^that's quite surprising, since I think Ayu is starting to become known for having great performances. She's rehearsed more and more each year, but 500 tickets does seem like a lot (even if it is 60ish per date). It could be that resellers brought a ton of tickets, and avex thought that ticket sales were doing great and added on even more dates, but really it was just an inflated number by resellers? I remember that last year, people were still able to buy tickets to her final night in Yoyogi, which seems quite strange, since that's usually the best night. (2005-2006 were completely sold out, no scalpers at all if I recall correctly)

How do we know though that those 530 people or at least most of them aren't going to a certain date already and decided no to go/cancel other dates they got tickets to?
More people might want to go to just 1 tour date.

I mean if quorter/half of the crowd in some shows are people who went to the same tour twice or more, perhaps those 530 (or most of them) could be people who got tickets for more than 1 date and they decided to keep just one and go to that date.

Perhaps her tour becomes less-returners-to-the-same-show, tour?

blah..
why does this thread turn out to b AT 09 thread..

back 2 topic please..

btw..
when will d usb ep be counted..
i'm tired hearin people say it will count ....day..
where d sales never go up..
or may b it's been counted..;p

n i guess it'll never outsell GUILTY in d end..

I'm just telling you what the resale market is like for Ayumi tickets and this is the first time in my experience that it has looked like this.

So what I brought up can actually be true.
As you said yourself in 1 of the shows you went to and ayu asked who went to see that tour already and half of the crowd raised their hands up (and half would be like 4000-4500) so out of those multiple dates in tokyo this amount of 530 people might be people who actually already got a ticket for one of the shows and sold the other/s since 1 show is enough for them for one reason or another (and here the economical issue can affect since they might need the money for more important things so 1 show would be enough for them or just one they can afford though it might not be it).

As big as this number look I think that indicates more of people that aren't interested to go to more than 1 show of this tour more than less people interested in it.

^ But the problem is, that people deciding to just go to one date on her tour instead of multiple dates is something that you could say was a factor in every single one of her tours prior to this, yet the resale market didn't look anything like it does now. Nor do other artists, judging from the ticket website, have this problem right now. Sorry to bring up Namie again, but she is playing Yoyogi 5 times in a row (and has already played it close to 10 times before on this tour) yet she has a total of only 37 tickets for resale. Couldn't the more likely reason simply be that not enough people in Japan like Next Level enough to justify going to a "Next Level" tour? That's what I think the most likely reason is, even more than just a general gradual decrease in popularity. (because this is not a gradual increase in resale tickets, this is an explosion.)

I agree, though that the economy can effect whether people go to more than one show or not though. It's just other artists currently on arena tours don't seem to be having that issue - so either people don't care about the economy and are still going to multiple shows or Ayu had by far the biggest concert audience made up of multiple attendees.

I just think that the number isn't big enough to be that reason.
It's still 530 out of around 30,000-32,000 (all the tokyo dates together).
Don't you think the number should be way higher to indicate the those people aren't interested in the tour and not aren't interested to go more than once?

Also Namie and DREAMS COME TRUE (specially Namie) are hot and trendy.
Who wouldn't like to go to every date of them?
DCT must have also a bigger and stronger fanbase than what ayu has.

I'm not saying or negating what you bring up of course and it might actually be true, I still would like to bring up the possibility though that if it was it the numbers would be higher and more shocking, and I'm not sure there would be that many additional concert dates since they come from demand.
As big as it looks it's still 530 out of 30,000-32,000 even if for other artists it's way less out of more,
perhaps the amount of people who went to see ayu's tours more than once (the same tour) just decreased.
If it would be like 1,500-2,000+ then I would say "wow a lot of people there hate NEXT LEVEL to death".

