ayumi hamasaki - A SUMMER BEST (CD+DVD)

I'm back y'all!! After a one month hiatus because I was too busy preparing for university and living life as a student once again~ Definitely feels great to be back at school again instead of being chained down to the army. Freedom once more~!!

I apologize for not being able to blog as frequently nowadays because I just don't have enough time to! The assignments have been piling up since Week 1 and I'm still struggling to keep my head out of the water.

But~!! I shall blog today because I've finally gotten my hands on ayumi hamasaki's latest's summer compilation album - A SUMMER BEST!

Let's go~

Even though this cover may not be her greatest but it's definitely better than the disastrous "Party Queen". At least there's a clear concept other than madness portrayed here.

What puzzles me is why a compilation album? In the past, she would release summer singles and I dare say that summer songs are definitely one of the major sellers in the industry (well, at least for me. :P) but why an album? Furthermore, it's not like there are many new songs packaged with this album - only 2 in fact - "Happening Here" and "You & Me".

Well, that's not to say that the other songs like the classic "BLUE BIRD", "independent", "fairyland", etc aren't good but come on now. ayumi hamasaki fans like myself would already have these songs in their arsenal of ayu goodness so why give us the same thing and make us pay a premium for it all over again? A little unfair, no?

But since it's ayumi hamasaki, I will buy it! But no thanks to avex for their cruel marketing strategies of using her name and brand to make innocent people like me buy things I already have...

Don't get me started on getting digital copies - I prefer the good ol' physical CDs so I can take photos of them!

Anyway, that's a long rant but the above photo is her CD+DVD cover. Looks gorgeous in my opinion but I prefer the CD-only photo. Go Google it! :D

As usual, I got the Hong Kong press of the album simply because I want the DVD to work with my DVD players and Mac. Here's the sticker on the shrink wrap and it describes this compilation album, like what are the new songs, what videos will be featured, etc. Nothing really special.

Unfortunately, the first press of the Hong Kong album doesn't come with the code that can be used online like the Japan press one. No clue what the code does but oh well...

I bought my album from HMV this time round instead of YesAsia because I was too lazy to wait for it to ship and besides, I don't have anything else to buy from the online retailer to qualify myself for the free shipping. Heads up though - if you're planning on getting this album from CD-Rama, it will cost you almost $5 more. Get it from HMV instead - cheaper!!

Anyway, here's the exhaustive track list for this compilation album. Well, for a summer album, it does pack a lot of ballads in DISC A. Yes, I wonder what inspired them to name their discs "DISC N" and "DISC A". Any ideas anyone? Leave your answers in the comment box please! I want to know~

This CD+DVD version obviously comes with a DVD but instead of the promotional videos, this DVD is packed with her live performances from a-nation and some of her other tours. If you're a hardcore ayu fan, you would probably have most of the video clips anyway but some of the clips are exclusive to this album (for instance, "blossom" performed at a-nation '10) only so it might be a good idea to get this to complete your discography.

Some of the tracks are featured as their original promotional videos as well, which I think a little redundant since the release of her "A CLIP BOX 1998 - 2011" which should already include most of the music videos. On the other hand, this is also the only album where you can get the video for her latest song "You & Me".

Like "Party Queen", A SUMMER BEST unfortunately only managed to chart on #2 on the Oricon chart. Sigh... Looks like the Empress of J-Pop is really slipping a little with Namie Amuro and Koda Kumi really fighting for her spot. Here's the album art without the sticker at the front. It's pretty decent but there's so much more that they could have done to make this album so much more appealing.

The insides of the jewel case consists of the lyric insert and the three discs. The discs are simple but I think they are actually quite nice compared to the leopard prints. I'm starting to get sick of leopard prints seriously. The composition of the photo on the lyric booklet is also more appealing than the cover - kinda hints that the content is more important than the cover.

The first page of the lyric insert. Don't you find her gorgeous?! The lyric booklet is filled with a reasonable amount of stunning photos but the creative concepts are more or less the same. Lack of budget because this is a compilation? I'm not very sure.

Anyway, in terms of the musical quality of this album, I would say that it's good even without listening to it because I know the songs already. DISC N features all the uplifting summer songs like "glitter", "Sunrise ~LOVE is ALL~", etc. Whatever summer song you can think of will be featured here! Think of it as a playlist in a CD if you want.

DISC A features the moodier songs and it makes me wonder why they are even in a summer compilation in the first place. Perhaps summer also has it's darker sides? The song selection on DISC A is slightly weirder. I can understand why "HANABI" and "HANABI ~episode II~" made it to the list but songs like "monochrome" and "ANother song feat. URATA NAOYA"? These don't make sense considering that the singles that they were released on weren't exactly "summer" to begin with...

Maybe they are trying to recreate a "BLACK" vs "WHITE" again? Not sure...

Another stunning photo of ayumi hamasaki! Like I've said, no matter what happens, I will continue to support her because her past body of work has proven that she is capable of quality. Perhaps all she needs now is a break to rejuvenate her creative juices to create better works than before...


Well, that's all I have to say for her latest summer compilation. It's definitely not her best but it does feature some of her tried and tested songs to support this album. Plus, her new song "You & Me" is surprisingly quite good and catchy. In fact, I think this song alone, as well as the DVD of course, is good enough to justify my money spent on this album.

Overall, I'm not entirely excited about this album but neither am I too disappointed. I like it but don't necessarily love it.

Shall end here and get back to life as a student. I still have a whole list of assignments to do... Sigh~