[Cover Art] ayumi hamasaki - A SUMMER BEST

Wait no longer! High resolution cover arts for the album everyone in Japan and Uganda are anticipating so much, ayumi hamasaki's A SUMMER BEST, have been released!

There's good news and bad news. The good news is, Ayu is actually not doing any fish lips here. The bad news is, as a form of compensation, Ayu has decided to choose the 2CD cover to pay homage to the CD only cover of (miss)understood and CD+DVD cover of glitter / fated, except much worse.

I don't know if avex is trying to pull some irony stunt here because those covers are all antonyms of "best". Okay, maybe not the 2CD+DVD one on the left, but the 2CD one looks like it came straight from hell. Admittedly, compared to the mess that were the Party Queen covers, this is a huge improvement. The 2CD+DVD cover is actually the best cover she's released yet for 2012. But the abomination on the right just looks like shit. The fake tan made her look horrible there. Plus, her head looks so big that it looks like they photoshopped her head on someone else's. At least now I can look at the cover of Mika Nakashima's VOICE without cringing.

What surprised me was when people adjusted the colouring to get rid of her awful tan and the cover miraculously became decent. So it's all her stupid fake tan's fault. AND the scary nails. You know what else is surprising? The fact that this was shot by Leslie Kee. I think he's been hanging out with Ayu too much that he himself is becoming batshit crazy. Did you all see his awkward entrance in POWER of MUSIC when Ayu asked him to say hi but the first thing he decided to do was to take a picture of Ayu from a low camera angle? Oh god.

Covers aside, this album is shaping up to be a mess, clearly being avex's dumping ground to make the money that Party Queen isn't getting them and release Happening Here physically together with her a-nation performances / other random performances somehow on DVD. This makes A BALLADS an even greater masterpiece than it already is. Unfortunately, from the looks of it, they're going to use the 2CD cover to promote it so they're shooting themselves in the foot since people are gonna look at that shit and turn around right away. Don't we already have most of the songs on A BEST 2 anyway?

Either way, everyone in Japan will probably still eat up A SUMMER BEST like nobody's business but also accelerate the rate at which Ayu is hitting rock bottom. The 2 discs are probably named "N" and "A" not because of the alleged "NAtsu" thing but because she's handing over her throne to Namie Amuro instead. It probably won't do as bad as Koda Kumi's Beach Mix, but at least she has it being a remix album as an excuse. Ayu has no excuse for releasing this waste of space.

I preordered it though. Hehehehehe.


(UPDATE: Just updated the tracklist below with the finalized tracklist. Let's just say the DVD tracklist is lame as shit. Concert tour 2000 and Stadium tour 2002 footage? OH REALLY? Dumping random PVs in there? OH REALLY? I can't)
A SUMMER BEST is set to be released on 8 August 2012.

Tracklist

CD1: "DISC-N"

1. BLUE BIRD
2. July 1st
3. Greatful days
4. glitter
5. Sunrise ~LOVE is ALL~
6. AUDIENCE
7. independent
8. evolution
9. Boys & Girls
10. UNITE!
11. INSPIRE
12. NEXT LEVEL
13. Happening Here

CD2: "DISC-A"

1. HANABI
2. HANABI ~episode II~
3. Far away
4. monochrome
5. theme of a-nation '03
6. Sunset ~LOVE is ALL~
7. SEASONS
8. ANother song feat. URATA NAOYA
9. fated
10. MOON
11. blossom
12. fairyland
13. You & Me 

DVD

1. Greatful days [フジテレビ系「ayu ready?」@鵠沼海岸 RAINBOW HOUSE (2003.8.9 O.A.) ]
2. BLUE BIRD [a-nation '06]
3. July 1st [a-nation '09]
4. Greatful days [a-nation '05]
5. glitter [a-nation '07]
6. evolution [a-nation '06]
7. Boys & Girls [a-nation '10]
8. UNITE! [a-nation '06]
9. INSPIRE [a-nation '04]
10. HANABI [a-nation '05]
11. HANABI ～episode II～ [a-nation '03]
12. Sunset ～LOVE is ALL～ [a-nation '09]
13. SEASONS [a-nation '06]
14. ANother song feat. URATA NAOYA [a-nation for Life]
15. blossom [a-nation '10]
16. fairyland [a-nation '05]
17. AUDIENCE [ayumi hamasaki STADIUM TOUR 2002]
18. independent [ayumi hamasaki STADIUM TOUR 2002]
19. monochrome [ayumi hamasaki STADIUM TOUR 2002]
20. Far away [ayumi hamasaki concert tour 2000 第1幕]
21. theme of a-nation '03 [ayumi hamasaki COUNTDOWN LIVE 2005-2006]
22. Sunrise ～LOVE is ALL～ [video clip]
23. NEXT LEVEL [video clip]
24. fated [video clip]
25. MOON [video clip]
26. You & Me [video clip]