But conversely, you also don't just go from having a handful of tickets for each tour date at resale shops (maybe a dozen at most) to suddenly 530 for 9 dates - that number will only rise as more people get their tickets for different dates. But actually it is more like 7 dates, 2 of the dates only have 3 tickets available because they are outside of Tokyo (obviously Tokyo resale shops will primarily only have tickets for Tokyo area concerts. Other areas have their own resale shops, but I don't know if they have websites.) So, at this point, 527 tickets for 7 dates before the tour even starts. And my rough estimate for what it would be in the past based on the number of tickets I would on average see at resale shops before maybe around 60 tickets for 7 dates.

I think that is about the first time in 10 years I've heard someone call Dreams Come True hot and trendy. :) They obviously have a more solid fanbase over the years though. But Namie and Dream Come True are only two examples - you could look at any artist currently on tour and none of them are having the resale blowback that Ayu is. (or like I said, any artist that I have ever seen with only a few Hello Project concerts coming close.)

It most likely WILL rise to that number though. At this pace, by the end of the tour it should easily surpass that.

I still don't think a larger amount of resale tickets in the resale market necessarily means that people are losing interest in Ayu's concerts or Ayu in general. Because correlation isn't causation. It's not ceteris paribus, so there are many other factors in play (such as, as I've mentioned before, people who watch the same show twice deciding not to do so this year). I don't think we should be thinking that Ayu is losing popularity big time or anything, since she still is relative to other artists selling quite well.

Also, it doesn't mean Ayu can't rebound up to the top of the sales tier. With some kickass marketing in 2009, Ayu might really just reach NEXT LEVEL. Somewhat like Namie.

Back onto topic though, I hope NEXT LEVEL reaches 400k. GUILTY couldn't reach 600k, and it looks like NEXT LEVEL will have real trouble reaching 500k if at all, sooo, 400k? 350k looks probable now.

It is just not her year is it.

I personally think NEXT LEVEL will reach 350K...but it's gonna take quite a long time...400K will take months.

I think you shouldn't compare HP and Morning Masume to Ayu, most of those girls are idols and have a bunch of hard core otaku's backing them up, even though their sales generally suck now. Plus keep in mind that many of those artists on tour prolly perform in smaller halls/arenas than Ayu is with less concert dates. There is still time and some of the tickets might simply sell when the tour actually takes off. Sure what you said might be true as we all know that less people seem to like Ayu's music, but as I said before, every single discussion seems to be just for the sake of stating that she's losing her popularity which is rather obvious and it's needless to discuss it over and over again. So I am sorry I am having troubles seeing a point here. Sure this might be the first time this is happening, but this is the first time she is having 35 days for one of her tours and rather than being negative you could simply say that those 2 pretty obvious facts might be related + you said it yourself that this is the first time this has happened even though her sales have been declining the past number of years, so I guess what Andre said makes way more sense.

nuber 4 today, so the USB wasnt too much helpfull

Ooh, no... I was hoping that she will stay at #2. But I hope she will get #2 monthly.

I hope you're right.

I hope you're wrong.

I guess not ;_;.... Oh well. There's still the second wave? But I doubt it'll be much help if the first wave barely made a splash.

(I'm loving this multi-quote tool! yay)

I just hope that her album sales are bottoming out with Next Level and it can only look up from here.

sad to say but, didn't people said the same thing about Secret? and then about GUILTY??

Ah with the 10k USB copies (I think), she's still at #4? May I know what are the sales for the #1 album today?

^-18 076.

#3 (DCT): 7 927...

Okay, thank you!

So is the first batch of USB copies 10 000? Assuming she sold around 5k today, it should be 15k... at least a #2. Omg how do they calculate the USB in the first place?

It's very confusing, but again, I'm also assuming that Oricon might be counting in the USB a day later or something, just to confirm all the numbers.

numbers struggling to reach 350k.....jia you!:rolleyes

i havent get the album yet... sad me

I'm confused...
Why aren't the USB sales counted yett?!

she's gonna hit 300k during the weekend hopefully!
ganbatte ayu!~

They were they just didn't help as much as some expected.

Weekly Digital Downloads Ranking (Full song only, doesn't include ringtones etc.)

