Album review: Ayumi Hamasaki - Love Again

Love again is in many senses a sequel to Love Songs. Not just in name, but the over arching message of the songs, Ayu's current weave choices, her decision to hue the entire album shoot in peach and orange, and to feature her current fuck buddy in at least two of the music videos. When you put aside the bastardry behind releasing an album which features all of the songs on the two mini albums which were released 2 - 3 months before, Love Again is a pretty consistent release. But the consistency and decency of this album as a whole doesn't mask that Ayu can do better, has done better and needs to do a heck of a lot better.

Ayu has always struggled to create conceptual albums. She never sets out to, but then goes and names her albums in such a way that she forces an over arching theme on them which doesn't always work. She did this with Next Level, Rock 'n' Roll Circus and Party Queen. All of which featured 4 tracks which encapsulated the album theme and then a couple of interludes to try and shoe horn on the theme a little more. Love Again holds together conceptually to a much better degree. Although the album yields very few surprises, twists, turns or goes out of its way to illicit any strong reaction as the aforementioned albums did. Even if that reaction is 'This album is a piece of shit'. Love Again just...is. It's a pedestrian effort. There's a general feeling about this album that Ayu went about it in the wake of Party queen flopping commercially and all of the rap people talked about Five and Rock 'n' Roll Circus. As a result, this album is as safe as it gets and is one of Ayu's safest releases to date. Ayu took no chances with this album which comes with it's own set of problems.

Love Again features some good songs, but aside from the odd 2 or 3 songs, nothing else from this album will hold your attention or be deemed a classic as per some of Ayu's past works. Album opener "Wake me up" is an album highlight. An anthemic song full of angst that you can fist pump and whip a weave to; steeped in an 80's gloss which renders it sounding like something from a Duran Duran album of yesteryear. The song also features copious amounts of Engrish for an Ayu song. Not only does Ayu growl the song title over and over in in the hook, but she shouts ♪ I golla let'chu go, I golla let'chu go ♪ before the chorus kicks in. I cite Namie Amuro's Uncontrolled as the influence here. See how that miserable bitch is changing your faves' music!? (Queen Namie. Bow before the bitch who kept Avex's books balanced in the last fiscal year). "Bye bye darling" relays the torch carried by "Wake me up", swapping the 80's synths for funky picked basslines. It's more of Ayu wailing about some relationship gone wrong and that homeboy needs to back some bags and leave dem keys, but it ticks all the right boxes. It's a damn shame Ayu's taken out restraining orders on releasing singles, because "Bye Bye Darling" would have made a pretty good one.

Ayu also turns in a nice set of mid-tempos, but they all bleed into the same sound. "Missing", "Melody" and "Song 4 U" all sound like generic songs you'd hear in some TV commercial or in the intro sequence to some Sega Saturn game. The songs aren't bad. In fact they're good, well produced songs with a vocal turn from Ayu which doesn't make testicles shrivel and a uterus clench. But there's nothing distinct enough about any of them which will make you single any of them out as 'amazing' or worthy of slinging onto an iPod playlist. They're nice songs. But that's all.

Japan's recession has not only hit the Yen in the bollocks, but J-Pop ballads too. The past 4 years in J-Pop have been dire on the ballad front. But Ayu manages to come through here with "Sweet scar" - exhibiting the albums' only moment where she changes gears from her quotidian norm when it comes to ballads. "Sweet scar" consists of little more than a piano, a violin and a small set of woodwinds. A nice change from the overblown ballads laced with big orchestrated strings and stadium drums that we usually get. It's a beautiful song which shows that less is more and that Ayu can deliver a nice ballad without musical theatrics and that's Ayu's voice is at it's most emotive when she isn't screeching like some demon ho of the underworld.

The only bum note on this album comes in the form of "You & Me", which has managed to tack itself onto pretty much every Ayu release since A Summer Best. The song is like a fucking parasite. The song is awful. Love Again could have done without it, because nobody likes the song and it puts a sour note on what is an otherwise a nice album.

Love Again is a complete re-tread of what Ayu has done numerous times before over her 14 year career, but it's her first album since Guilty where the sound has been cohesive - which is largely in part to it being produced solely between long term collaborators Tasuku and Yuta Nakano. The album is very late 90's, early 00's and is steeped in a throwback type of sound much in the same way Love Songs was. The songs are good, but they do not have much of a lasting impact because everything Ayu throws at you for this album, she's thrown it at you so many times before. It's almost annoying given that the production is top notch, the instrumentation's on the songs are so rich and Ayu's vocals stay within a range which doesn't make you want to scratch a bitches' neck out. Make no mistake. Love again is nothing new. If you weren't keen on anything Ayu had to offer before, then you will not be converted by hearing her wailing on any of the 14 tracks this album has to offer. But long term Ayu stans will be glad for this album. Especially after the train wreck that was Party queen and those who held onto their money and didn't shell out for Love or Again.

This album proves that Ayu has a handle on her own sound and knows what works for her, but she needs to evolve this in some way. I also feel that Ayu should have worked her remixes into more of these songs. Ayu's Countdown Live version of "Wake Me Up" incorporated the remix and gave the song a great edge. And the A Classical version of "You and Me" completely transforms the song and makes it decent. For her to meld these new arrangements / elements into songs on this album would have helped it greatly. The sense of newness and reaching for a new sound is exhibited into many of Ayu's recent remixes and a new take on her material was showcased beautifully on A classical. So it's a shame that none of this was injected into Love again. It also would have felt like less of a slap in the face to those who had bought Love and Again as they would have gotten re-worked versions of songs.

I was sceptical that Ayu would be able to record a cohesive album as such after falling off so spectacularly with Party queen, but she proves me wrong here. However, I still feel that after 14 years of being active that Ayu should be delivering better albums than this. There is no evolution of her sound. Just complete re-treads of it. As much as I disliked many of Ayu's earlier works, at least there were flecks of newness in her music. As the soundscape of J-Pop and Pop in the West began to shift, Ayu's music and image did the same. I was no fan of the bitch, but always respected that she at least acknowledged music outside of Japan; despite not being able to emulate it and make it her own in the same way Namie Amuro has done over the years. Whilst Namie Amuro is taking chances with half an album sung entirely in Engrish, Crystal Kay is completely revamping her sound and Kumi is risking her life covering people's songs and having Hide fans come at her with butcher knives, Ayu is just trotting out the same ol', same ol'. Ayu needs to start branching out her sound and delivering something fresh, exciting and new. Once upon a time Ayu thrived on attempting something a little new, but she's now fallen into a state of complacency. And given that Love again debuted at number 1 in its first week after a string of number 2's and chart fall off's, this may be Ayu's 'Go' card to just keep doing this shit over and over for another 15 years. If Ayu's up for boring long term fans and going to no lengths to acquire new ones, then she's on the right track with this.

VERDICT: Love again!?

Album highlights:
■ Wake me up ★ J's fave
■ Bye-bye darling
■ Sweet scar
■ Glasses