from here to here

ChobiMM3 wanted to see some pictures with Aya smiling, so Matt provided some: and sailormari remarked: Thats something I always like about Aya she can look like a kitten and next picture she be a lion

Thank you to ILoveMico btw for providing Nights4Saturn and Mattthecat with very nice signatures :-) N4S' sig came from the "Ki Ga Tsukeba Anata" PV btw:
Due to veoh changing its policies of making the videos available in full quality for download to those with reduced sizes he is planning on moving his marvelous HQ PV collection to Stage 6. Stay tuned...

The task of moving is something that Matt had just completed: Took me exactly one month of letting the uploader run day and night and changing appx. 2500 links on my website but the entire Matsuurian archive has now been relocated to megaupload. Man, I hope I won't have to do that again... Matt also received a nice package from Mr. Postman: The Love Gift 2004 (complete with Aya baseball cap and watch):
Shug had received it too and admitted I kind of regret wearing the watch and hat to work though.

Celedam posted a link to a youtube upload of "Kotomikku Daijiten"

And then - finally - it was time for Matt's Millenium torrent, and a fine one it was (your editor just patting himself on his back :-) Two audio CDs with unusual Aya live material. Naturally including booklets. Grab them while the supply lasts!

silenceglaive brought us his weekly radio show review: So first and foremost I have to say it seems that whatever Ayaya had last time (I suspected a cold or so) is gone this week. She was more lively again and her speechspeed was again normal (that means ultafast with nice voice pitch changes in between).
Ayaya starts off with a little talk about how fast 2007 went by and it is already nearly christmas. And also talks about the various things couples do at that time .. soemthing about Roppongi, the Tokyo Tower and so on ... The the first song "Soulmate" starts. After this "break" Ayaya readys mails she received. Seem it were 2 in total.
One was from someone who called Ayaya , Ayaya-san which braought Ayaya to say that Ayaya is enough and she knows Aya-san but Ayaya-san is strange/ funny. I asume he/she also said something about visiting a concert or so. The other one was as staed in the mail a fan of Ayaya since her debut and if I am not mistaken about the age of Ayaya's father (didn't understand the age though .. something 50's). So some more praising went on. In the end she played his request for "Dearest" from Aya. Afterwards the Ayaya talks about something she thinks about corner started ... sadly I was not really catching anything from that , besides in the ending it was about some manager that was fired because of something .. dunno what though ... maybe someone with better knowledge can clear that up. She the played "Last Christmas" and straith following the new Ongaku gatas single. (Okay she said like 2 times the email adress in like 2 seconds )
That was it already again and Ayaya says goodbye to all, not without saying the email adress again, saying that tomorrow will be Reikitty at the radio station ... and ! she will have her first guest in the radio show next week. So stay tuned .. thouh I did not catch the name .. maybe someone else did ...

Chobi (while being overjoyed by the Ayalternative CDs - the correct reaction I might add) was asking about the Hawaii Single Best Album being an official one, which it indeed was as Matt pointed out: Most of the songs were identical to the originals, but three of them had "Hawaiian" arrangements. And of course it can be found in the Archives!

And then....
the bad news trickled through that Aya had not been invited to this year's Kouhaku Utagassen!!!!!
For the first time in many years.
An outraged Matt wrote: Instead they invited BK and Cute. Gimme a break. With all due repect for the kiddies, but this is ridiculous. At least Aya is on the FNS Music Festival. But still. This is what I would carry when standing next to a NHK official: Chobi added Hehe same reaction here. It seems like C-ute and Berryz are getting a lot of attention lately, and even though I love them both, I love Ayaya more. All the solo artists seem to be being treated like crap lately and it sucks. And mister.mori commented: "WTF!" indeed. i mean, it's great that the kids groups are getting a little more popular (or maybe "a lot" more...but i wouldn't know ), but i mean, this is Matsuura Aya we're talking about. if any H!P members are going to make an appearance at Kouhaku, it ought to be AT LEAST Matsuura Aya, and then whoever is popular or what-have-you. (IMO) . And while zam thought that i think its fair enough to give Cute and Berryz a chance to aknowledge them for their talent and hardwork.. Ayaya would be happy for them.. we should too Matt countered: That would be like the losers at the Academy Awards saying "Oh it was an honor just to be nominated. So-and-so deserved to win" And don't expect any political correctness from me here. It sucks!!

