I hope the single sells more than "STEP you / is this LOVE?" but it sounds impossible now.

I hope Ayumi releases a single someday that will sell more than STEP you / is this LOVE?. I still believe she's got it in her. :D

Yeah, it probably is. Remember that STEP you sold over 300,000 units....at this point I think it'll be hard for Ayu to even reach the BLUE BIRD sales, which is around 250,000.

on Oricons weekly.. right now it is saying #15 for glitter/fated

Oh yay just about 150,000 thats good!

it's hard for anyone to sell 300,000 copies, not just ayu. it seems that singles arent as popular as they were before. people just assume download them and/or wait for the album to come out.

The runaway success that was Flavor of Life aside, here's a list of 2007 singles that HAVE sold that much so far:

-NEWS - Hoshi wo Mezashite
-Mr. Children - FAKE
-ARASHI - Love so Sweet
-Kobukuro - Tsubomi
-Kanjani8 - Kanfuu FIGHTING
-ayaka x Kobukuro - WINDING ROAD
-KAT-TUN - Yorokobi no Uta

...so I wouldn't say it's "hard" persay, just not easy-peasy. Ayu is definitely one of the most influential artists out there in J-pop today so it should be accomplishable for her. Oh well, sales do not always accurately reflect the quality of music, so it's not a big deal.

Well, these new singles will probably just fall down after the first few days, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. :p

Well all those singles you mentioned all either were Johnny's, had a big drama tie-in or in the case of WINDING ROAD, a special collaboration.

^ Johnny's don't usually have their success set in stone ;) Some Johnny's singles have done not-so-well. There was a special collaboration between Shimatani Hitomi and what's-his-face earlier too, but that barely made a dent in the charts. And technically "FAKE" is a movie theme, not drama; if that could be used to explain its sales, then we should take "Kaidan" into account for glitter/fated too (which we'll have to do later considering it was released just Saturday).

I just think it's a stretch to say that breaking 300,000 is a feat...500,000 yes, but 300,000 is still realistic.

The frequency of high selling singles sure has dropped a lot though since 2004/2005.. :\

I wonder just what happened to the market. LOL

I forgot to say in my original post that FAKE was a limited 400k single, which would have sold over 300k easily (imo) in terms of Mr. Children's popularity. The ayaka/Kobukuro single was boosted by their success of their own albums and for both of them, it was their 1st post-album single release. As for Johnny's, Arashi had HYD 2, NEWS was their "comeback" single and KAT-TUN/Kanjani 8 are one of the hottest groups within JE.

^ Hmm, good points. Though, you'd have thought that Ayu's popularity would work for her like it does for Mr. Children....then again, they've always appealed to a wider audience than Ayu does.

Popular boy bands always do so >.< ...
Well they're one of the boy bands that sold more than ayu in total sales there are 2 more but I still think ayu has the chance to get around either with a good promotion or a really stonker song, or both.

well, out of all the singles released this year, and only 7 were able to sell 300,000 copies+, id still consider it hard. especially since the majority of the singles are by the most popular Johnnys groups. Johnny's usually sell high amounts--popular johnny's, that is. they also act in many dramas, which use the songs as themes as well. plus, ayaka and kobukoro were quite popular then. and mr.children is always popular lol. anyway, what i should have said was that its hard for any female solo artists to sell 300,000 copies, to be more specific :D

Well, aside from the obvious illegal downloading problem. I really think they need to incorporate legal downloading figures into the CD sales.

Mr. Children is not a "boy band". They aren't like a Johnny's group.

Ayu just needs a great, wow kind of song. Her amount of promotion has always been fine.

Bye-bye, #1 streak. :D

it is impossible taht glitter can sale more than step you...

i hope that 42th single can do better than glitter

I actually think it would have been better if the single carried on off fated ballad-ability. Ballads are popular in Japan and fated is no bad at all... I know it was a summer single, but glitter isn't really anything new, so it wouldn't hurt if she made fated the A-side...

They have sort of torn apart the promotion for the single, everything was split in half, sort of in mess... the did a mini-drama, they put drama shots up on posters and billboards, they did a mini site for the drama... but then they sent Ayu to Hawaii to do summer photos, they shot a colourful cover, they performed glitter on Music Station... It seemed quite messy to me.

At the rate both artists are going right now, I don't think Ayu will pass Mr. Children any time soon.