^ Omg yes... alan's Megumi no Ame too... I love these.

Well A BEST 2 BLACK is an interesting compilation, so I'll leave it as a "mystery", hahaha.

BLACK was meant to be a ballade compilation, but not in the way that A BALLADES was. Like, BLACK put together a wide range of what were technically all ballades, though a few of them were "rock" ballades and such. A BALLADS was almost like a remix album of what many would consider "true" ballades, since only a few of the tracks were in their original forms.

Yeah, that's why I like A BEST 2 -BLACK- so much more because it was a wider and more interesting range of ballads.


ANYWAY! Even though NEXT LEVEL only had two ballads, I personally thought they were really great. I still sing along to Days randomly throughout the day :D

^ I LOVE Days and Curtain Call both! Man, NEXT LEVEL really is a great album... It's one of those that has to grow on you, but when it does... So much love. ^_^

It's her most upbeat and cheerful album, woo!~

It definitely is! :D That's why I love it so much! I love how her albums totally reflect her mood and emotions, whether happy or sad :D

That's so true! Well, not exactly since I barely listened to NL at all for it to grow on me, but still. When it came out I really disliked it and it's musical style and the lyrics (other than identity) didn't strike me either.

Then, few weeks ago after all kinds of crap had happened to me and I thought I needed some gloomy music. I opened my music player's Ayu setlist and turned shuffle on and soon I heard the intro of NEXT LEVEL (the song) and thought of skipping it but kept listening. By the end of the song I felt really carefree, easygoing, happy and even kind of hopeful. :laugh

The song soon after it was Days, another Ayu song I barely ever listened to. It also now had the same effect, and the fact the lyrics are kind of bittersweet made me feel even happier because I could relate to them so much at the moment, and it gave me the "life is a treasure, whatever sometimes happens" feeling. I then felt like listening to the whole album and now, voila, it's like the big everyday moodbooster for me. I've listened to it like thousands of times for the last few weeks. NL is probably my favourite Ayu (edit: not just Ayu song, but out of all songs) song atm even though I never have listened to other music of such style.

I'm really glad now that Ayu released this album even though I hated it at first. :love

I kind of think that's exactly what she was going for with this album :) I'm glad it lifted your spirits :D

:laugh i loved NL since the beginning and still love it. the only song i didn't care too much for was Days but that grew on me a lot. i'm like in love with it now lol. that's cool the album grew on people that used to dislike it!

Yeah! Must have grown a lot because it's still selling well :D

:yes

same I also didn't care that much for Days as it's not my fave winter ballad of hers

I'm fine with it now I suppose & I guess for someone who likes to listen to fun & happy upbeat music , NEXT LEVEL's for you

Weird, I was just listening to NEXT LEVEL and though I'm in the state of freaking out right now, the song just made me started to smile

But I still don't care for Days or Curtain call yet XD

I like Curtain call, but Days is just awful. XD

Im one of those few who loved NEXT LEVEL since day one and adding to the list im also one of those who can't stand listening to Days much.

I didn't love Days at first, either, but a few listens got me hooked. :) I'm still not a big fan of NEXT LEVEL though. It's actually one of my least favourite songs of hers. >.>'

I always loved NEXT LEVEL, the direction is pretty cool and ayu doesn't have to release depressed songs/albums all the time (even if I love them as well).
It's a really good Pump up album with 2 pretty ballads at the end.
Actually Days became my favorite ballad ever (because of the great balance of positivity and negativity feelings it conveys probably), it just too over Moments.
I'm glad that the PVs of Days still chart and do well on Recochoku. ^^

I guess I love GREEN more than Days when the single 1st leaked out

somemore she has better winter ballads in her discography too but at least the lyrics pertaining to Days are touching

Yep, I love how it portrays simple but sophisticated feelings in a philosophic way. ^^

23rd Week
Position: Still Unknown
Sales: 831
Total Sales: 375,638

NEXT LEVEL officially charted more than RAINBOW. =D

WOAH!!!
That's was so AMAZING!

Thanks for the update!

sales decrease 100 copies each week.. thats so good.....
next is to defeat I am... chart life

Omg @ Days hate lol.

