A Best 2

Best 2 is a series of greatest hits compilation albums recorded by Ayumi Hamasaki which were released simultaneously on 28 February 2007 (2007-02-28). The artwork on the cover uses the singer's symbol, a heavily modified A, to stand for the name "Ayu" or "Ayumi Hamasaki", as was used in Best in 2001.

A Best 2: Black debuted at #1 in Japan on its first day and took #2 in the weekly chart as well as in several countries throughout Asia. It was ranked #4 on CDJapan's Top 100 album of 2007. A Best 2: White debuted at #1 in Japan and several countries throughout Asia. A Best 2: White was ranked #3 on CDJapan's Top 100 album of 2007.A Best 2: Black includes "dark" songs with "painful/heartbroken" lyrics while A Best 2: White is the opposite, containing "light" songs with "bright/cheerful/upbeat" lyrics.

Both sets were released in 1CD+2DVD versions with limited version covers for each album's color. The first DVD for each version includes all music videos for the songs off the album. The second DVD from A Best 2: White includes her latest Best of Countdown Live 2006-2007 A; the second DVD from A Best 2: Black includes a documentary which chronicles her concert Best of Countdown Live 2006-2007 A. Both albums feature songs released between the singles "Evolution" and "Heaven". No songs off her album Secret are featured on either album.

A Best

A Best is the first greatest hits album by Japanese recording artist Ayumi Hamasaki, her first greatest under her contract with Japanese company Avex Trax. The album was released on March 28, 2001. The compilation is Hamasaki's only greatest hits release to have not feature a DVD disc, which has been accompanied for her 2007 compilation A Best 2 (for both black and white versions), her 2008 compilation A Complete: All Singles and her 2012 A Summer Best. The album contains her singles from 1998 to her 2000 single "M".

A Best enjoyed a large amount of commercial success; her label, Avex Trax, decided to release the compilation on the same day as Utada Hikaru's second album, Distance, to create direct competition between the two records. On the weekly chart, Distance debuted at number one with first-week sales of 3,002,720; A Best entered at number two, with sales of 2,874,870. The first-week sales of the two albums set records for the highest and second-highest one-week sales figures of all time (in a single territory), in Japan and in the world; this record was broken in 2015 by Adele's album 25. Currently, A Best is the third fastest-selling album of all time. With sales of over four million copies, A Best remains Hamasaki's highest seller and the sixth best-selling Japanese album of all time, with worldwide sales of nearly seven million copies.