What you choose and like better is upto you and I can respect that, and yes Ayu isn't my favourite singer, but I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that I don't like her. She has made a lot of good music, but I just think GUILTY was a mess and it didn't sit well with me.

And, thank you for agreeing with me on Kingdom~! ;)

For me the specially the 3 recent years sales never showcased good or bad albums.
There are some albums that are awesome that sold crap or just lower than the bad albums and some albums that they were mediocre and sold millions.

That's fine, I respect your opinions also, I just don't understand the "you're ayu fans so your opinions are biased comments), this board is clearly not 100% ayu fans and even so I'm sure some will admit some albums are better if they are better and a lot stated it's not one of ayu's best albums (including me).

You're welcome, Kingdom was really better than BC but I wished there would be better albums tracks and less fillers and cute songs (Wonderland ugh).

After the amazing singles Black Cherry had, I expected too much and the only new song I liked was GetUp&Move!!, I am not sure but Kingdom might be a bit better over all though It had weaker singles imo. I am a huge Ayu fan xD but her rockish pop is a kind of music that suits me the best, and even though GUILTY isn't the best of her albums, it's the album I listened to the most since the year started. And I agree with ayumisrael, quality doesn't always sell, imo Hitomi Shimatani's HEART&SYMPHONY albums is among the best (if not the best) albums I've ever heard and it sold miserably, while on the other hand we know what kind of music has been selling well/great, especially this year.

For me, GUILTY >>>>>>>>>>>> Kingdom as a whole, but there are some tracks (Under, BUT, FREAKY) that are SO much better than anything on GUILTY.

But I still have to say that HEART STATION is better than both, and The Face might even be better than both, IMO. I can't count BEST FICTION since it's a best album, obviously.

So far, when it comes to studio albumd, of all that have been released this year I only bought GUILTY, The Face (which was the best album BoA released since L&H) and Shimatani's Flare (I kinda regret buying it, but beh..). I didn't really like HEART STATION that much, ULTRA BLUE and DEEP RIVER are still the ones I love (& have xD) the most when it comes to Hikki, though I did like it more than Kingdom.

GUILTY and THE FACE were the strongest out of the 4 imo.
HS is better than Kingdom.
Though this year nothing was extremely amazing as a whole.
The 4 albums have their flaws.

GUILTY was OK. It was an improvement from Secret but wasn't exactly Grammy worthy material. Kingdom had tight production but it wasn't really cohesive. HS featured some of Hikki's best songs lyrically but the production was HORRIFIC and that was always her forte. BoA's was decent. I'd actually say Ayaka put out the best album of all the major female artists this year.

Guilty has got to many Interludes and ayu did not enough live performances, so the sales are not so good as Kingdom or HS. And Kingdom would have sold much more if the promotion hadn't been stopped because of Koda's mistake. Guilty and Kingdom are not so good albums. I like HS, because all songs are OK and i haven't got the feeling that a few songs just are there to fill the track list. Maybe Ayus albums would have better sales, if she has got more time to record. Ayu shouldn't release a album every year - more singles!! But she doesn't release more singles because she will save her consecutive 1 record.

I haven't listen to THE FACE yet. When i saw the (low) sales i thought the album isn't that good. Now after reading the comments i decide to download it soon.

Kingdom - It was OK. The album tracks were better than the singles. Unlike Black Cherry where it had high points and low points, this album didn't have any imo, which can be either a good thing or a bad thing.

GUILTY - The 2nd half of the album > 1st half. It was better than Secret so I guess it's good.

THE FACE - Worst post BEST OF SOUL album imo. Most of her singles were pretty weak (with the exception of LOSE YOUR MIND, LOVE LETTER) and the album tracks were even weaker (with the exception of My Way, Your Way) .

HEART STATION - I'm not much of a Hikki fan. Her singles were good though (including Prisoner of Love but minus HEART STATION/Stay Gold). I did give the album tracks a listen but didn't really like it.

