Single Review: Ayumi Hamasaki - Mimosa

When I pressed play on “Mimosa” I was relieved. Given the title, I was expecting it to be some “Summer Again” type mess. So I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Ayu was back on her mid-tempo ballad type shit. Although, a club jam for the cigarette drag brunches in time for Pride month would have been kinda cool. If only I could trust Ayu to deliver such a song and not have it sound like an outdated mess.

“Mimosa” felt a bit out of step for April, but I kinda like the audacity. And I guess “Mimosa” isn’t completely out of step. It does have a very Spring-like sound about it, even if it isn’t your typical easy-breezy Japanesey Spring single. But Ayu is at a point in her career where she can go against trends and the current of what everybody else is doing. And it’s not like Avex will promote what she puts out anyway. But we’ll get to that.

For Ayu these days, every year is an anniversary. Every tour is tied to an anniversary. Every music release is tied to an anniversary. And much like her 2024 single “Aurora”, “Mimosa” has a retrospective, Best album vibe about it — especially when you factor in the music video. This isn’t a bad thing. But I do think it’s a shame that Avex can’t seem to get their shit together and have Ayu’s releases fall at a time when they make sense and market them properly. Because, whilst “Mimosa” is J-drama tie-in song — making it an anniversary song, creating a whole campaign around Ayu’s career and having it be a lead single for a Best album would have given it more commerciality and helped it stick more. Because as nice a song as “Mimosa” is, ain’t nobody remembering it by the time the Autumn foliage hits Aomori Prefecture.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Mimosa | Avex Music Creative Inc.

The vocals on this song. I do not care for them. If “Mimosa” had been taken down to a lower key, I think it would have made a world of difference and Ayu’s voice would have grated far less. But I will say this — Ayu’s voice at least sounds like it’s in pretty good shape on this song. She holds her notes and hits everything strong. It’s just that her voice grates because of how high and nasal her voice is. I really wish the producers of Ayu’s songs would arrange them in a way where it forces Ayu to sing lower, because she sounds so much better when she does.

Musically, I have the same issue with “Mimosa” that I had with “Aurora”, which is that something about the song structure feels off. When the chorus comes in and then the verses start up again, it feels jarring — like the record is skipping to different parts of a song. I think there needed to be more of a build and progression up into the chorus, so that the chorus doesn’t feel like it comes out of nowhere and feels better connected to the verses it follows. And there needed to be something more elegant for the transition back down in the verse after the chorus. And the thing that really gets me is that Kunio Taigo — the composer and producer of the song — does have an understanding of how this shit should work, because all of the modulations work perfectly for the bridge section. There’s even a really uncommon thing which happens during it, where the bridge incorporates the chorus, but in a lower key. And y’all. IT WORKS. Yet when the chorus hits again in its normal key, it comes out of nowhere...again. I don’t understand why the bridge is the only section of this song which sounds right to me, but it does. And it’s baffling, because the bridge is probably the most complex part of the song compositionally and it does something with the chorus which is very uncommon and does so expertly. And yet, the simpler parts in the rest of the song don’t quite click the same way.

As “Mimosa” currently is, the composition feels really segmented and not in a cool patchwork, Xenomania, Beyoncé’s Renaissance kinda way. But in a ‘This feels like an unfinished demo’ kinda way. It’s like there was a plan for somebody to come in and finesse the arrangements and to make the disconnected parts connected, but they never received the fax, so it just never happened.

But the biggest problem with “Mimosa” is that Ayu is continuing to hide and not open herself up.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Mimosa | Avex Music Creative Inc.

Ever since Ayu’s 2014 album Colours, her sound has been in this ‘circling the block’ phase. Everything she’s released over the past couple of years has sounded like stuff that she’s put out before, with very little in the way of newness. Whenever Ayu had tried something new, it never really worked. But rather than try to refine it and make it work, the knee jerk reaction has always been ‘Let’s just go back to what we did before’. And so, here we are. With these safe and fine, but wholly boring and forgettable songs, and “Mimosa” is no exception. But I get why Ayu is here. It’s safer. It’s easy. It’s a comfort zone for her. But as long as Ayu stays in the place, her music won’t grow and she won’t grow as an artist. And this is why Ayu’s music just doesn’t stick and ends up being easy to pass on at a time when there is so much other music which is doing a better job of grabbing attention from artists who have more to say. And the latter is a sticking point for me, because Ayu should have a whole lot more to say at this point in her life and feel no way about saying it.

“Mimosa” has a message of persistence. Of choosing to keep moving through life and make new memories without any guarantees. It’s a beautiful message, especially with where the world is right now. But given the life Ayu has lived and the career that she’s had, she should have more to say than what she says on “Mimosa”. It would have been great for this song to have been about how Ayu actually feels when she looks back on her life and career, rather than being generic and nebulous about it all. Tell us about the sacrifices you made. Tell us about choices that you had to make. Tell us why you chose to keep going. Tell us about the pressure which was put upon you by your label and your team and people in the industry. Bitch, give us “16 Toyotas”.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Mimosa | Avex Music Creative Inc.

