lolz keep your mind cause the truth is true, my aunt lives in Japan and she know that Both AYUMI n NAMIE r called legend there even their sale seem not quite good as the new commer or some boybands! Girls n women in Japan still come to Shibuya 109 to buy Namie's looalike fashion n the kids still sing old song in karaoke room! Face it dear ^___^
If u see an ARTIST all through by their sale, u'r totally wrong.

You don't get it; I'm not denying her popularity, I'm just saying she's lost some of it. It's obvious when an album can only sell .25 million. She's still a great singer, a great woman. All I said was that the title was passed to Ayu, which is a well-known fact.

On top of that, I'm not judging ANYONE or TALENT based on sales; I'm judging POPULARITY based on sales.

uhmm...

from start, do you even like namie?
xDD

bcose I always say stuff like that when personally I don't like some singer etc

^^

I'm not a fan but I don't dislike her. I've always thought of her as a pioneer of Jpop; it's just that this dude really got hyped up when I mentioned that her title was taken. :shrug:shrug

lol

this "dude" is my friend
and I understand him very well

because he likes namie as much as we all like ayu

so obviously we want the best for our favourites! ^^


at the end makes me happy how we all defend them xDD and its funny sometimes too



but please guys

keep it clean :D:D:D

She may not be the TOP artiste but they are STILL people who see her as their favourite. This poll speaks in general...and only 20k isnt really...showing much since they most prob just ask the TOP fav..

and also, she has done well in asia...very well in fact...now her fanbase outside japan is growing..

I'm not being sarcastic, but are you offended by the word "dude"? You do have to admit that he was getting a little too uncomfortable just by me starting out by saying that her title was passed over... I mean, with this thread I found out, to my horror, that Ayu's not as popular as before and I didn't combust. Especially when people told me so explicitly: "Ayumi's sales have been dropping for a long time", "just get over it, it doesn't matter", "she's just lost popularity", etc. You know?

LOL
not dude! not at all
xD

yeah me too, I was upset that shes not in the list, but we all knew that she isn't as popular as before, plus she has changed soo much...

but anyway, namie is not in the first place, so yeah we can't really blame her xD




utada is first xDD

!!!!

*turns a big big fire on to burn her :gnash*

LOL jks

I'm very glad that she has a lot of other fans in other parts of Asia though! I wonder what area is she most popular in besides Japan...

Hong Kong?

cmon... ayu didn't get in last year and 2006 either.

http://contents.oricon.co.jp/music/s...070720_01.html
http://contents.oricon.co.jp/music/s...060726_01.html

even in 2005, she was at position 18.
http://contents.oricon.co.jp/music/s...050727_01.html

But does that mean she is not good? NO.

This is not new, and Namie didn't get in last year too. This kind of poll, either ayu is in top 10 or not, is just BS.

Yeah, last year Namie was at #21..

seriously, I boycott this kind of BS poll. Who wants to join?

Hmmm I see! Okay yeah this "poll" is seriously flawed and fixed. :yes

So what if she is 1,000 years old? lol.I hope you didn't mean for you post to come off as so insulting. All being called Empress or Queen of J-Pop means is that they are artists who have reached legendary status - it doesn't mean that no one else can ever have the title or that the title needs to be "passed" to someone else. Honestly there are many JPop or Idol "Queens" and they are still referred to as such. There is no single "one."

But it is a mistake to judge popularity based on sales in Japan. There are so many artists that are completely ubiquitous in Japan, so famous, always on tv, in magazines etc, yet there CD sales may look low by comparison. Take Johnny's for example, it is infamous that their albums sell like crap yet no one could claim that they are unpopular they are absolutely everywhere that you turn in Japan. Aiko - bad sales but extremely popular. Fukuyama Masuharu - the guy is a legend still but when is the last time he had an out of the park hit? Seiko Matsuda - sells like crap now, yet fills arena tours ever year despite her age. (It would be awesome if Ayu in her 40s could have the same type of everlasting popularity that Seiko does, so don't be so quick to insult.) In short, Japan is an odd place. :) Good cd sales are not the only consideration for popularity in Japan.

Amuro's drop in popularity though was due mostly to controversy and a self imposed break, not necessarily because people were tired of her or didn't like her anymore. She then drastically changed her style and built her popularity up again from the bottom up.

I don't like the Namie versus Ayu argument because I love them both. But since this is an Ayumi board, usually people are biased against Namie when really, the truth is that Namie at her height of popularity I would be willing to say was actually more famous and influential than Ayumi at the height of hers. (And Ayumi was HUGE, but Namie just slightly more I would say. Both were way up there though.)

That's fine. But if you really mean it, then you have to boycott every other Oricon poll, including the ones that have Ayu at #1. :)

I don't think it's anything to worry about, Ayu's sales in Japan and all over Asia speak for themselves. Not to mention her sold-out arena tours... Yeah Ayu's doing pretty well, if not better than most of the people on that list so :P

bravo!

I agree lol

As dubbed from her album, Namie is the queen of Hip pop because her music can't really be considered pop, its more like japanese r&b or hip-hop. Ayu won't lose the title Empress of Jpop for a long time until someone creates a stir in the music industry like she did. Even though her popularity is going down and she hasn't a million seller since MY STORY, her previous accomplishments allow her to keep the title.

i think the battle between ayu, namie and hikki will never end..can't we just love them and get over it? all the endless of "she's better, no she's not", etc is really getting annoying~

ayu can't sell like her earlier days, but so what? at least she haven't gone crazy from a few loss and roam the streets of whatever she live naked *yes, very dramatic point*

these polls are very biased as they chose certain people to survey, as long as we love ayu, know she's awesome in our hearts, does it really take one poll to waver our love for ayu?

and as many people have said, don't trust this poll, so can we please not let it turn into yet another "queen,empress of jpop" arguement?

Well, I don't think 20,000 people is little. That's quite a lot of opinions. Most interviews/surveys/polls are taken with a smaller population, there's no way they can do it with the entire nation.
About only the top 20 fans being subscribers for oricon, do we have any proof of that?

However, this poll can be severely biased in one situation: If the question was only "What is your main favorite artist" with just one to chose, then results could become biased, since someone who likes both namie and ayumi, but is currently more into namie, will put namie as their favorite artist, and ayu will be left out of the poll. If they interviewed me this year and asked who were my favoprite artists this year I'd mention hikki and ayu, but if they asked me to choose only one for this year, I'd personally have to choose hikki only, because personally, I enjoyed Hikki's releases this year much more. If a list of "favorite artists" were made instead, then maybe ayu would stand more of a chance of being among the top 20. I don't know how this survey was made though.

As R&B or hip hop influenced her songs these days are, Namie is still a pop artist, most definitely. And from the early 90s-early 00s she was the poppiest of pop and was definitely the Queen or Empress or whatever - but really, like I said, there is no such thing as a single JPop Queen anyways so there really is no point in arguing about who is the 'Queen.'