I haven't heard ayaka's album yet; a part of me doesn't really want to because I don't want to be bored to death but I've read good reviews so I might give it a try when I have time.

-_____-

trust me you wouldn't be bored listening to ayaka , she covered a mix of uptempo pop/rock songs & ballads

but of course if you choose to just to listen to her ballads , I can't blame you

took me a while to warm up to Sing to the Sky but I really love it now alongside with her debut album First Message

ROFL, I was just about to say that. Sorry, Karen~

:weep

Are we all doing collective reviews here? I'll join in on the fun. :)

HEART STATION: One of the best albums I've ever heard, if not the best (as a whole, rather than just a collection of songs). Prior to hearing it, Utada Hikaru had been low on my list of favorite artists, but she sprang up to #1 after I gave it a complete listen. It seems to be a hit-or-miss with audiences - either you "get" the feeling she was going for and love it, or you think she's lost it and spent too much time with her bear. I personally adore how cohesive as an album it is - each of the tracks flow into one another while retaining its individuality (again, my opinion). If this album doesn't hit a million in sales, I'm going to cry.

GUILTY: I like Ayumi's pop works a lot more than her rock-pop material, but GUILTY still managed to impress me. I didn't really like Secret very much - I thought it was a jumble of styles like (miss)understood, but worse - but GUILTY more or less stuck to rock (with a bit of pop at the end). The individual are catchier the more I listen to them, and I love the guitars in the title track.

Kingdom: I liked some songs - FREAKY, But, etc. - but other songs seemed bland to me. It wasn't a terrible album, but nothing about it really stood out to be either. Hence, it's short review.

THE FACE: If it weren't for the fact that I like BoA's version of '90s pop, I wouldn't have given this album a listen. Avex needs to stop using her like a machine and let her run her own course - and be a musician. THE FACE had a couple catchy tracks, but it was even less of a stand-out album than Kingdom.

Rather shocked at Namie Amuro's sales. I guess there's no more question as to whether Namie is back or not. It's getting to that point where it's not really a Comeback anymore. She's just here.

Wow I'm surprised so many people think GUILTY is better than Secret o_O! I personally thought Secret was way better than GUILTY XD

I personally thought aiko's album, himitsu, was the best this year ~ Who's with me =D? LOL

^ I know I think namie came back a long time ago =P lol ~!

:hi5

although I felt that Secret was a bit too rushed , I love the album as it was the 1st proper album that I bought/heard from ayumi .

GUILTY's good too yes but you can definitely tell the music & lyrical content of the album was very dark , even more darker than Secret's which contains a lot of music genres

I don't really listen to aiko, so I can't tell xD BUT while I was listening ayaka's new album I thought I was gonna die, almost all the songs are somehow similar (not the same), and there is really nothing new to it, and it's not that different from what she did with First Message, but there were more singles I liked (Jewelry Day, WHY, Te wo tsunagou & Okaeri ), yet I liked 0 of the new album tracks (and I at least liked Blue days and Eien no monogatari before). So as far as my opinion goes, ayaka's album isn't worth listening. I liked THE FACE cuz it had more songs that could be potential singles unlike MIT which mostly had poor fillers besides Lady Galaxy and STILL. when it comes to the new material. AGGRESSIVE and BRAVE were amazing, and I loved Gyappu ni yararetta! and Girl in the Mirror, and the other songs somehow did fit nicely together, so in the end I only disliked Style and SMile Again (cuz It's too long and repeatative plus I find singing Smile again, egao wo mou ichido ultra annoying, I mean repeating verses in different languages is dumb xD).

BEST FICTION 5th day sales:

x->1->1->1->1 - Amuro Namie - 109,287 + 77,477 + 50,607 + 46,343 + 47,011 (x1.7) = 562,232

^woot! still good huh!?

Tomorrow she has outsold Guilty and maybe Kingdom too.
I think she will stay at 1 next week again.