|
Kuriboh? ...that's a YuGiOh! card LOL.
Right on KarenPang! I actually listen to them. They are so awesome ^^. But yeah very well said. 5296 moved a monstrous amount of copies; apparently so much that, despite the fact that it was released a couple weeks before, was still able to outsell something which just debuted. Would avex really push the date of an album back just so it doesn't get knocked out of #1? A pretty petty reason...I don't think even Ayu would go that far just to get her #1's. Or is it more from a profit standpoint? Also, were there any new releases along with Ayu's GUILTY on New Year's Day or that week? Is it uncommon for artists to release on the first week of the year? I don't know much about these things. I guess if there were, we can look at it another way: Ayu held her own against any other new albums but just didn't get quite enough sales to outsell Kobukuro.
Also, I don't think it could have been foreseen at all considering the circumstances. Kobukuro only started seeing a lot of spotlight around 2005 with that breakthrough single you mentioned. The one before had very good success too in terms of the sales I think; nothing compared to Tsubomi though =). In other words, at that time they were seen as "big" but not as "established big" like B'z or Mr.Children (two other groups I can think of with the selling power and reputation to topple Ayu). It is only now I think they can fully be considered as "established big". There was already a two week gap between the two releases...three weeks was probably unthinkable to them; that they'd need that much of a gap. I don't even know if three weeks would have given her enough leeway for the #1 as I didn't follow the sales of these two closely at the time.
In the end, I think the ranking of an single/album does not reflect how good it is. We should not worry too much about Ayu not getting her #1's. I'm sure sometime in the very near future, it'll happen at least once or twice or even more. Many groups are slowly starting to catch up to her I think, whether it is due to her diminished selling power (I think it's safe to say she definitely is not selling like she used to and it's only natural) or other factors like another group's fame. It's only a matter of what day the releases fall on. If it falls on the same day/week as Misuchiru or B'z or a Johnny's group or a brand new act that saw overnight stardom and is all the rave, then it's quite possible it will fail to take the top spot. With the former, this is what makes the industry so unpredictable. Some things are easier to predict than others given the circumstances.
|