23 - NEXT LEVEL
30 - Rule
74 - Days
88 - Curtain call

http://www.riaj.or.jp/data/others/we...art/2009f.html

by the end of the week it'll reach 300k

The MM comparison is to show just how bad it is; ie, if MM has less tickets on the resale market than Ayu is then that is 1. weird and 2. not good. Even with their smaller venues, they continuously have hundreds of tickets at the resale shops. To see Ayu be the one with that amount (and even surpassing it) is what is weird. Anyone else that has frequented resale shops would understand what I am talking about.

The number of dates of the tour should be a small factor, but certainly not to this extent. Other artists with multiple concerts scheduled at the same places are not having this happen. I mean you add on a few more dates than usual and suddenly that means your resale market tickets go from a few dozen to where they are now and going upwards? - there has to be other factors at work.

And I really don't see what the problem is in discussing this (although it should be moved to the tour thread). It IS something that is significant and it is certainly something more worthy of serious discussion than a lot of what gets thrown around on this board. I don't see how its not valid for discussion.

btw, in less than a day the number of available tickets went from 530 to 625. Also keep in mind that they don't count pairs of tickets individually. 1 pair of tickets just gets counted as 1 so actually its way more than 625 but it is way to tedious to figure out what the exact number would be, but at the very least a hundred more.

edit: Even after I just posted this it went up again to 641! It'll be interesting to see after the first Saitama show how many tickets were unable to resell at all. Hopefully they will sell a lot of the tickets on the day of the show at least, but it will be interesting to see for how low of a price. Sad, sad time - normally all the tickets for that show would be gone or very close to gone by now, especially considering that it is the first date of the tour. Generally the first and last are the hardest to get tickets for.

Sorry if you think it sounds too negative, but I just don't like this happening. It would be different if you could say the same thing were happening for other artists, but unfortunately, it's not. :(

I agree. I am hoping that this is the lowest of her low period and then somewhere down the line like Namie she will be able to have a major comeback. Although as someone pointed out, people said the same thing about Secret and Guilty.

glad to see my USB is coming =]

ughh my kinokuniya store did not have the USB, probably all sold out and they probably had the first press, maybe they did =[


they also had a BIG BIG BIG SINGLE SALE CLEARANCE $3 ONLY!!! but i didn't see any ayumi singles, maybe they were all sold out. DAMN UPSET, DAMN IT! >=[


lololol ^ that had nothing to do with NEXT LEVEL but yeah.. >=[

Yeah I'm excited for my USB too! :D

maybe ayu is loosing popularity because her change in music.

So, almost 300k?

..I don't think that's too bad..

Ooh, they're having the $3 clearance sale?! Sweet! I'm gonna have to go to the Kinokuniya over here and check out what CD's they have..

Not really she has been doing the same thing (kinda) since Memorial Address, NEXT LEVEL didn't really change her style much.

@SunShineSlayer - I can't really argue with what you said, but can just hope the things will get better. I don't think GUILTY's sales were bad, nor Secrets. I do think NEXT LEVEL isn't doing well and yeah hopefully this is the bottom for her albums sales.

I'm supposed to get my USB on the 23rd, or maybe that's when it ships. Ack! Does this affect the sales chart too?

You know, there were over 10,000 USBs, right? Or for the First Press at least, there were 7000? If those sold out, and NONE of the previous daily sales numbers have gotten over 7000, then how could the USB sales have possibly been counted?

i seriously don't think USB sales were counted.

do you guys think that avex will want to release another album at the end of the year??

umm why should they do that ? :shrug

just wondering

because they always come up with the craziest things :innocent

Cuz it's AVEX and this could be the first year Ayu's cd sales most likely won't reach a million (total), so since they can't release another compilation, another album might sadly make more sense :(

exactly


something like (miss)understood - Secret

but in this case NEXT LEVEL wasn't release at the very beginning of the year

but still...

maybe this time a mini-album??

The quality of music/songs doesn't necessarilly reflect the album's sales, if it did, Shimatani's HEART&SYMPHONY would sell millions :yes And a solid number of boybands would be selling close to nothing (KAT-TUN and EXILE would be selling coffee and pancakes ^^), in my opinion.

