If you want to compare promotions of the other CDs, lets start with Secret first. She preformed 11 times, 10 jewel + 1 1love, 6 magazine appearances, 2 radio appearances. Startin' was the theme song for a game, BtB - winter olympics, Blue Bird- zespri kiwi, beautiful fighters - dsnap, jewel - Lumix, 1 love Dsnap, Secret - movie. She had nov-dec to promote this over a month.

Guilty had 10 performances mainly together when... and 8 magazine shoots. T2M had Lumix, glitter was used 4 times for different things, fated a movie, decision music.jp. She had between December to January to promote this. Over a month easily.

Next Level had 1 tv performance, like 2-3 magazines, and 5 songs used for promotion. She had 2 DAYS to promote it, mainly her visit to the radio station and her performance in rule. The rest she just practiced for her tour/Finishing her album. 4 versions =/= promotion. USB is not promotion. How can you promote music with no sample??? Also how can you when the majority of ppl cant hear the songs of next level less than a week since it's release date?

Can you say it's the same?

NEXT LEVEL's promotion sucked big time.

lol i agree. i don't get people sticking up for the promotion of NEXT LEVEL. it really did SUCK. i missed her usual spam of TV performances

It is actually pretty sad... And I just do not understand if it is she's who do not care about promo that much anymore and more concentrated on her TOURS now, or it's a fault of greedy avex?:shakehead

And I'm pretty sure that avex once again forced her to release it sooner than she planned. However I might be wrong.

As for promo. I know that Kuu is not Ayu, but she's performed TABOO thousand of times as well as stay with me and she wasn't able to reach even 90K for each. Rule/Sparkle was never performed (that Rule performance was actually for album promo already) and she's easily crossed 100K. Or was it 'cause of Dragon Ball?:o

Ayu's singles have always tended to sell pretty well though, relative to most other artists nowadays who are not Johnny's. I mean, the other artists who release singles that outsell hers... that's usually because their song is a hit, right? I'm thinking of Soba ni iru ne and Kiseki. The other singles by these artists don't really outsell Ayu on average. (Although that's changing.) Ayu's songs don't usually rank on Billboard-Japan since they add in radio-play and other factors... except Days, because Days ranked #1, so Ayu's other songs are usually not really the "hottest must listen song this season!" to the casual listener. That shows that Ayu is selling well consistently despite not producing actual hits.

On a side note, although it's nice that Ayu gets more time away from advertising and promotion (but is performing wayyyyy more concerts), I kinda miss her constant appearance in the public through television or other things. :(

Rule/Sparkle was not only a new single, it was a remix single as well with 3 versions. Only the CD+DVD version is not a good buy, while the other two are. Having GREEN/Days Orch versions? With 4 new remixes? Besides, Taboo was a 1 single side, same as Stay with me... so if you combine their sales, they beat out Rule/Sparkle. :D Kuu is not a singles artist anyways. She had some hits, but it's mostly her albums that sells the most.

Also, I wonder why think the DBZ movie is to promote the album as well. Doesn't it promote the single more? :kameha The first press had a pic of Ayu from the artist.

Yeah, NEXT LEVEL had a promotion but it was awful. =\
It must be her lowest promoted release ever. (Maybe except for some remix albums).

That's why I don't get why it's a "flop".
The sales are nothing amazing but for the poor promotion it got, It got more attension from people than it should have or minimum the attension it should have get with this promotion.
4 versions aren't a promotion, it's marketing and it's actually 3 versions + a limited USB version but still the casual listener has to actually know or to get interested in buying any of them somehow since the casual listeners don't follow ayu. XD
Also because ayu did her thing with a different album there must have been less fans who are interested.

omg it jumped back to 18

NL drops at #26 today :(

thats alright I guess



it jumped a lot yesterday

which position is she this week and how are the sales for this week ?

8th week sales:

**3,439 NEXT LEVEL / 浜崎あゆみ 09/03/25

Total thus far: 357,375

So it will reach 360k in a week or so :) Thanks babamon~

So it will pass 360,000 in a week or 2 tops.
Great =D.
Thanks for the update.

「NEXT LEVEL」 VS 「GUILTY」
1st week : 240,810 | ORICON's Holidays
2nd week : 050,271 | 432,113 [Combined 1st+2nd week]
3rd week : 028,575 | 072,027
4th week : 013,131 | 024,715
5th week : 009,368 | 012,340
6th week : 006,863 | 008,826
7th week : 004,918 | 004,371
8th week : 003,439 | 003,392
Total 8w = 357,375 | 557,784

It seems it's selling the way GUILTY did now.

Yeah now it has got smaller drops than GUILTY though not by a lot.
I hope it will have a better consistency.

YAIIY.. it will sell 370K soon... next target is 380K which is quite hard

I'm sorry but majority of the people who watched movie (source: serebii.net, go read their DB: E movie thread if you've got time.), finds that Rule sucks.

And why? Because I suppose the impression of the song was greatly reduced due to the disgusting factor of the movie. So in a way, this is an ANTI-promotion.

Yeah Rule is such a great song tie-ined with such a crappy movie :(

^ Its really bad that Ayu should be popular world-wide because of that movie that turned out into something disastrous. :cry