Ayu has always been incredibly direct and surprisingly candid about certain aspects of her life and how she’s felt throughout her career in interviews. But this same directness isn’t always applied to her music. This wasn’t such an issue before, when Avex had money and Ayu had music video budgets. Ayu would put a lot of the actual narrative into her music videos — making her songs and music videos a package deal to understand the totality of a song. In some cases the music video would have its own narrative which was more powerful and more interesting than the one in the song, to such a point that it would define the song. But Ayu doesn’t do that so much now. Credit to her, “Mimosa” does feature a video which provides context for the song. But it still feels a little hollow, because the song and video both only scratch the surface of things.

“Mimosa” is a case of Ayu writing about the same old thing in the same old way she always has. Lyrically, the themes and sentiment of “Mimosa” feel similar to A Song for ××. Holding onto things that mean something to you. Standing in your own strength. Realising that you can’t fix everyone and everything. Accepting that pain is a part of life and you can’t avoid it. Ayu pulling a Wanda and travelling through the multiverse to her past self to be like ‘Gurl’ would have made for a great story to tell in a song, but that’s not fully what we get here, even though it is the sentiment of “Mimosa”. I really wanted Ayu to really get into if she feels the same way about life and love now, the road she’s travelled, what it all means for her now and how she feels now. Hikaru Utada did it with “Michi”. Beyoncé did it with “16 Carriages”. Ayu doesn’t do that with “Mimosa” and I really think that she needed to.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Mimosa | Avex Music Creative Inc.

There isn’t a big enough difference in what Ayu is saying in “Mimosa” versus what she was saying for most of the songs on A Song for ××. So “Mimosa” doesn’t feel as though Ayu has a newer perspective on her life. Ayu not digging deeper lyrically creates a barrier which blocks the song from being as real, personal and relatable as it could / should have been. I’m not saying that Ayu should have gone into sordid detail about every single thing and bared her entire soul. But she could have given us something more to connect with. Something which allows us to feel like we know Ayu a little better. Something which allows us to ponder.

I get that a lot of this is a cultural thing. Japan is a culture of not always saying what you feel. Of having a facade. Of not always being direct. Of saying one thing, but thinking / feeling another. And this has bled into the music. Japanese music wasn’t always like this though. But around the turn of the Heisei era, lyrics began to feel very non-specific or super generic — with true meanings and sentiments of songs often being hidden. But because of the melodies, the almost poetic phrasing of certain lines and the richness of the music production — this would distract listeners in the moment from realising ‘Oh, this song isn’t really about…anything’. This has changed a lot now though. These new generations of acts seem a bit more disruptive, have more worldly awareness, are much more plugged into their feelings and have fewer hang ups about sharing them. And then you have an act like Hikaru Utada, whose music continues to hold and fit in this landscape, because this is how they’ve always approached their songs since the beginning. So, when you have Ayu still in this place of not being forward, not really saying the things and keeping up the facade — it once again highlights how she isn’t moving forward. Like, girl. C’mon. You wrote a whole song called “Evolution” and yet you’re not giving us any.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Mimosa | Avex Music Creative Inc.

The sentiment and intention of “Mimosa” is nice, but the execution just doesn’t deliver on either of them. Ayu had mentioned how difficult and emotional it was for her to write and record “Mimosa” and yet I feel none of that in the song when I listen to it. “Mimosa” should have been one of three things. It either should have been a really frank letter to her younger self about all the things which lie ahead for her and an apology for the things she will be made to face, of Ayu’s own doing. Or it should have been a story about Ayu’s journey to where she is now and all that she had to face and lose to get there. Or Ayu could have been really real and talked about how she feels about her life and career right now in relation to where they were 15 years ago. And how her commerciality taking a hit would have sent her spiralling back then, but becoming a mother changed that and shifted her focus. Ayu has so much to say, but she isn’t saying it loudly or clearly enough, because she continues to wrap it all up in something else.

I think part of what Ayu’s fans liked about her early on was that she wrote her own songs and that so many of them were autobiographical. They were a window into her as a person. But there are blackout curtains on that window and Ayu’s drawn the shit out of them. Ayu had far more to say back then than she does now. Ayu also had a lot more nerve. “Mimosa” was an opportunity for Ayu to be [turns and looks into the camera] bold and delicious, but instead she chose to close them blackout curtains and just hide. Even in the music video for “Mimosa”, she spends the entire thing with a giant hood on.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Mimosa | Avex Music Creative Inc.

A huge dose of unfiltered honesty and a refusal to hide is what “Mimosa” needed for it to be what it needed to be and to show that Ayu is actually moving forward. Ayu really needs to choose what she wants to do with her music. If she wants to keep her sound exactly the same, then she needs to push her songwriting and the stories she tells. But if she doesn’t want to do or say more with her songwriting, then she needs to switch up her sound. But if she continues to just do what she’s always done, she is gonna stay stuck. And what should have been a truly heartfelt song and a poignant moment for Ayu and her fans, is just an example of a refusal to step out and move forward.

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💿 Ayu music reviews: Singles 23rd Monster | Nonfiction | Summer Again | EPs Five | Trouble | Albums Rainbow | Miss(understood) | Secret | Next Level | Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus | Love Songs | Party Queen | Love Again | Colours | Remember You

⏪ Rewind: Revisiting Next Level