But it's one of my favorite albums from Ayu... I just love how happy and carefree it is~

And wow, it's doing really well in the charts! Maybe this IS the NEXT LEVEL of her chart... horrible first week sales but omg longevity, hahah.

it took me FOREVER to grow on Days . Also it helps that I prefer GREEN by a long shot , song wise

anyway I'm happy in the way that NEXT LEVEL's performing & it has crossed 375K :heart

it will hit 376K soon which's nice

I'm so glad it's charting so well! :D I wonder why this album has better longevity than some her previous albums but the lowest sales compared to the previous albums...? Interesting.

And LOL@ all the Days hate!!! xD; Wtf guys, come on!!! It's not THAT bad!! hahaha

Add me to the list, i'm also a Days hater! XD
I don't know, I just can't stand the song, it's horrible.

But I still love Next Level as an album (except for Days, haha). It's the first album I like the majority of her songs.

Wow,
I never thought that NEXT LEVEL would been so long in the charts but it's great that people still buy it.

IMO the remixes on Rule/Sparkle make it a lot nicer. It's also bearable live. :P

I'm really loving this longevity. COME BEAT I am...!!

Ayu can be so pride ! Who can do this =D

It's great =3

I've nerver listened to it. I avoid everything with Days written on it, but maybe I should give this a try. XD

Oh dear. Girl, you're missing out on so much... Days is literally her best song...

For me, Days is even THAT much better when comparing it to GREEN, lol... That's definitely in my top ten least favourite Ayu songs ever. >.>

Tastes are different. Fortunately.^^

^ I agree with that. XD

:O I love GREEN. ;)

I'm so pride of that!! Ayu does stay strong!!

the acoustic orchestra version of days is beautiful.. i still think it's much better than the original. and i rarely hear of anyone hating GREEN, that's new

So weird, haha, I used to think GREEN > Days, but after hearing and listening the lyrics in depth, it's a better song. Now Days is one of my favorites from Ayu, while GREEN is just a good song.

I think one of the reasons that Next level is still charting is that days is such a good song. haha, look at it still on the download charts.

^ the only thing Days lacks is an amazing arrangement and composition - GREEN is superior when it comes to those.

if her voice in GREEN sounded like the Panasonic commercial in the final product, i would love the song so much more. her deep voice and the vibrato detract from how amazing the song is. i'm really not a fan of Days. :( she has many ballads that stick with me and i adore, and Days is not one of them. the orchestra version is beautiful, though... the arrangement, that is.

i wish there was an orchestra version of HEAVEN. HEAVEN × DAISHI DANCE has an amazing 30 second orchestra intro, i wish there was a full version of something like that.

although to be more on topic, i do have to say that i was one of those that it took a while for NEXT LEVEL to grow on. at first i thought the songs were forgettable, which to me still some are, but there's nothing really bad on the album. rollin' is one of my favorite songs... the intro is my ringtone, actually! not the mario music but when it starts getting more intense.

I think Days is one of those songs that you have to be in a certain mindset to love it... And after it it will have a place in your heart or something. :laugh

Now I don't even know why I hated it in the first place. I remember thinking Ayu's singin was dragging and the melody reminded me of some christmas carol. xD But now I really adore the song. My thoughts of the song now: Ayu's vocal's are very clear and smooth, the melody is very simple but beautiful and the violins in the background are just perfect.

Oh and I also love the repeating piano melody (there's a better name for it but I can't remember) during instrumental parts.

But well yeah everyone can't like everything she releases. :) I know because I'm still in the minority that dislikes Curtain Call... xD Well, maybe someday....

The 22nd week's position was #135. ^^

That's nice. Thnks!

Tal, the really stupid me asked this question... meant for this album, but I posted in the A COMPLETE chart!!! >.<

I was wondering if TRICK is still charting.

I'm so proud of NEXT LEVEL, it really deserves this long chart life! 23 weeks is a lot. Even though I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing that it charted more than RAINBOW, 'cause it's my favorite album from her... :laugh Anyways, congrats to Ayu and NEXT LEVEL!

