My Story (Ayumi Hamasaki album)

By the end of her 2003–2004 arena tour, Hamasaki became dissatisfied with her position at Avex. As a result, Hamasaki decided that on her next record she would not write to "give people hope" or write "something good"; instead, she simply wrote "freely and honestly" with no set theme. These writing sessions resulted in autobiographical lyrics, exploring Hamasaki's own emotions and reminisces about her career. The music of My Story reflects the free theme of the lyrics; its noticeable rock overtones expressed Hamasaki's liking for rock music. She thought about the kind of sound she wanted to make and what she wanted to write, and as a result, initially decided to make it a mini-album; but this time, Hamasaki absolutely wanted to release a full album, so she started working on My Story at a fairly early stage. In November 2004, karao.com confirmed that Hamasaki and her record label Avex Trax would release her first original work in about two years since Rainbow titled My Story in December 15 of the same year. Hamasaki and Avex Trax enlisted long-term collaborator, Japanese businessman and producer Max Matsuura, to produce the album; this marks Hamasaki's sixth consecutive studio album to be fully produced by Matsuura. Hamasaki begun recording the album at various recording studios in Japan in early 2004 with Koji Morimoto, Motohiro Tsuji, Satoshi Kumasaka, Shojiro Watanabe, Yasuo Matsumoto, Yuichi Nagayama and Hirokazu Fukushima. Hamasaki and Avex enlisted previous composers and arrangers for the album, such as Kazuhito Kikuchi, Bounceback and Tetsuya Yukumi; Hamasaki also composed two full-length songs and one instrumental track on the album while using her pen name CREA. ==Composition and songs==

My Story is a rock music album with an aggressive grit that was also present in its predecessor Memorial Address (2003). Josh Love of Stylus Magazine compared the album's sound that of popular pop rock albums in the West at the time like Avril Lavigne's Under My Skin and Ashlee Simpson's Autobiography. In an interview with Japanese magazine S Cawaii, Hamasaki said about the production of the album; "The lyrics are about my debut up until now, but rather than looking back at those times and thinking about them now, I created each song as if I was myself at that time. The atmosphere of the music is rock. But it's not just about the thickness of the sound or the sound of the guitar here or anything like that, it's more about the delicate side of women... I was conscious of that when I created it. A feminine rock kind of thing. But you can definitely dance to it when you listen to it. I was really into it and dancing during the recording (laughs)." Hamasaki also commented that she had a strong emotional attachment to all the songs featured on My Story after the album's completion. "About You" is a fast-paced hard rock song that has been compared to Avril Lavigne. "Game" starts with a New Age instrumental that quickly blows up into aggressive dance-rock. “My Name’s Women,” a song written from the perspective of an independent woman, has been compared to Britney Spears' "Me Against the Music." "Wonderland" is a minute and a half instrumental composed by Hamasaki herself under the pen name CREA. "Liar" is a digital rock tune that lyrically depicts struggling to wipe away her anguish and anxiety; the track has been compared to Ashlee Simpson's “La La” and Avril Lavigne's “He Wasn't.” "Hope or Pain" is a melancholic medium-tempo number. "Happy Ending" is a medium tempo tune that gives a glimpse of wetness, with a composition that features a light guitar. "Moments" is a rock song with a gentle and emotional melody that has been compared to Guns N' Roses. "Walking Proud" is a medium tempo tune that expresses sentimental feelings that build up during the season of cherry blossoms. "Carols" is a torch song with solemn and elegant strings blending into a moist melody line. "Kaleidoscope" is a one minute and forty-nine second long instrumental. "Inspire" is an upbeat number with a Latin groove that has been compared to Mexican singer Paulina Rubio. "Honey" is a high-energy dance pop tune. "Replace" is a rock number with a pop-like feel. "Winding Road" is a medium-tempo number Hamasaki composed her under the CREA pen name. "Humming 7/4," which was also composed under the pen name CREA, features a solid guitar and swells in the drums, with a joyful chorus sounding like a standing live performance. ==Release and packaging==

