Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai - [Charts & Rankings] The Official Oricon Thread ~again~

Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai (http://www.ahsforum.com/forum/index.php)

- Ayu Music News (http://www.ahsforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=2)

- - [Charts & Rankings] The Official Oricon Thread ~again~ (http://www.ahsforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=116484)

whatever. i still have faith in ayu.

I think only when Korean wave and idol groups trend it's over we'll see a rise in Ayu's sales... till then we can only hope that her sales won't go downhill so quickly...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jawdarna (Post 2945406)

Sales are disappointing, but it's always been this way since I am... so, it's not a huge deal.
Gosh, I remember back in 2007 when GUILTY only sold 400K or so in its first week, and AHS was going into meltdown mode.
If only Ayu could sell that now!!! :)

Pretty sure I was one of the melters. Melted when A Complete didn't sell a million too. Now I would just b grateful if she can sell platinum.

Also agree on some of the opinions of her recent pvs. There needs to be more movement and artistic direction. I mean progress was so epic but the pv was kinda snooze-festy 😪 And someone mentioned the fake crying act getting old which i completely concur with. Change the act already! The songs r still great at least..

Quote:

Originally Posted by orbitalaspect (Post 2945371)

Actually, I disagree. If we took the same concept and applied it to FIVE (127,000 FW Sales), we would see that the sales from FIVE were a good indicator of where Party Queen (98,000 FW Sales) ended up falling on the charts. Ayu's sales have been steadily declining, and "again" honestly is a good indicator of where Ayumi's next LP may end up on the charts. Hell, we saw the same shift in sales after Memorial Address going into MY STORY. The only thing we could honestly look at and say wouldn't be a good indicator is a single vs. an album.

I honestly doubt that the Japanese listeners are irritated because of Maro. They're probably uninterested because Ayumi isn't a 96,000-Member Girl Group, isn't a shirtless Korean boy band, and hasn't made a coherent and lasting shift in the style of her music. Like with Mariah Carey in the US, people get really tired of hearing the same thing over and over again and simply stop buying the records.

They choose to not buy the albums because Ayu is old, she's not a young idol anymore, she hasn't really changed her style (unlike Namie, for example), and she really doesn't put as much effort into her newer releases (unlike Namie, for example). One of the first things I noticed about the videos for Wake me up and snowy kiss was how god-awful boring they are, just like You&Me, just like Song 4 u, Missing... I'm tired of seeing Ayu stand around and fake cry while over-lip-syncing a song. Worse, I'm really tired of seeing everything be about a fight or a break up or something with some guy from somewhere. I want to see songs like evolution, M, and WE WISH, or AUDIENCE. I'd like to see Ayu do more than stand or sit or lay in a video for 70% of the time she's on camera. What happened to THE SHOW? The ARTIST? The PERFORMER? Do you see what I kind of mean here...? :)

I totally agree with you on most these points actually. Hopefully you saw my first post in this thread, but I mentioned that most people in Asia already consider Ayu to be a relic of the past, and although an important and still active one, not really relevant to today's entertainment industry. I think a possible reason why Namie has revived is that most of the tracks she does choose to promote has urban clubbing overtones to the sound, and it's obvious that the Japanese market digs music that's similar to the U.S. Top 40.

I personally think that Party Queen is a fail due to the content itself, and also distanced more conservative fans of Ayu. I agree that she is on a steady decline, but long-time purchasers of Ayu's products may assume on her release patterns. I think that the success of FIVE was because the songs were consumer-friendly, and its track-listing and promotion made the release seem to be exclusive. With these minis, in comparison to her last singles, she jacked up the prices by around 300 yen for some remix tracks, and the track-listings look like multi-A side singles. A few hundred yen isn't much if a fan wants to buy the release, but because living costs outside of metropolitan areas are relatively cheap, I'm sure casual listeners would rather use the extra money for more groceries than more remixes, and I recognize that I'm assuming for most that they'll think the main songs will eventually be on another big release anyways.

Her last great PV was Return Road, not that it had any impact in sales. But I do miss those big, bombastic PVs from Ayu which add to the meaning of the song. Besides for sweet scar, the PVs for LOVE and again leave a lot to be desired.

i think it's only casual listeners and those kind of "fans" that come and go that are not very happy about her. I have a japanese friend who buys every single cd of hers and who said no word on Ayu's relationship or how bad the PVs are. In fact she loved the PVs and the songs.

I can say only one thing here, she accepted the fact that it's no longer her being number one, she had her peak and was on the wave, got a gazillion of records and is now just making music. The ones who can't let go are fans, and i am also not sure that Japanese fans care about that stuff either. It's probably only people overseas :innocent

Her new husky and flat vocal makes all her recent songs sounded boring. Can't help it when she's deaf in one ear and can't sing on pitch, hence she always choose songs that are easy to sing and sounded flat through out...

Her sales dropped = people stopped buying her music = people are not interested in her music = her music is not good/catchy/interesting/memorable anymore.

Sadly with the addition of the stupid pic at the end Return Road turns the Love Songs Trilogy into a Quadrilogy and has no place among a list of her best PVs. Her last good pieces of work that had no connection to anything stupid for publicity was Rock n Roll Circus. After that publicity took priority and overshadows her work. I think she needs to have her contract overhauled and make sure the music is what it's about again even if it means and probably will require leaving Avex.

@ saigodansu - Although I didn't like R'n'R Circus completely as a concept, I have to agree with your general point as the last time an Ayu PV completely amazed me was the one for Don't look back, lol.

I agree that after RnRC the publicity stunts mostly took over her PVs with very few exceptions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by UHPlus (Post 2945502)

WTF is this?

Quote:

Originally Posted by UHPlus (Post 2945502)

This is SO STUPID...

Therefore, AKB48 are the reincarnation of Johann Sebastian Bach...

Quote:

Originally Posted by njanjayrp (Post 2945520)

I agree that after RnRC the publicity stunts mostly took over her PVs with very few exceptions.

WTF is this?

just a hardcore namie fans who have been graduated from ayu fandom
bring him/her back to hip pop planet
lol

well, THIS IS AYUMI HAMASAKI SEKAI not NAMIE AMURO SEKAI. If he/she doesn't like Ayu, then pack and leave.

6th Day
Position: #10
Sales: x
Total Sales: 21,851 + x + x

Also I just wanted to point out that Seiko cover from the last page. Don't act like that cover has taken away any of Seiko's achievements nor does it erase the tons of timeless classics she has.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chu-lips (Post 2945522)

just a hardcore namie fans who have been graduated from ayu fandom
bring him/her back to hip pop planet
lol

I've noticed that, just that for some odd reason I expected a little maturity from UHPlus as the person has never acted like a dumb troll before. I guess people change...:thud

Lol for voicing out a personal opinion once in half a year! Isn't this a free-for-all forum? Been in this forum for more than 9 years, since 2003. Didn't realize I need to filter my opinion before posting, to suit the likes of ayumi's fans... sigh... That's why I don't even bother...

^ it's not about what you've said, it's the way you've said it...

looooooool
omg where did u see the sales for the 1st day 9,087
that's fake LMFAO

#10 on day 6, that was a fast drop. If that's the case it's probably barely reaching 50% of LOVE's sales if it even reaches that far.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Foyuki (Post 2945534)

looooooool
omg where did u see the sales for the 1st day 9,087
that's fake LMFAO

It was from Baidu and it had it's own thread. I thought it was real since sometimes they post numbers for positions 4-10....