@SURREAL_RAINBOW - even if they release it in January/Feb. 2010 it would still count as fiscal 2009, I really doubt they'll wait more than 1 year to release it. I am just hoping that she will still release 2 singles prior to it.

I know & you think that J-Storm/J-one & Johnny's Entertainment are bad -_-

I believe so but it's still not a valid reason/occasion to ask ayumi to put out another album at the end of the year

it wouldn't be fair for everyone at all , let alone to ask ayumi to overwork like crap

that is so true!

what about Utada's English album.

I really enjoyed it, it was a pretty good album and it didn't sell as many of us expected!

and they can't say that it was because it was in English. Many overseas artists release in Japan and they sell pretty good!



EDIT: I think that we will have to wait and see how other female idols do with their albums this year... like namie for example

then we will be able to tell if the low sales are because of the economy or something else (NEXT LEVEL wasn't a very strong album after all :()

Yeah I don't really want a rushed album to make the sales look better. So yeah, it's not a valid reason to ask her to do another album, but sadly the list of people who care about that in AVEX is blank. :no

We can only hope that it won't happen.

@SURREAL_RAINBOW - well so far WILD/Dr. isn't doing really well physically, as it barely broke 100k on it's 3rd week. Chances are it will barely outsell Rule/Sparkle and considering Namie was in her 2nd peak in 2008 it could either mean that she's already lost it or that the economy is affecting the sales too much, but than again there are examples that can prove that wrong..

I hope so man with the release of the PCDL DVD that will be out next month , should something else be released from avex , ugh that will be horrible

& I agree with you , I don't want another rushed album once again *point at Secret even though it's the 1st ayumi album that I listened/love/bought*

What I would really like to hear from Ayu is another MY STORY - an album filled with well written lyrics and loads of new material. It doesn't really have to be anything new.

So true... Ayu's singles have actually done really well compared to other top female singers. As for NEXT LEVEL not selling as well as expected, I think it has a lot to do with it being released so soon after Rule/Sparkle + some other promotional issues.

NL drop to #4 in Taiwan chart. it cant stay #1 that long like A BEST II

Um, yes it did. It's for the most part different from her previous albums, especially the album tracks. Ayu hasn't done an electronic song since STEP you, and that really wasn't that electro.

To me, there's nothing wrong with the album itself. I don't think thats why it didn't sell well. I think it was a lack of promotion - this is the first time Ayu hasn't really promoted her album well and it shows. We have seen her release singles with little promotion but never an album. She should have given herself more time to make the album and rehease for the arena tour. She's trying to do too much in too little time and there's only so much promotion that can be done without the singer. Even though the album to me is one of my favourite she's ever done, it's no secret that it's rushed and I think the 10 songs/4 interlude mix makes it show.

NEXT LEVEL is @ #5 today.

Oh, no... It is keep falling...

^ Yup... :(

There's a new release just this week ago.

Everything is subjective, that's why I added the imo part :yes Hmm and no I don't think the name's enough, god knows we've seen that it's not even enough to be Utada (Hikaru) and release an album which will sell with low promo and her albums usually sold good with no additional PVs (though HS had loads of TV perfs). I didn't try to make an excuse, just state that the quality of music doesn't really have to determine the sales, but it all depends on your standards and taste I guess.

Considering that both Days/GREEN and Rule/Sparkle were quite successful for female artist standards, I doubt it's the music that's preventing people from buying the album, the new PVs that were aired were a summer song and a ballad and didn't bring anything new to her music. But I guess it's all the matter of taste and it's pointless to argue about the quality of the songs as you said, cuz as usual the opinions will be mixed as we've already seen. Plus we do know that Ayu's sales keep declining with every new studio album, so there is nothing weird with NL selling less than GUILTY.

