Aw.

I find that Ayu being 1st in the 2nd week is highly unlikely.. :<
-pokes at ORANGE RANGE-

if ayu's sales are good, she will appear in the GLOBAL UNITED chart, but at this moment, she didn't reach that spot yet as she usually do with MY STORY & miss understood~

Does it matter?

It's still a download whether you play it on a phone or an mp3 player, isn't it?

*pokes along with you*

Again, I actually don't think her first week sales were that far off from (M)U's first week's sales. (M)U's first week is estimated...400-450K-ish? so it isn't that far off.

Yes,this album, compared to some of her previous ones, is a total flop, but like other said, some labels would die for this kind of first-week sales with their artists. It's not bad.

just in case you didnt know.. CDjapan and amazon.co.jp DOES count for oricon.. doesnt matter if you are oversears or what, since its bought in a JAPANESE store. it doesnt matter the destination.. its the same if you went to japan go to a store, bought the cd and went back to your country.. you still buy the album from the japanese market

PERIOD

I wouldn't say it's a total flop. Things are different now.

ayu is past her peak, the music industry went through a lot of changes the last few years, and people are also into other things.

I think she's lucky to even sell over 300 000 in the first week.

She's been in the music business for over 8 years now. Most artists would've fizzled out by now.

Well, I mean compared to some of her previous albums. I actually don't think her album isn't too bad of a flop.

She's pretty lucky to have stayed that long.

That's another story. Japan has a tradition to like male groups like KAT-TUN and SMAP despite their music qualities. That's absolutely normal for them to get good sale figures. They're popular because of their appearances (mainly),and to make it simple, it's just a "tradition". We need not to pay much attention to them when we're taking about "real music", they're NOT lying in same 'area' of ayu or other "utahime".

ORANGE RANGE got the #1 spot today which means.....

I was specifically referring to the part where you said "iTunes is huge in Japan..." because it really isn't. Chaku-Uta is more popular than iTunes in Japan.

... can't believe it...
i agree with that...such a big mess
not enough promotion... stick too much in keeping the secret and make a blast
i first thought that JEWEL was a single...now... suddenly secret pops up and everything's a mess...

This album is sooo good - My favorite! :/
I thought it would kick the sh*it out of M(U) (which I personally think is her weakest album) ...

Oh well, atleast this is my favorite album, I like the 'edge' on most of the nonsingle songs ...

Kindda thought it would be an 8ook+ album
Guess you have to take online sales into consideration - and dloads too?!

emm emm... soo many comments so far... i think no matter what, we just do our part to support her. that will do.

Mmh... Maybe Japanese people like bad music like in (m)u ? Don't but I agree with the fact that avex is trying to destroy Ayu, one day I heard that a singer career finish when the singer is 30 (just in Japan), and don't forget Koda Kumi, she's more popular than Ayu in Japan, Kuu-chan is everywhere, with her 2 best-of an 12 single release she made earn a lot of money to avex ! And I think that avex prefer promote Kuu and I think the are telling to Ayu inderectly "Hey girl, you're time is over, it's the end, you did a good job but now you have to go"
That make me very sad but it's the life and mentality in Japan... But Ayu will stay forever in our heart and mind because she's now a legend !

Or maybe she should just release an A Best 2, like in 2001 where she was asking herself if she continue or not and finally with the amazin sales of A Best she have continued !

hrm...as long as she keeps releasing i'll be happy. i don't care about promotion or sales, i just care about music.

Jeeze. If that were true, then why did Avex waste a bunch of money buying Shibuya or whatever to put up a bunch of pomo posters for Secret? Avex is not trying to destroy Ayu, people--she still has expensive looking PVs, glam photo shoots for her albums and singles and appears in tons of magazines. If Avex wanted to crush her, she'd be done by now. :rolleyes

oh well
ayu's era of selling 1 million for an album is over ..
but who cares .. i got SECRET already and im totally happy with the songs
and im going to keep buying her albums. so it doesn't matter whether she sells 1 mill or not .. im satisfied the way it is :)

I got my album too!:love Even though she cant sell a million copies anymore...but the sales she have now is still very good for todays standards. Im really proud of her already to be where she is today after 8 years. All I wish for is her to continue making music and concerts.

Well it's not like there weren't any CMs promoting the album. Posters were like everywhere in CD shops and in Shibuya. Plus, she went on MS (one of the highest watched music shows) 3 times to promote JEWEL and I'm sure in like 1-2 of those appearances, they mentioned "album".

If Avex ever does that, they would be dead and very very stupid. Even IF they do have Koda, she won't be able to stay on top as long as AYU because her music doesnt appeal to a wide range of fans. AYU is all about the music.

Acttually Kuu does appeal to a wide age range of fans.

Nobody can destroy Ayu! SHE'S THE QUEEN!

You have no idea how long Koda will be able to stay on top, and like ayu_fan said, Koda also has a wide range of fans. Koda is also all about the music. Sheesh. Regardless, if Ayu retired tomorrow or quit from Avex, they would not be "dead." The record label is called Avex, not Ayu.

I don't know. It seems that are more females that are into her. I'm not saying anything bad, I'm a koda fan myself. Koda's songs are more "sexier". You know.

depends on your definition of sexy but they are certainly more provocative.

Her songs are really great. But some of them can be very "sexy" hard to find a word. Like "imasugu Hoshii", "JUICY", "Shake it"

Sales don't really matter to me because they have little impact on if an artist is good or not. All it can tell you is if the mainstream crowd/majority likes them or not, and they overlook a lot of quality artists for lesser artists all the time.

I don't want to sound stupid for asking this but is it true that Secret has sold 696,280 copies?

^Ummm no. Where did you get that info?

Probably worldwide if that has some shred of truth in it. But I doubt it, where else can Secret sell if not in Japan? But if that includes the second week sales then... WOW.

^Yeah. I doubt that it could have sold 310,000 worldwide while Japan only sold a bit higher than that.

ummm....I kind at wit at wiki I wish they would post where they got there info from I guess its not true but it is or was thats amazing

i guess you could say that avex is ayu
ayu was the one that brought avex up to be one of the most famous japanese music company
but she's not all of it
just a huge part of it

She is a good chunk of it but now with other popular artists in avex such as Ai, Kuu and BoA, her significance has greatly diminished.

I hate when vandals ruin wiki articles, I guess you took the figure you posted from the Secret wiki page. Those people make wiki less credible.

Well atleast they increased it, not decreased.

Good point. I hope Oricon actually made a mistake and that's the actual sales. Although that's as likely as Black Cherry selling less than 300k in the first week.

i think second week sales for Secret will probably be around the same
maybe around 200,000 to 300,000
let's hope :)
i'm not expecting over 400,000, cause that would be frigging shocking
and i think Black Cherry will probably sell around the same as Secret
probably more cause of all the extra bonus goodies the first press and CD+2 DVD has