone that Ayu was promoting at the time (the excerpt in the ad seems to be slightly different from that on the album). The only issue is the lack of variety in song selection: there are three remixes apiece of "kanariya," and "Fly high," which feel a bit like leftovers that didn't make the singles' original cuts. Plus, we had already had so many remixes of those songs by that point, that it was a bit of overkill, especially when they weren't necessarily doing anything different or amazing with the source material.

However, overall, this is a great introduction to the classic Ayu remix-verse, since it contains so many different iconic remixes all in one place, and provides a launch pad to which you can go seek out the full-length remixes if you like what you hear -- and some are absolute requirements in their full length-forms, like the "Junior's Appears On The Air" mix of "appears," or the "Ferry 'System F' Corsten Vocal Edit Mix" of "WHATEVER." Note: Some of the mixes on the US+EU and JPN versions are still not full-length -- a few appear in still-longer edits on maxi-singles.

First-press editions of these CDs also came with a photo card that created a larger picture when combined with photo cards from the other versions, while the Non-Stop version featured a photo card of all four Ayus, later used as the jacket art of the JPN vinyl. Later editions came in a standard jewel case with OBI.

Catalog Number: AVCD-11800/1

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Though the conflict underlined the perils of overextending one’s empire, Bang [Si-hyuk] was forging ahead. A few weeks later, he told me, “Music delivers a very strong experience and emotions in an instant of listening. But we want to make it so that it can be part of a much longer and more sustained type of content consumption.” He continued, “I’ve read books about gamification and why people are addicted to games.” He was studying multiplayer online role-playing games and first-person shooters, and planned to develop games across multiple genres; some would feature alter egos of hybe artists, but others would have no connection with the idols. This turn felt at once arbitrary and revealing: increasingly, the company seemed to be losing interest in the musicians themselves. [...] Although Bang’s fixation on audience data had kept his artists afloat, the emphasis on constant growth has changed the company culture. “We’re expanding like a U.S. business—we’re expanding catalogues, we’re expanding our labels,” Bang told me. “I don’t know if we can even call this K-pop anymore, what this will become.” -Alex Barasch, The K-pop King, New Yorker

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Ayumi Hamasaki’s INSPIRE c/w GAME was released twenty years ago on July 28th, 2004.

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20th Anniversary

Ayumi Hamasaki: INSPIRE c/w GAME (2004.07.28)

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15th Anniversary

Perfume: ⊿ (2009.07.08)

Back in 2009 I named Perfume's ⊿ (pronounced "triangle") one of the most disappointing albums of the year. Disappointing didn't mean it was bad, but rather, I had oversized expectations that weren't met, and can you blame a fan for having such huge expectations after GAME? GAME was Perfume's first studio album, and the perfect blueprint for the Perfume-sound worked out and solidified after a string of experimental indie singles, all spearheaded by mastermind Yasutaka Nakata. But⊿ was the album that could prove that Perfume was more than just a novelty, and that Nakata was more than an over-hyped producer-of-the-month. The album did extremely well: It hit #1 and stayed in the top 20 for six weeks. It has spawned some of Perfume's most well-known and beloved singles, including "love the world," "Dream Fighter," and their last #1 to date, "ONE ROOM DISCO" (most of their subsequent singles, including the eight immediately after this one, stubbornly peaked at #2). So why was I disappointed at the time, and how has hindsight changed the way I see this album?

⊿ is one of the more innovative albums in Perfume's discography, and today it's seen as one of their best, the type of album able to marry classic pop music with the broader electronic and house styles that Nakata was increasingly pushing into his productions. At the same time, it also managed to retain some of the jazzy finishes of his Shibuya-kei roots, all while retaining a fresh, commercial appeal perfect for shilling chocolate on television. In many ways, this was peak-Nakata: in 2009, the year ⊿ was released, he had just released Supreme Show, his collaboration with Ami Suzuki; STEP, his second album with MEG; and the house-heavy MORE! MORE! MORE! with capsule. You could forgive the guy for being a bit burned out less than a year later, and to me, one half of ⊿, the half not consisting of songs written over the course of 2008, shows that fatigue. There's the largely instrumental "edge (⊿-mix)" that meanders well past its welcome at nearly 10 minutes long, the mid-tempo duo "Kiss and Music" and "Zero Gravity," and the navel-gazing noodle of "Speed of Sound." These are songs that I initially disliked upon my first listen, although now I have to admit I find them charming call-backs to all the things I miss about this period of Nakata's music, from the push and pull between commercial resistance and total capitulation, to the self-indulgent instincts tempered by moments that feel catered to the broadest audience possible, culminating in great album cuts like "The best thing," "NIGHT FLIGHT" and even "I still love U."

I've spent a lot of time talking about Yasutaka Nakata, but the three women of Perfume, A-chan, Nocchi, and Kashiyuka, are the ones who really bring it all together with their personality and talent. Nakata once again focused on making the most out of the ways he could manipulate their voices, rather than on whatever unique vocal traits any one of them brought, tweaking everything to suit the music, and leaving the other half of Perfume's highly-skilled team of costume designers, choreographers, and light technicians to sell the unit. And they all do, fulfilling crucial elements that move in lockstep. So much of ⊿ was also finally committing to everything that has now become iconic about this group, from haircuts to wardrobe quirks, and the group has rarely deviated from it since. If at any time the group was going to do an image overhaul, this would have been it. Instead, they doubled down on and cemented what is now a comfortable, reliable space that fans have taken for granted.

Though I understand why I was disappointed when this album first came out, I've definitely come to appreciate it a lot more since it was first released, especially in the last five or so years, as Perfume have have gone through even more disappointing, lackluster phases, losing the innovative spirit that made anticipating new releases so fun. But whenever you joined the fandom, whether it was through this album, their earlier work, or that phase where dance music was reluctantly putting itself back together after the EDM firework burst, there are things to love about ⊿. It's hard to dismiss an album that includes so many classic J-pop songs that went on to change the sound of popular Japanese music for a long time (not taken into account when Billboard critics only ranked "love the world" the #7 best Perfume song of all time, but they put "TOKYO GIRL" and "FLASH" in the top three, so the whole list is sus), inspired a plethora of copy-cat groups, and forever carved Nakata's name into the game-changing J-pop producers Hall of Fame, right next to men like Haruomi Hosono and Tetsuya Komuro.

Since Team Perfume had mostly come to terms with the group's lack of forward momentum in 2016, they really focused on pushing Perfume as a legacy group, and like all legacy groups, that means cashing in on whatever they still could by recycling old music into new formats. That meant that many of Perfume's studio albums that had been originally released in regular CD-only and limited-edition CD+DVD versions were re-released on limited-edition vinyl. All of those were collected in a limited-edition LP box set that also included their second best-of collection, 2012's Perfume Global Compilation "LOVE THE WORLD. But perhaps it was a bit premature. Or rather, it's been a bit of a yo-yo recently -- while Perfume seemed to be making a bit of a comeback in recent years with PLASMA, "Moon" said don't hold your breath. Still, it's been encouraging to think that like now-iconic albums like ⊿, I might find myself re-evaluating "LOVE CLOUD" someday, too.

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The function of criticism is and has always been to complicate our sense of beauty. Good criticism of music we love—or, occasionally, really hate—increases the dimensions and therefore the volume of feeling. It exercises that part of ourselves which responds to art, making it stronger. - "Culture Needs More Jerks" Dan Brooks, Defector

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25th Anniversary

FAYRAY: CRAVING (1999.05.26)

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