@tony g - Besides Sparkle and rollin' all the other tracks were pretty much what Ayu has done before, one way or another. So I disagree, NEXT LEVEL doesn't bring that many new things to Ayu's music.

that will be awesome if she come up with another MY STORY as that alongside with Secret were the 1st 2 albums that I heard of her

:yes & that's KinKi Kids's Domoto Tsuyoshi's new solo album which's released at the same time with his new solo single

it's out today instead of Wed cos of his 30th birthday

ugh if not for the fact that I support Johnny's , I would have sent him to the gallows :laugh

Hmm #5 today.... maybe they're counting both UBS shipment waves together later...? Or people really didn't order any lol.

^Oh yeah it's Endlicheri's birthday. Speaking of which, Kinki Kids has also halted their annual year end album for the first time like ayu.

MY STORY really wowed me. It was a cohesive album and each song has a special place in my heart (except Liar and HAPPY ENDING). I would also like another album like that. Why do people keep demanding that ayu change her musical style? I don't think anyone ever told Schubert they were sick of his lieder 600 compositions down the road.

Am I the only one who didn't find MY STORY that special? >_<; Sometimes I think people only like it just because it had 10 new tracks <_<; But I could be wrong!

Anyway, I'm not sure if sales are going to go up anymore because we don't know if the USBs were counted yet. So I hope for longevity to the max for this album! I think with some performances and the tour, the album could at least stay on the chart for a decent amount of time... besides, it's about the end result not how it started, right?

Another My STORY album, will be great! In that album it was like ayu made up a whole new genre... I wonder why her sales keep on decreasing. She has the promoion and everything. MAybe it's because she keeps on releasing new things in such a close time, there isn't as much as a demand for her...

Utada's english debut album sold approximately 500,000 units on it's first week in Japan.

This is the One debuted with 77,000.

Next level is selling at least double, so that probably means NL is much better than this is the one, according to Corikaru standards :)

Anyway, i'm happy with the album. I really like Next Level :D. i cannot say the same thing with This is the one.


I think the same way. The release of NL kind of affected Rule/Sparkle sales, in my opinion. :s. That was a shame because the Ep was so amazing :luv2 Same thing happened with Bold & Delicious/Pride :(

#5 today... I honestly wonder if the USB were counted... there were, what, 7000 copies for the first press batch? *confused*

Ah, the reason to why MY STORY is so great is because almost every song is filled with good emotions, lyrics and melodies. I like MY STORY a lot, and it's honestly my favorite album from Ayu.

I hope NEXT LEVEL will do well eventually, and also make miracle when the USB copies finally start getting counted in... I suppose they needed a few days to process the numbers or something. Or maybe even the USB copies would be tabulated in the weekly sale, and not the daily sales.

Did Utada even promote her album in Japan?

Exactly! I have nothing against her doing what she has been doing the past couple of years, as she is damn good at it. Btw Liar and HAPPY ENDING are one of my fave MY STORY tracks.

Yeah it got 8-9 different magazines articles and in stores billboards promotion.

promotion does help a lot but I really wonder why Avex is doing so little for NL promotion? Could it be that ayu chose to concentrate on her concert instead? Because wad i heard was the revenue earned from concert can easily surpass album sales. Moreover ayu always have soldout concerts

Well MY STORY was very different from what she had released earlier...maybe going in the way of Because of You. Not to mention that, even though there is 10 new tracks, most of them have unique lyrics, and the album does have a definite flow and theme.

For me, it's one of, if not the best put together album, mostly because it's consistent, without being boring. It also doesn't really fall under any genre, it's not exactly Rock, but it's not really pop either, which kind of goes hand in hand with Ayu's releases...or well...the good ones anyway.
Which isn't really anything.

@CoriKaru: you're probably right...however, the thing that scares me is, if Ayu were to have actually put out a good album...I'm not so sure her sales would have been that much higher. Of course, the album she put out combined with all the feelings about her = these kinds of sales.

You are right though about the quality of music, however, I think sometimes we need to take into consideration that there are other factors for people liking certain music, like boybands lol if someone needs an example, other than just the music.

Not everyone is a musician or a music connoisseur. Most people are just average arent they.

