TSUKI is 2# on Oricon today, with sales of 18,680. Great start and already very close to the weekly sales of BBC/Beautiful (23,000)

^Great sales! :)

^^Nice. What's in 1st place? *crosses fingers its something good*

Morning Musume, with sales of 119,442. So yeah no chance for weekly 1# lol, but 2-3 would be fine with me either way :)

We all know how big the idol groups in Japan are, and considering how Namie topped the solo artists charts last year (and the fact that she beat out aiko at #3), #2 is still an achievement for her! Cheers!!

So much for my fingers being crossed. I should have expected as much. Oh well, all that really matters is that my dear Namie's still putting out quality wonderful music I love after all these years. ♥♥♥♥♥

Morning Musume? How could they be popular than Namie even though they've been both in the business for quite some time?

I'm not into momosu that much but I believe they've experienced a decline in last years and made a comeback some time ago and now they are very popular again. They even changed their name to morning musume '14 to mark the difference or something like that XD so that's why, probably. By definition, idols groups always chart higher than solo artist somehow. Good for namie tho, number two is fab! ~

I'll never understand sales numbers. 18,000 is considered good? I guess it is if you compare it to the population of Japan. Someone needs to explain this stuff to me. :yconfused

^I think Oricon also only includes physical sales numbers which I'm personally not fond of. A release could be slaying in Digital DL numbers while not so much in Physical and so it gets beaten out on the charts cuz of that. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Billboard over here in the Western Hemisphere counts both physical and digital sales for each release which imo feels more fair and more accurate.

Take one look at all the 40ish guys on any girl group concert and you'll know how. They don't have any interest in 35 year old woman (just a shot, don't remember how old Namie is). I don't like or watch any AKB or MM concerts but I saw the audience during SNSD concerts in Japan, they were pretty scary, and maybe it's too much of a generalization but I've been to Akihabara many times, saw all those idol-puppy-eyed old guys who spend each yen in idol cafes, I totally can understand the sales. Sorry for this comparison, but Ayu / Kuu / Namie's audience is actually pretty mixed in case of age, gender with few cosplayers, while Kinki Kids and other JE groups have mostly girls / women, and AKB / MM have old guys (probably lonely with lots of money). I'm generalizing of course but there's quite a lot of truth to it.

Let's be honest, with today's access to media (internet the most) I'm kind of wondering that people still buy music at all. I have a huge collection of CD from the 90's and early 2000~, I used to buy CD of artist that had only 2-3 great songs, right now I only spend money of singers I truly appreciate and even though Namie is in my top10, maybe even top5 performers and has albums I usually love as whole with every song, I don't have any of her CD in my collection. My point is that people probably listen to her a lot but spend money only on one or two of their favourite performers hence the lower and lower sales, just my guess.

This is centainly my case as well (though for me Namie is one of the artists I do buy the albums, but not the singles).

Now a days it's just so easy to go and download for free that it's no wonder sales are decreasing. People don't need to buy to be able to listen anymore, so they buy just what they really like, and even like that many just prefer to buy digitally than having CDs now a days...

^the other thing with CDs is they need to be frequently changed every 45-60mins on average and you can also just add it to your portable device and plug it into headphones or speakers and play everything by every artist at once. Also means you dont need to carry around disks or worry about it getting damaged. Plus physical fornats can take up a lot of space. Come over to my place where i live with a couple people obsessed with DVDs and you'll see what i mean. I admit I still buy some albums but its only my absolute favorite artists i bother with. Not to mention also cause Japanese music is ridiculously expensive and also simply cuz even with my CDs I hardly use em all that often anymore.

^ another simple thing...
because everything that you all said corresponds to reality imo, one would wonder why tho only idols/group's CDs sell instead of the other ones...
Idk about other groups but for akb for example is because they put this thing to vote your favourite member inside singles/album so that it can top the tournament where they choose who should take the highlight into the next single. So the more you buy the more votes you have. Hardcore fans will eventually end up buying all of their editions (usually four)...and also because of the variety of the material inside (ex. different subgroups/girls singing different songs into every single). Plus they do a lot of handshake event and things of the sort, even hug events when fans go to meet them and buy the single XD and many many other promotion stunts like this. That's why they get this incredible number of copies sold. It's just a good marketing strategy, really...
I really like AKB very much but I doubt they would sell THIS MUCH without such strategies. Maybe digitally like any other artist! but the need for physical copies is because of these reasons I listed. That goes for every idol group I think...

Today: #2 8152.