And about the comments about Days... I really love that song! I think it's mostly because of the PV, though. I heard the song at the first time when I was watching the PV, and PV is amazing. I always remember it when I'm listening to the song... :heart I'm not sure if I would like the song that much if I haven't watched the PV. I still prefer Curtain call over Days.

i loved rainbow also. i couldnt stand next level though ( i only like rule and sparkle ) i m surprised this album is still selling i wonder if her older album charts once in a while when she re sing her old songs

my, my, this is certainly a sign of the times. an album in 2009 can only sell 375k (so far) but chart longer than an album that sold 1.8 million from 2002.

^ *nodnod* What a shame. :(

They really need to count in the downloads in the same chart imo...

Yeah, I think that's pretty much everybody's opinion, to include the digitals with the physicals. I really don't see any major negatives to the idea, so I wonder why the charts haven't started doing it already? >_<

I for one don't agree that they should put legal downloads along with sales.
Yeah the numbers will be way more inflated but still,
the money artists/labels get from legal downloads are nothing compared to what they get from physical sales, so if we won't know just the physical sales it won't be as interesting imo.
+The artists will be on the exact same state as they are, just with inflated numbers that add no meaning.
I think it's cool oricon counts the physical sales and RIAJ the recochoku (chaku uta) and iTunes (PC downloads).
We can know physical sales and legal downloads (welll 100,000-250,000, 750,000-1,000,000 and such). We don't need them combined together imo.

^ Agreed. Besides, if they really were to include legal downloads... Ayu wouldn't even be doing "well" anymore. Right now with physical sales, we can still rejoice, but with legal downloads... I highly doubt so.

^^ Hm, that's a good point.
Ayu never does terrible in digitals though, does she? Like, I know she usually doesn't do spectacular, but she still gets at least decent sales, right?

I don't think her digital sales are bad, but many other singers do even better than her in digital sales, so...

What is good is that ayu does better than a lot of other singers physically as well.

Yeah, ORICON shouldn't combine digital and physical sales, but I wish they'd count more digital shops. :P

If ORICON combines physical and digital sales together, Ayu would probably lose her streak or something LOL. There are artistes who do a lot better than Ayu digitally despite bad physical sales... I think ORICON should at least have a separate digital chart if they ever have one.

^ regardless of that possibility I'd still like them to make a combo chart and two separate ones. That way it would be easier to determine what is really popular among people in Japan.

^ It'd be better if we had a digital and physical chart separate. We could still see who is popular easily by adding up sales.

lol Oricon will have so much to do if they had all of these, lol.

i agree with this and to everyone else who thinks so. physical sales are really something special... for one they cost a lot more than download. it has more... meaning imo.

I don't think physical and digital sales should be combined because we may not get accurate figures. It would be ratios like in Taiwan or something. I think it would be a good idea for Oricon to make a separate chart for digital sales though!

Still charting. =D

24th Week
Position: Still Unknown
Sales: 722
Total Sales: 376,360

hooray , it has passed the 376K mark :heart

yiiipppeee../ its selling so steady. never seen ayu's album sold so well

Yay crossed 376k! :D

I think it will definitely surpass 380k... NL is just refusing to go away LOL

Yay for the 24th week on charts!!

God I can't believe he still charting ! I'm so glad =D I hope it will break 380k mark !

It should definitely get to at least 380. It should keep charting for at least another two weeks, right? At between 500 and 1,000 per week...so that just leaves one to three thousand copies to pass 380. I really think, seeing that it's still going, it's possible. :)

top 10 yearly...?

It's already #11.
It might be on top 15 which will be better than GUILTY though.

380k would be great~

silly Oricon... if they are going to count physical sales they should actually include THEM ALL.

Ho okay let's go for top 15 >.< And for a new album soooo gorgeous >0<

I actually think it can make fifteen easily. Pretty much all the big albums have come out already. The only thing I can think of that we need to worry about right now is ayaka's best..? Is anybody else coming out with a best or anything? I'm not too updated right now, to be honest.

I thought this album stopped charting already but it seems that it haven't. :D At least it seems to chart longer than Secret. -.-

How longer was secret charts life?

^Next Level has already charted better than Secret, Guilty and Rainbow... 4 more weeks and it can beat I am...