Go listen to the album damnmit :P

Yep, MY STORY was such an amazing album. Even if the tracks scored separately might not be absolutely amazing, it just seems like they flowed so perfect in the album and the style that went along with it was grand. It will always be my favorite album and pretty much where I put the bar at for Ayu releases, like "Hm, is this better than MY STORY? Where does it fall in comparison?" Lol.

Her popularity has been declining since 2003, so that's nothing new. No matter what kind of music Ayu did the sales kept declining since I am...

Sure that's true, but that didn't stop more people from buying the albums in the past. I was just saying that considering the singles were quite successful one would think more people would go for the album. Overall you didn't say anything that isn't obvious :innocent

I didn't say the quality of music has nothing to do with the sales (you are free to re-read my posts), I was just saying that the if an album/single is of what we consider to be "great quality", that doesn't mean it will sell well. As we are all aware that even what we consider junk can sell. That's all. I don't really need to make up excuses as I am quite aware of the whole situation Ayu's currently in + I simply don't think anythings wrong with her music :) but that's another matter of opinion.

I agree 100%.
And those of us that are comparing have actually LISTENED to these albums and our opinions are based on the albums' contents. We all know that Ayu and Utada are big names and thus we assume they should have been able to sell well with minimal promotion. This is clearly not the case anymore. Things like the quality of music on an album is very subjective. Several top selling albums, which I will leave unnamed, made my ears bleed yet they were received very well by the public.

While this was a response to someone else, I'm not sure what you're trying to say about listeners. Yes, normally your average Joe will be the one buying an album, but that doesnt mean that musically uneducated people can't have good, or different taste. What I might find ingenious you might think is garbage and vice versa.

^ she's saying that music isn't the only thing thats going to get us to buy an album. We're going to judge artists/bands on other things too like looks and such. At least thats what i got from her post.

I personally feel that her album sales are decent at this point but definitely lower than expected D: but yeah at least she got platinum no matter what lmao. I think thats good enough. TBH her album wasn't that great IMO. Its a decent album. I like a few tracks on it, but I didnt feel like they were good enough for me to buy the album and I didn't even keep the songs. I deleted them all after my first run( except for the songs on GREEN/days single because I actually bought that). OF coruse its different in people's opinion but I mean we can definitely say NL wasn't anything too new or special compared to like My Story or even (Miss)understood >< ~! At least the album seems to be selling very stabiliy. So maybe in the end it'll reach 400k or more :)!

@emiko I was about to say the same thign about utada's promotion lol XD ~!!! but then I expected this since she released this album more for the US than japan. At least the album seems to have stability to it even with that kind of promotion lol :) ~!

You're not the only one! I also don't think it's that great of an album. Too many of the tracks sounded the same to me. In my opinion it is a bit over rated. Though I do like it, I certainly don't love it. However it's different for everyone I guess ;)

They may have counted on the first day, even though people didn't think they would. Or they could have been counted on different days, not all just on one.

Yeah, with Namie at least these single sales are slightly higher than average for her the last couple of years though. I did think it would sell more than this though. It has stayed consistently high on the download charts however.

294,884 is a pretty good number

I hope she will sell more than 8 hundreds copies!:P

nope! i was so disappointed with MY STORY. it was more of a quantity over quality album. i can't even listen to it through all the way, i skip so many tracks. :no

anyway i hope she will eventually reach 400k.

For the concert - We should not own worries though since the tour is still her most demanded one to date and the number of tickets re-sale is still lower than minor compared to the number of the audience in those venues (even if we are subtracting their number from a total of 1 venue).

It's more articles than NEXT LEVEL got and ayu's album is only aimed for japanese audience.

I actually find (miss)understood being less experimental (the only new styled song there after all is Bold & Delicious and maybe Pride too).
NEXT LEVEL had really major electronica influenced songs using pop and rock and synthed beats and that's why the album is getting mixed feelings and also from the japanese audience, unlike (m)u that a lot of people liked and it was less experimental.

