When Ayumi Hamasaki’s tenth full-length album, NEXT LEVEL was announced, I fully expected to hate it. After all, I was already pretty irritated with my Ayu fandom, and had been for several months. When “GREEN/Days” came out, I was in the middle of a three-month “I’m not listening to anything not by Gackt” spree, so I just watched the promotional videos for the songs once, was underwhelmed, and went along my way. I felt about the same way about her next single, “Rule/Sparkle” — while I found “Sparkle” a welcome departure from the norm as far as Ayu was concerned, “Rule” was forgettable. So my hopes were quite low for the album, especially when I found out four of the fourteen tracks would be interludes. If I were the betting sort, I’d have bet highly that I’d hate NEXT LEVEL.
I’ve listened to it almost two dozen times since it came out.
Ayu blew me away with NEXT LEVEL, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to be so wrong. I won’t go so far as to say it’s perfect, because it has a few things that I’m not so big on, but overall it is a terrific album.
I started listening to the album with significant trepidation, but I obviously needn’t have worried. “NEXT LEVEL” sounded much better after “Bridge to the sky” than it did in the promotional video, and I settled myself in for what I thought would be a decent album.
And then “Disco-munication” came on and shattered whatever expectations I had about the remainder of the album. I like some of Ayu’s interludes, but never to the point that I’d actually want to get up and dance to them — because usually they’re interludes. This one makes me say “wait, am I still listening to Ayu? What have I gotten myself in to?!”
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That question is answered in “EnergizE,” which is so catchy you find yourself singing along halfway through. (I have no doubt it’ll be part of her next tour, and I can’t wait to see it.) “Sparkle” fits in to this album so much better than it could ever sound by itself (and the PV is brilliant and really would have improved the “Rule/Sparkle” single). “rollin’” is easily my favorite track, and another song that sounds nothing like the Ayu I’m used to. Instead, it’s a thoroughly unique song — between the distortion of her voice in parts of it and the background behind it in the whole song, it makes me wonder why I ever worried in the first place.
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I never would have thought the very Chinese-sounding “GREEN” would work so well after “rollin’,” but it does, and actually got me to like the song much more than I did the first time I heard it. It’s followed by “Load of the SHUGYO,” which aside from having a bizarre name, is another interlude that makes you forget it’s an interlude.
The rest of the album is great, but there are several things about it that don’t make it as good as it could have been. For starters, “identity” strongly reminds me of her 2007 song “decision” and makes it difficult to listen to seriously as a result. And although “Rule” does sound better when listened to in the album, I still find it pretty bland. “LOVE ‘n’ HATE“, however, makes up for this. Like “EnergizE” and “rollin’“, it is a thoroughly different sound for Ayu, and the album is definitely improved by it.
“Pieces of SEVEN” sounds like the interlude it is, but at least it sounds interesting. The thing is, it fails as an interlude, because the transition between it and “Days” is fairly disorienting — it’s more of a dance-influenced track the whole way through, and “Days” is a winter ballad.
In fact, “Days” is the weakest point of the album. I’ll be blunt: I hate this song. No, I utterly despise it. In general, I find most ballads boring, and although there are a few of Ayu’s I like, “Days” is not one of them. It’s beyond boring, it’s utterly pointless and a waste of a song, and it sounds entirely out of place on this album. The one and only good thing it does is transition well into the final song, “Curtain call,” which primarily features just Ayu’s voice and a piano and sounds lovely. It closes the album beautifully, at least until you turn it back on.
I love this album. I’m going to be listening to it years from now, marveling at the fantastic creation it is, and all the time in between. It’s sort of a surprise I like it so much, I suppose, considering I’m usually not big on dance-influenced music like this, but I love it. I just wish it didn’t have “Days” (which at this point I can’t even listen to anymore, I just skip straight past it). More than anything, though, I’m thrilled that I was wrong about NEXT LEVEL, because it was nothing like what I expected — it was a million miles past it, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.