Well, at least Aya appeared on the other big music show, mister.mori being the first one to sight her: hmm...i'm currently watching the 2007 FNS Music Festival and i'm debating whether or not to post a spoiler of Matsuura's outfit...meh, why not? the costume isn't too terrible, but she's sporting a black top hat with a giant who-knows-what lacy thingy mounted on top of it. another thing is that her is noticeably black (as opposed to dark brown). well...maybe it was her outfit, but it definitely looked black to me. btw, the H!P Medley was great! Matt mused: After getting over the first shock seeing the hat I must say that the overall costume was quite okay. As a matter of fact totally in black was very sexy Chobi commented: What's up with everyone and the hat bashing? Ok, some of them have been crazy, but I actually thought the one she wore here was a lot nice than the one she wore on HEYx3. (Plus it goes a lot better with her outfit) Hmm.....and am I only one who thinks that skirt is short for Ayaya? Not that it looks bad or anything, but are they trying to find a replacement for Maki? Needless to say this was an opinion not shared among the male members in this thread... Chobi went on to explain: Aya does wear it well but whenever she tries to look sexy it looks weird to me; I like her 'cute' image. silenceglaive had to say this about the video: 1. Despite the pictures I found in the video that the Hat this time was quite fitting 2. Nice that Ayaya was the starting singer .. and yes the skirt is pretty sexy 3. Hehe how they have to grab Ai-chan into the front that time 4. And wow .. Nakazawa Yuko is small. To which Matt added: 3. Lol. Yeah, typical Aya. Grab'em and direct'em. That's normally what she does with Miki 4. Hahaha. I first thought it was Yaguchi!

Meanwhile zam had dug up her 2002 Kouhaku performance of "Yeah! Meccha Holiday" (with the Melons as back-up dancers)

Then it was one of those rare moments when Matt became sentimental: This ain't stricly Aya related, but it does tie in with her decline in sales and not being at this year's Kouhaku for the first time in many years. In other words changing times. For Aya as well. And then maybe I'm just in a sentimental mood. But here's what wrote after watching today's Uta Doki with Konno:
"Oh my dear Konkon. Never was an absolute fan, but I always liked her - a lot. She still can't sing. She still can't move. But when she smiles the sun rises :-) And whether you like her or not (and I do) it felt like everything was okay again.
There had not been a mass exodus of familiar faces, there had not been Fridays and pregnancies. Everything and everyone was still in place where it should be. HelloProject one big (well okay so not always happy :-) family. No TNX, no Nice Girl, just HP. Sports Festivals and concerts where everyone participated. No two zillion arbitrary one-shot groups, you knew what HP was and what it felt like. You had Hello Morning and not Haromoni@, and a futsal team that you could see actually kick the ball.
Yes, for a moment it felt like everything was okay again. This old cat admits that he shed a tear watching this episode..."
And silenceglaive added: I already got myself the torrent and tomorrow I'll watch that too .. since I missed my Konkon. Yes times change .. and somehow (imho) Tsunku overdid some things really .. and the "Skandal" year 2007 .. well ... Lucky enough Ayaya did not have anything like that this year .. but thinking about GAM and the fact that ppl might relate Ayaya too much with the problems inside of HP ... And Alienpyon summoned it up: This was one hell of a moving performance and IMO stands for all that H!P represens: not the best dancers, not the best singers but the strongest FEELING in today's music world. Just imagine Maria Callas and Rudolf Nureyev in one body: The perfect dancer and perfect singer. Still, won't be half as good as Konkon was in her performance...

And Alien went on: To lighten up the mood a little: AYAYA NEW LIVE DVD ! Out on January 23. Ideal for a cat's birthday present, so preorder now!