For hikki's promotion, it was the same with EXODUS that wasn't aimed for the japanese audience and sold a million. No one expected it to be popular in japan like that, but I saw many and a lot expecting way more out of it, at least half a million specially considering a lot of people liked it more than EXODUS. Let's stop the TITO discussion though.

This thread is dark and gloomy enough with people's dissapointment with NL's sales (which generally the number isn't bad but for ayu's standards it's a bit dissapointing).

Btw oricon might actually count the USBs at the end of the oricon week.
Remember that the first week sales were +13,000ed more than the estimated number?
We will know though only at the end of the week (if there won't a be big drop) probably.
If there will though then yeah we can say the encore press officially didn't help much.

wow, i had no idea that Exodus sold so much! it was a total flop in the US, as is TITO.

m(u) wasn't experimental, it was just a jumble of different very definite styles that didn't flow together when mashed onto the same album.

but i think the sales are doing fine. Avex nor Ayu can complain, considering how rushed NL was.

That's probably the best opinion I've heard of the album. I look at it a slightly different light now. It's still not my favorite though.

Yeah the tracks did sound the same to me too.

I only listen to 7 of the 17 tracks and most of them are the singles. All of my favorite MY STORY songs are on A BEST 2, so I quite literally never listen to the album.


Anyway, I hope I'm not too bold in saying this, but I think it's weird that Japan doesn't like this type of music. Forget whether it's "good or bad," it's dance/electropop which is what's "in" now. The fact that Ayu even tried it is different in itself. Do you think Japan tolerates this music from others and just not her?

Well they seem to like...like Perfume and stuff right?

I personally don't feel Ayu really did it "right". But I mean...I don't think that's how they feel...

I kinda feel like they're tired of her or something...but I really don't know.

What's popular in Japan is kind of a mystery to me...I don't understand how groups like Mr. Children can sell so much...but how a lot of the artists just...don't make it. Especially when they're really amazing and talented musicians.

Maybe some one else can shed more light on it.

Yeah I hope someone can! Because I'm curious too...

*Well... she have a 11 years non-stop career... what makes people a little tired of her.

*She is 30 now... and a lot of people thinks that she is too old (her fame is at some extent based on looks).

*She is losing popularity since Rainbow.

*We have the world crisis... her fanbase is 25~30 years old people mainly... some boy bands are suported by young girls that doesn't really care about this things and the old classics bands have larger fanbases (she had more casual listeners than fans maybe).

*Female solo singers popularity in general is falling since 2000~2002...

*Albums sales in general are falling since the begining of both piratary and digital music... And Oricon only counts physical sales.


=)

Well I can also say that I think part of the reason why I loved MY STORY so much is because it was the first album release I actively followed (I became an Ayu fan in about 2002/2003/2004 but it was through Depend On You on Thousand Arms.
Then I looked up what the best album would be to ask for Christmas since I didn't follow the message boards too much and got LOVEppears. Then I followed her singles starting with Moments thru to the release of MY STORY so it was very exciting. I just love that era though. Nothing can touch Moments. It's just that the songs that were staple songs on the album were done so well. I mean their were fillers (Liar, HOPE or PAIN, ...) but I loved even those ones. What I'm saying is that my name's WOMEN, About You, walking proud, and Humming 7/4 (yes, I liked it a lot) were polished perfectly. Like if you would try to improve on them, it would be impossible. Where as with later albums, it seemed I could always pick out changes that could have been made in the album tracks to really make them shine.

And really, I love NEXT LEVEL. I think that since Sparkle was such an amazing song released right before the album that no album tracks really even compare to that song. They are good, but Sparkle is superb.

Well we already know that, but I mean what is about this type of music that is turning people off to her. Unless it's just not the music and all of the things you mentioned.

I don't really think that the music itself have a great impact on the album sales... Even if NL is a very fresh album, it's nothing that she really hasn't done before... This time she didn't have a Bold & Delicious or something like that...

