Yeah, sadly the music business isn't doing as good as it used to when it comes to physical sales :(

The top 10 basically sets the bar for what "good" sales are nowadays.

^ But in addition to that, I wonder why only a handful of artists these days are able to appeal to wide audiences and get the big sales whereas it seems in the past that a lot more artists were able to do so.

Nowadays you can enter in TOP 10 not even selling 10k

She's out of the Top 30 today! =(

And in the DVD charts out of the top 20, probably twenty and something. xD
We will probably know later the daily ranking as we still can know daily rankings as long as an album/single is in the top 50.

The first day of the new week, and the number one album has only sold 6600 copies. Two years back I was worried sick when the number three sold below 10k >.>

It seems like these bunch of artistes are those with very dedicated and hardcore fan bases (Ayu, Kuu, Namie, TVXQ, ARASHI etc). In addition some of them have fortunately mass appeal like ARASHI.

The general music listener nowadays doesn't buy physical CDs anymore, imo. Downloading or buying online is definitely the "in" thing, so I don't think Oricon is an accurate indicator anymore for sales/popularity. I guess maybe what Oricon can do for me these days is to let me know which artistes have the hardcare fan base and/or general mass appeal. ^^

The thing is that even digitally most of the top 10 or some/a lot either don't do well digitally or does average or just good+.

Take namie's album for example. By far it's the best selling album of the year physically, digitally though (by far) it has WILD and Dr. certified gold for their full songs and that's all, so it's not like this album did something special digitally in total, or even the songs individually.

I just dunno what really are the reasons but maybe most of the people in japan became less interested in music or less interested in paying for music in many times probably due to the economy crisis.

That actually sounds like a pretty good explanation. Take Nishino Kana. She sells about half the amount Ayu does with her singles on Oricon, but I can bet you she has more mainstream appeal than Ayu does. Ayu, on the other hand, definitely has the larger hardcore fanbase.

I think that kana nishino did better digitally more than everyone in the top 10 yearly albums (or singles).
It's not like a lot of the people above ayu in the top 10 did better digitally than ayu herself. =P
Actually just few did as well as or above Sunrise ~LOVE is ALL~ digitally (which had platinum for full song and double platinum for ringtone).

Kana Nishino is probably more appealing to the gyaru group or something, but her sort of music is the kind of music Japan would like anyway, so~

@ayumisrael: I'm not too sure for Namie's sales in digital charts, but at least for Ayu I can tell she's doing pretty well in the digital charts, it appears that people are more interested in downloading specific songs of an artiste's album, than buying a whole single/album, for whatever reason they might have

For example i don't like S/S~LiA~ and Y.../B singles, i hate it so much, so if I could I bought the other songs and I get it on my phone...

So people can buy or download songs that they really like it

I think it's a combination of lack of interest and lack of funds. But unlike some people who do do well on the Oricon charts, Ayu does well physically and digitally. It's clear her songs still have mass appeal! Just because it's not every song she puts out doesn't mean people don't like her music. (not saying you said that btw lol)

This is very true!
I will be pleased if she can get around 310k in sales. For the music industry lately, that's pretty good yes?

I am really happy that she has gone back into the top 10! and the DVD is even up again? This is really great for me!

WTF!!!!!!!! AKB48 Ponytail to Chouchou sells in the first day 354,403!!!!!!!!! They sell more than RnRC in six weeks, why!!!!!!!!!!!

U_U

albums sales have been gone so bad since RnRC out. I havent seen any album exceed 100K first weekly if im not wrong

Because apparently a lot of Japanese are crazy for 15 year olds in bikinis.

There, now that thats out of the picture, let's give it up for Ayu reaching 300k!

^ Kids really like AKB48 these days actually.

Actually a fair amount of regular young girls seem to be into her. Since I started working at Junior high schools in Japan, I've gotten to conduct an interesting little experiment. I teach around 1,000 students total at two different junior highs (ages approximately 13-16) and they filled out a survey for me to get to know them better. One of the questions is who their favorite artist and song is. I've graded about 700 of them so far. The results are:
#1 Arashi - won by a landslide; the most popular artist among both girls AND boys by far.
#2 AKB48 - somewhat surprising for me but for sure both girls and boys at the school like them; so its not just otaku that are inflating their sales these days.
#3 Nishino Kana/Amuro Namie - Honestly though, the results have basically been Arashi and AKB48....and then everyone else. These two are roughly tied, but maybe a little edge to Nishino.
#4 Greeeen - popular with boys it seems; no girl mentioned them.
#5 Various Johnny's groups or Tohoshinki
#6 Various anime songs

Of course other artists were mentioned too, but these are the only ones that were put down by multiple people. I recall only 1 mention of ayaka and BoA. And not a single mention so far of Ayu, Otsuka Ai, or Koda Kumi. Oh and two quite random mentions of Misora Hibari. :)

But, another surprising result were a good number of students who left those two questions blank. I asked a few of them while they were filling it out who their favorite was and they said they didn't have a favorite singer or even a favorite song. Some said they didn't even like music. I was like What?! That's crazy. So there is some general disinterest in music right now and I wonder if it has anything to do with quality or a lack of interesting/good new artists.

Make of it what you will.

Arashi is really famous in Japan, it seems like evn boys like them....And no Ayu???

It's not that unbelievable.

I kinda wonder how that'd work in the States if you asked people who their favorite artist was. Would they say GaGa? Ke$ha? Justin Bieber? Miley?

It's a bit sad, but the younger generation doesn't seem to be too into Ayu. She has kid fans that go to her shows with their parents (and there are also young bloggers who talk about her) but I guess most students aren't too into her. She's old (to them) and isn't exactly doing what Namie is doing with her sound.