My Story was released across Asia on December 15, 2004. A limited Playbutton edition of the album was released on March 21, 2012. ==Reception==

My Story received mostly positive reviews from music critics. A staff reviewer from CD Journal commented; "This is her sixth album and she continues to lead the scene. In addition to her hit singles, it also contains three previously unreleased tracks that were aired on commercials. It's a masterpiece that shows the dignity of a top artist." My Story debuted at number one on the Oricon Albums Chart, with 574,321 copies sold in its first week. This marked her tenth number one album on the Oricon charts, making her the fifth female artist in history to have ten or more number one albums. It dropped to number three the next week, selling 194,556 copies. It spent its third week at number three, selling 190,471 copies. It slid to number four on its fourth week, selling 38,792 copies. The album stayed in the top ten one last week, ranking at number nine and selling 22,693 copies. My Story charted in the top 300 of the charts for 43 weeks. It sold 1,131,776 copies by the end of 2005, making it the seventh best-selling album of the year and the year's best-selling original album by a female artist. According to Oricon Style, My Story is Hamasaki's seventh best-selling album. To date, it is the 230th best-selling album of all time in the country. It is also the last million-selling album in her singing career. ==Promotion==

In the month of December in 2004, Hamasaki performed live on Japanese TV shows several times for promotions, such as that year's FNS Music Festival and the 55th NHK Kouhaku Uta Gassen. She made her sixth annual appearance on Kōhaku Uta Gassen, singing the song "Moments" as a member of the red team. Hamasaki was also featured on the cover of a variety of different Japanese magazines during the promoting of My Story, such as ViVi, GirlPOP, Cawaii!, S cawaii, Popteen and Tokyo 1-shukan. Many of the album's tracks were used in advertisement campaigns throughout the country. "Moments" was used as the Kosé Visée commercial song. "Inspire" was used as the theme song for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum exhibition in New York City as well as a tie-in for avex auditions 2004. "Game" was used as the Panasonic MD stereo system "PM700MD" commercial song. "About You" was used in commercials for Morinaga & Co.'s "Bake." It achieved success in her native Japan, peaking at number one on the Japanese Oricon Singles Chart and lasted on the chart for 21 weeks. The physical format was certified platinum by the RIAJ for shipments of 302,923 units in Japan; while the song was certified gold and double platinum for selling over 100,000 digital downloads and 500,000 ringtone downloads. The music video for "Moments" was directed by Tatsuo Inoue. It shows Hamasaki waking up at night. She opens a door where several kids are playing around in a flowery room, until the scene changes dramatically and everything is darker. Finally she ends up walking away while looking at the camera. "Inspire" was released as the album's second single on July 28, 2004. It achieved success in Japan, debuting atop the Japanese Oricon Singles Chart and charted for 15 weeks. The song was certified gold by the RIAJ for shipments of 329,145 units, and triple platinum for ringtone sales of 750,000 units. "Carols" was released as the album's third and final single on September 29, 2004. The single reached number one and was ceritifed platinum by the RIAJ for sales of 309,128 copies. Concert tours and other releases Hamasaki promoted the album on her 2005 concert tour titled Ayumi Hamasaki Arena Tour 2005 A ~My Story~. Hamasaki announced the concert in January 2005. It was her nationwide tour promoting her sixth studio album My Story, and almost all the songs were performed live. It was also her first concert tour revolving around an album. The tour featured 26 shows and covered 10 different cities, running from February 1 to April 24, 2005. In all, the tour drew in about 250,000 spectators. The DVD reached number five on the Oricon DVD Chart, and charted for 24 weeks. To promote the material from My Story, a compilation with classical versions of the songs were made for the album My Story Classical, which was released on March 24, 2005. Most of the tracks were recorded with the Lamoureux Orchestra of Paris, which was conducted by Yutaka Sado. My Story Classical debuted at number four on the Oricon Albums Chart, charted for nine weeks and sold about 81,700 copies. ==Track listing==

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