Utada's sales not as good as ayu ?
 

haha
looks like UTADA is not selling as well as ayu ..
her 1st week sales for Be My Last is aroud 80.000 - 90.000 only
well maybe thats becoz only 1 track :P

but this means that ayu is selling around 40.000 last week =)

1 track with no instrumental, is it really worth the purchase? I guess that's the problem. + IMO, Be My Last doesn't sound too good. I don't like the chorus especially....

Well let's really think about it Be My last is one track while Heaven has more than one. You can't compare the sales at all with it.

I am actually quite surprised that Ayu is selling more than Utada, regardless if the single if the CDS only has 1 track.

But a single is a single. Regardless how many tracks are on it.

Exactly. Dareka only had 1 track and the instrumental and sold better. So I don't think the 1 track thing is the major factor here. I like Be My Last (but I only really liked it after I saw the PV.) I just think Utada's popularity has suffered quite a bit. I mean what do you expect when you rarely ever tour or promote your singles, much less make many public appearances - I don't think it's very respectful of your fans and I've thought for the last few years now that Hikki could be doing a lot more instead of seemingly doing the minimum amount necassary to maintain her popularity. Just my observation.

Also, keep in mind that Be My Last is cheaper than the other singles out there. So it's not like people are paying 1,800 yen for 1 song. It's being sold for under 1,000 yen if I understand correctly.

SHE'S "TRYING TO PROMOTE HER ENGLISH ALBUM, COME ON NOW YA'LL!" bleh -_- Such an exscuse from people who haven't studied the industry. She's doing the minimal so she can live a normal life. Until she does something like the "USA TOUR" I don't think it'll be really..bleh...anyway it's not bad.

And I have no problem with that, so long as everyone doesn't expect her to sell very well.

And as for promoting her English album, I've never seen any promotion done for it outside of Japan and even the promotion there was minimal. If the only way that people are finding out information about this album is if they go directly to utada-online, then the promotion definitely isn't big enough.

Don't misunderstand and think I don't like Hikki. I DO. She was the first J-Pop artist that I really got into. I'm allowed to have an opinion on where her career is now though.

If I'm not mistaken, the majority of sales went to digital downloads since there was only one track... Which makes sense, cuz who'd pay 660 yen when you could get the one song for 200 yen off iTunes? Didn't someone post a figure of like 250,000 downloads so far for "Be My Last"?

outta point: who thinks that the part when utada goes "be my lastttt" sounds a bit like "donna toki deatte" from her previous song, hikari?

anyway, its not surprising utada isnt doing as well as ayu since it has only one track. mm.. but im surprised planeterium did better den heaven..

If you're gonna say she's out of ideas, consider the similarities between HEAVEN and SEASONS chorus.. Then the ending of HANABI episode 2 and A SONG FOR XX.. :P Yeah, HIKKI SHOCKED ME.. Its 101000 copies only..

80,000 unites, not 100,000.

Well, atleast Hikki is still making money of digital sales... which is easier to get and quicker, so you can't say "she debuted at 350k" :P

I think 'passion' will sell much better, they are releasing the CD version in one week and the CD+DVD version in the following week, talk about sneaky marketing.

^ if they're doing a strategy like that, I wont be surprised if Passion fails badly on the first week even if its gonna sell millions..

who's utada ?
lol..

I was actually really dissapointed in the lack of promotion for Hikki's English album. The only other promotion I saw other than what was on utada-online was her spot on MTV and the music video for Easy Breazy...and YMMWBAM...but that was it.

maybe the single will eventually sell more than Ayu's...u never know~

but yeah im also very surprised about Utada's single sales

Interesting. I think Be My Last is an incredible song. I only like a few of Utada's songs, and this is one of them. The video is really bizarre though.

yeah, same here...seems like utada always sells amazingly well regardless. i'm quite surprised by those sales stats, even if it is a 1 track only single.

it most be from her promoting her english album...

I think she should stick to Japanese... even though I loved her Exodus album, it will not take good to the English audiences... The lyrics are a little cheesy... and her vocals would be considered annoying, especially in America...

There are alot of JPop fans... but we are scattered everywhere... not one place hold too many of us ^__^ I love Utada... but I dont know whats gotten into her about her english album... its not NEAR as good as all her Japanese stuff! I want more quality!

The only reason I would have bought the Be My Last single would have been for an instrumental track.
Seeing as it doesn't have that , why bother? The song will probably end up on an album of hers later on. I know a lot of people feel the same.

(if, for some reason, the track doesn't end up on an album, I'm sure a lot of people will go out and buy it. :P)

yeah i am pretty suprised too taht Utada's single is has sold below 80k but for a single which only has one track is not worth it at all and i think that is the reason for hikki's poor sales and the introduction of itunes in japan will hurt the sales of the cd even more.

Yes, and isn't the song for a movie? I know that Drama songs released as singles sometimes never make it onto the artists' album. Couldn't it be the same for movie themes too?

I think it's a combination of the 1 track single + iTunes Japan (iTunes wasn't available when "Dareka..." came out last year). Like I said before, if one were given the option between paying 660 yen for a CD single with one song or paying 200 yen for that same one song on iTunes, I'd bet they'd go with iTunes... I'm assuming most of the 80K CD sales this past week came from the CD+DVD combo, seeing as that at least gave some incentive for people to purchase the physical thing...

I really wish there was a place where we could get iTunes/digital download figures... Someone mentioned "Be My Last" selling 250K, which would explain a lot...

I bought the "Be My Last" CD because I can't buy from iTunes Japan :(
If I could, I'd also buy Beni Arashiro's new single that's only on iTunes!!

Yeah, I never saw those music videos actually getting played anywhere though. :(

same here...never saw easy breezy anywhere at all...i thought it was even hard to find on the net.

You can't determine who sales more than another by only one single...

yay! sry, but I really wanted ayu's single to do better. HEAVEN was a better song. IS a better song. XD

i'm glad ayu is doing better...and i think we can all agree that her single held a lot more value...not to be mean.

i have never seen any promotion for Hikki's English album, all i know is that she is releasing it with def jam (right?)

Wow, what a strange thing, seeing Utada not selling so well o.o But I've seen people saying she lost her place as the J-Pop Queen, it's too early to say that, don't you guy think?

having just 1 track is surely gonna hurt the sales. i wonder why they do that

yeah, curious.. maybe that had some sort of strategy that we dont know.. :confused No one is THAT stupid to release 1 track singles and expect it to sell a million, unless that song is SAKURA DROPS and it was featured as the theme song for the next Final fantasy!!!

1 track only and it sold 80 000-90 000 o.O hmmm.. is that considered good or bad? Maybe we gotta see in few more weeks time, how it goes.

^CD singles sell the same amount even if there are instrumentals.. You cant say BML sold well because its a miserable first week number, AI BEAT IT.. If she added extra remixes, then it would have sold more.. Toshiba-EMI was just overconfident, just like AVEX was with Daybreak..

Ditto. 'Be My Last' is the most legally downloaded song in Japan ever and most of the people bought it from iTunes, because it's cheaper. I mean, the Be My Last single was just released so Hikki and Toshiba-EMI could get so money, don't think they were expecting too much from a one track single that you can buy cheaper on the internet. The single was kind of succeful, I mean, 250,000 downloads and japanese people are not even USED to download songs legally because iTunes were released for, like, two weeks..