The next nice surprise came from mister.mori: don't know if this was mentioned yet, but i just saw a (new) ETC commercial. it's basically the same except Matsuura's singing is more mellow and ballad-ish (...is that even a word...? :-) anyways, i'm sure Mattthecat will have it uploaded soon (if not already). Matt, loving challenges like that, immediately went to work and (using five different programs) captured all four commercials from the sponsor's website.

A girl named Cindy had enquired about a HQ version of this youtube link in the Matsuurian archives.
Matt almost fell off his chair: It was the "Hyacinth" performance from "Bokura no Ongaku" that he had been searching for for months!!! And it's great, Aya being accompanied by Shinji Tanimura. The good shug kindly provided the whole show to be added to the archives :-)

Next youtube link came from silenceglaive: Ayaya singing Nee~~~ in 3 different styles ... I am a bit surprised that I like the swingy versions better .. not suprising I like the slowest version best though ^^ Matt explained: Yup. The swing version is from "Yume Ongakukan" (mp3 seperately available there). And it's also on that fabulous "Ayalternative" CD

zam found two more links, the first a youtube video with Aya's "Deep Purple" Pretz commercial, the other a mediafire upload...well let him tell you: It starts with Ayaya talking in a white dress. She looks stunning in this dress. It is than followed by the performance from the 2006 winter 10 anniversary concert (correct me if i'm wrong). This is the best solo performance in the concert and she looks lovely in the blue dress. What is this song's title? Nice song! Next clip is from Pop Jam special 2005 with Aya reading something for the fans... This is followed by a performance in the white dress at the start of this clip. Oh man! she looks like an angel! Aya looks a bit like YUI from certain angles. Btw the song in question is "Zutto Seki De Ii Desu Ka" - here also in another mediafire file provided by atstrbcks whose question whether the song was realeased on an album can be answered "sort of" as Chobi pointed out (it was indeed on the Hawaii album mentioned earlier)

Another pleasant find was the first of two songs recorded for (as some comments on the tracker later revealed) the "Karaoke Box Sanchama" corner of the radio show "Young Town". And apparently our Aya wrote lyrics herself. But more about that next week. This one is called "Shopping" and was greeted with enthusiasm by everyone!

ILoveMico had several questions regarding the "Naked Songs" album: 1.- was recorded the songs in the album like the DVD , all music and voice in live??? 2.- songs like dearest and hitori are so great. Why have the album few sales??? ( 14 000 aprox ) (that reminds me than her single SUNA WO KAMU YOU NI ... NAMIDA had a similar sales) 3.- and... have somebody the CD-jacket??? i haven't it . Matt replied: 1. Well, not really. It was a studio album, just with a live touch 2. VERY good question. The old Aya fans obviously didn't like her new style that much. Aside from that almost all record sales were sliding downhill. 3. Maybe something's okay in there And usagi no kami felt Who knows? Maybe people didn't like the direction of the album and prefer old Aya to the new sound.. not enough promotion.. tough competition.. any of these could've been factors. N4S finally found a nice page offering a tour through the CD :-) atstrbcks was looking for the videos in the Archives. Those (as avis) are in the PV folder, the album is in the Audio folder.

Meanwhile shug had received his Sukedachi copy while Matt was still anxiously waiting for his, meanwhile offering a sort of preview. Chobi's question what it was all about has so far not been answered. It has to do with aliens though...

Next things that popped up were the first sounds of Aya's first Xmas Dinner Show this year in Yamagata, one song from each show: "Original Jinsei" and "Double Rainbow", Matt already planning Ayalternative CD3...though Chobi found the intro the Jinsei a bit too long :-) Here's the official site with all the goodies from the show (more of that next week as well). Unfortunately people outside of Japan have no chance of ordering those themselves :-(

And what week would be complete without Meringue vidcaps... Look for Aya running from naked comedian Yoshio Kojima :-) mister.mori's curiosity about her reaction reminded Matt of the DJ Ozma Spiderman dancers....

Boy, that was another big one...

Cya next week :-)))