Mornin Musume is now at #4 lol, I have no idea who is #1.

http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/js/d/2014-01-29/

But on digital sales, she's the queen:

http://recochoku.jp/ranking/single/daily/

https://24.media.tumblr.com/cdc3acb6...hamho1_500.jpg

Other thing with not buying physical copies is with all the money I've saved between this and limiting myself on buying collectibles and other such things which aren't overly necessary, I can afford to now do many other things than just sit here and jam to my favorite songs. I've been able to afford the desk & speakers I needed for my laptop in my room and I've also bought tickets (good seats too) to a few different concerts and events I wouldn't have been able to afford if I kept spending it elsewhere. So all-in-all, they're still getting my money one way or the other. Just for a different thing.


Only thing that saddens me on that chart is Ayu's Pray is down at #6. I Love Namie in 1st though. :D


Btw, somewhat unrelated, but have they announced what the First Press poster for Namie's FEEL TOUR DVD/BLURAY when you order it online at like CDJAPAN or YesAsia will look like?

I'm a bit late on the momu thing, but as some of you may know I write my master thesis on idol pop these days and I can share the moumu part of it with you (yet uncorrected)

Probably one of the most important and influential groups for the overall development of the current idol culture made its debut in 1998. The talk is of Morning Musume, an all-girl pop group under the Hello! Project umbrella, which hosts a variety of female Idol artist signed to the Up-Front Group label.
Morning Musume is manly produced by singer-songwriter tsunku. Being lead vocalist of a quite famous visual rock group himself, with Morning Musume he fulfilled his desire of writing and producing a different kind of genre. The girls were chosen out of the contestants who participated in a string of open audition broadcasted nationwide on TV. The group’s original line-up of five member total however, was soon after their debut extended by three additional girls.
After Tsunku realized the audience’s interest in the changing of the ranks, he rotated his idols frequently, citing reasons such as “graduation”(to solo careers [as in the case of popular member Maki Goto] or “retirement” and bringing in new, younger recruits as replacements. Another example of personal malleability is Tsunku’s direction to break up Morning Musume into a variety of temporary sub-“units” which release on or two singles under different group names, before “graduation” or return to the original lineup.
Tsunku’s ambition and methods are prototypes of the handling and presentation of contemporary idol performer. Both, the ‘rotation’ as well as the ‘graduation’ system are common among idol groups not only from Japan, but also among Idols originated in other Asian countries, nowadays. This is a reflection of today’s fast paced, short lived and consume hungry industry, wherein the usual idol remains one among hundreds and is exchangeable with “lightning speed” . The steady rotation of different members enforces idol bands to “remain forever young.” “Morning Musume’s music has rarely changed, perhaps not surprising given that one man has produced every song.” Nevertheless, the group managed to spawn a notable amount of Top 10 singles and albums, with several releases even hitting the first place in weekly rankings, under their belt. Although Tsunku’s most successful product has been on a decline in sales since the mid-2000s , the group managed to reestablish itself in very recent year, with their latest singleわがまま 気のまま 愛のジョーク／愛の軍団 (Wagamama Ki no Mama Ai no Joke/Ai no Gundan, Selfish, Easy Going, Jokes of Love / "GUNDAN" Of The Love) being their bestselling single since their 2002 release ここにいるぜぇ!? (Koko ni Iruzee!,"I'm Here!"), showing that they are still relevant, even after more than fourteen years in the business, and yet reflecting current tendencies of the market.

I can tell you why Morning Musume is now popular because I've been a hardcore fan since 2005.

In one word = Events

The group always did a few events for their releases but they started to do it massively (The AKB way) since last year. The group splits in duos and trios to do handshakes events separately all over Japan intensely for a pair of weeks after the release of the CD. To attend these kinds of events you have to use the lottery tickets inside their CDs. They have some crazy fans who use to buy up to 300 CDs to get more tickets. Artists like Ayu and Namie never do these kind of events because they are more unreachable than idols. Apart from this they also started to release 6 editions of each CD and now they only release Double and Triple A-Side singles.

With this strategy Morning Musume single sales increased from 30-70k to 80-150k

They also applied the same strategy for their sister groups:

ºC-ute single sales increased from 20-30k to 50-80k
Berryz Koubou single sales increased from 15-25k to 30-40k

How I know this is the way they increase their sales? They don't apply this strategy to their albums, their albums sales just increased in 4k.

In short, EVERYTHING these days in all parts of the world for ALL TYPES of products has become mostly marketing and marketing gimmicks. Cater to peoples wants and fantasies and it helps things sell. Simple as that. Its why in America the confident strong female sells but in Japan the pretty sweet and overly cute sells on the whole. However it doesnt mean there's not any talented artists out there. Just many of the talented popular ones have gotten the proper necessary marketing and sadly others haven't. When I first heard Namie and Kuu I had no idea what they looked like yet I was still attracted to their voices and music. Plus it also boils down to personal taste as well.