People love Mr. Childrens lyrics. They love Ayu's too, but Mr. Children is a bit different. I constantly hear about not only how emotionally good their lyrics are, but how 'smart' they are. They do a lot of plays on words and what not that only really native speakers would pick up. They also are very average, everyday type guys that people can relate to - I find that sense of humility and ability to relate on a common everyday level takes you a long way in Japan. Southern All Stars, B'z etc are like that as well. They all have boatloads of money but the point is, is that they do not act like they do - they at least appear not to have changed at all whether they have $10 in their pocket or a thousand dollars.

What genre does she have left really? xD;

.... Jazz? Country?.... Lounge music?.... Gospel (like REAL gospel, the kind Mika's did lol). METAL, Ayu should do metal music next :roflmao

^ there are always more things that an artist can do. Jazz, country, opera, etc etc doesn't mean that she would have to go 100% into those genres, but to mix elements of those genres with pop music could give her something interesting and great.

btw, about the debate as to whether music quality effects sales? I think it does. Not always though. If something is the hot trend of the moment, it will sell no matter how crappy it is. But for established artists that have been around for years, I do think that quality starts to play a key factor.

^Gotta agree about the humility part you were talking about. Who wants to see her in ANOTHER glittery dress and strut around with her 100th LV bag?!?! In her previous years, she had a style that could be imitated by teenagers, and not just the elite rich. (I am-Rainbow era was pretty good; she could've been easily mimicked by girls) Now she wears extremely expensive clothes, or clothes that no one really wears on the streets(take the Rule performance on MSta for example).

The Deji book was a nice thing to see though. She seemed really happy to see her fans, and she wore something plain(well not brand-name at least). If only she could continue that...

I would really love for her to do jazz actually... I think her voice is good for that genre now that it has matured. Or something like that remix of STEP you that was reggae <3. Or even a collaboration.

Talking about "quality" in music is very hard... there's no way to say what is good music or bad music besides opinion, cause everyone looks for differents things on whatever he/she listens to...

So... I don't think that quality is a factor here (but if you are talking about how japanese liked her older songs better and how they think that she was better before, them, maybe this is a reason...)

I know you're kidding, but I would LOVE if she made a metal song. xD Since I heard t2m, which had quite a few metal elements I have been thinking about how well her voice would fit in metal music (I don't mean the growling-kind of metal of course xD;; ) . But that's not gonna happen since most of her fans are fans of pop-music.

I would love Ayu to do some VERY hardsounding metal track, aswell as a clever jazz song. Or better yet, triphop! She's done triphop 2 times in remixes (HAPPY ENDING mix from Ayu-mi-x 6 and the AND THEN voice-spectral mix from Ayu-mi-x 2), but an actual triphop song would be superb =)
THAT would be a next level :-)

NEXT LEVEL actually brought my love back for dance music and I dug out my FutureSex/LoveSounds album and I ended up listening to Justin Timberlake more than Ayu...

My point is, there's nothing wrong with Ayu going with a new style, but at the end of the day, the only stand-out dance track on NEXT LEVEL was Sparkle. As much as I love rollin', I think Sparkle was the only 'real' dance track on NEXT LEVEL.

So in the end, what is it about NEXT LEVEL? The only thing I can see from it is arrangement/theme-based... I'm okay with the sales but again this album feels so energetic but again it's so... lazily-produced if you get what I mean.

Maybe if she got longer time to make this (instead of getting rushed by avex), it would be better, which might inspire better sales.

OMG! I would LOVE THAT <3 So how are sales looking today?

Yeah! The rough, hard and metal guitar bangs/riffs in talkin' 2 myself are love!

#5. Won't know the actual sales till the end of the week.

I agree, her voice is made for hard rock type songs. t2m was great. But once I heard NEXT LEVEL.. her voice works so well in electro pop/rock songs as well. I've wanted Ayu for ages to dab into electronic music again.. she really hadn't done it since Connected. And I have to say it turned out pretty well, especially Sparkle. That song is just epic. Even Mirrorcle World sounded totally different to anything she's done before, it would be great if she made more songs like it.

It's exciting to wonder what sound she's gonna explore next. Triphop would be cool. XD