It's good. It might even pass 400k^^

^ :O Let's take it a little slower, hah.

It's amazing how long NEXT LEVEL's chartlife is though. It really shows that all the other albums nowadays aren't selling a lot, hence NEXT LEVEL with this amount of sales can sale on chart for so long. Therefore, in context, NL is actually doing extremely well.

*1 1,238,693 ***,676 SUPERMARKET FANTASY / Mr.Children 08/12/10
*2 1,200,070 *74,105 All the BEST！ 1999-2009 / 嵐 09/08/19
*3 *,976,396 **4,645 塩、コショウ / GReeeeN 09/06/10
*4 *,826,707 **1,093 EXILE BALLAD BEST / EXILE 08/12/03 累計1,770,608
*5 *,658,346 **1,036 DO YOU DREAMS COME TRUE？ / DREAMS COME TRUE 09/03/21
*6 *,484,859 ***,444 レミオベスト / レミオロメン 09/03/09
*7 *,432,521 *12,087 CALLING / コブクロ 09/08/05
*8 *,421,724 ***,842 My song Your song / いきものがかり 08/12/24
*9 *,420,382 **4,170 残響 / 福山雅治 09/06/30
10 *,391,094 ***,*** TRICK / 倖田來未 09/01/28
11 *,376,874 ***,514 NEXT LEVEL / 浜崎あゆみ 09/03/25
12 *,335,488 **7,392 KING OF POP -JAPAN EDITION / Michael Jackson 08/09/24 累計373,833
13 *,332,552 **4,626 Ring / 加藤ミリヤ 09/07/08
14 *,325,841 ***,534 アルトコロニーの定理 / RADWIMPS 09/03/110
15 *,313,564 *99,608 Box Emotions / Superfly 09/09/02

very soon superfly is gonna outsell Ayu

well NEXT LEVEL's chart run is even better than anyone whom initally expected that it will come & go quickly so that's all its matters to me

besides , I'm sure it will hit the 377K mark in due time

All the BEST ! has hit 1.2 million of sales YAY <3 . I think ARASHI can overtake SUPERMARKET FANTASY's total sales at this rate & happy 10th anniversary to the guys whom debuted 10 years ago on this very day :heart

Thank you riozz. Wow 25 weeks. XD

25th Week
Position: Still Unknown
Sales: 514
Total Sales: 376,874

Yay for still charting!! *-*

Will they ever reveal the week position? And whoa 25 weeks...

NL share same chart life with I am... album.. hoho.. in next 2 weeks will be Duty.
xD

I kind of figured it would have a decent chart life but the fact that it's beating all her previous better selling albums is unreal! <3 NEXT LEVEL <3 Ayu <3 Jun in your set cause he's soooooooooooooooo hot :luv2

so cool =) It's a very good album !

Aw no, I want NEXT LEVEL to keep charting, of course, but it's so sad that it's about to beat Duty's chart life, lol! :(

Question, what are the longest charting albums of 2009? I think that would be a nice thing to see. :)

^ Yeah it would be !!! I second that!

^
SUPERMARKET FANTASY / Mr.Children, EXILE BALLAD BEST / EXILE, DO YOU DREAMS COME TRUE？ / DREAMS COME, レミオベスト / レミオロメン, My song Your song / いきものがかり and NEXT LEVEL etc.

Even though the majority of those were released in 2008, still they are counted towards the 2009 Oricon year.

yeah it's really something . Looks like everyone all under-estimated on how much it will linger on the chart

lol yeah I agree with you :D . This's what happens when you're wearing YSL :innocent

still SUPERMARKET FAnTAsy. it released on 1st week of 2009 chart began.
same case with EXILE but 1st week of EXILE was counted on 2008 chart

The 24th Week position was #166 (went up from 23rd week).
The 25th must be around 250 though. >_>

goodness, if NL's weekly sales stay this steady just a little longer, they'll surpass S/S's weekly sales.

^

that's it.... I hope that Nl still charting until it reaches 400k!

^Not going to happen xD
Didn't know u use to post here Brener^^

You're very optimist =) but why not =D For the while we'll hope for a 26th week x)