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Originally Posted by Eewyi
Remember that all CD sales in the whole world are slowly dropping year by year ;3
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Actually, I just read a news report that overall music sales, across digital and CDs, were up substantially in Japan... by almost 15% compared to 2009.
A lot of the drop is the transition into digital downloads that Oricon still hates to track. In the US, it's wreaking havoc on some of the long-running stars... mainly because single sales are now starting to greatly determine a song's chart position, whereas airplay was originally the big deciding factor. I'm happy with that though... I've always felt that Japan got the CD-marketing bit right by having singles come BEFORE the album is even planned.
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Originally Posted by Nackar_91
No offense to anyone, but if you had really been expecting this album to sell more than RnR Circus, you were being pretty naive. With an established artist like Ayu that falls into a pattern, something really special needs to happen. There needs to be momentum. This album was released 8 months after RnRC, it had no "real" hit singles to support it and relatively few lives (the singles, that is.) Besides, we should all know by now that quality matters NOTHING to sales. Not in Japan, not anywhere.
But what I think is sadder is that some people are making such a fuss about it. Of course we'd all rather have her sales go up-who wouldn't?- but what matters is that STILL, despite everything, she's outselling most other artists. She's still there, she's doing great, we love her music, everybody's happy!
Having said that, I won't deny that I'm secretly hoping for better second and third days so she at least goes over 250k XD
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"L" was a BIG single. There were dozens of news reports about Ayu busting Matsuda Seiko's streak. So, the momentum was kind of there.
Like someone else, I strongly agree with the fact that I'm happy she's still around. I honestly don't care what her sales are at this point, but I do hope she has a few more platinum albums and maybe a few #1 singles left. Ayu is already established as one of the biggest singers in Japanese history... I'd be excited to see her make it even more difficult to knock her down after she is gone.
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Originally Posted by InoriNoUta
^ I would argue they don't really try as much experimentation as Ayu does for a pop star. That's not to say Ayu is out there by western standards, but Japanese ones? Probably.
Plus there are likely some silly people who think girl pop star and don't see why she should have anything useful to say/sing past four albums, which... completely misses the point with Ayu entirely, but oh well. More fun for us.
This has nothing to do with the comment I'm responding to, but I hate whenever things get released with Ayu because sales threads like this become this giant worryfest about how sales are in some way connected to integrity and worth and success and so on and so forth. Ayu is successful, there's no doubting that. I personally don't think anyone can really base anything about one's music on sales considering crap like SNSD and AKB48 and other idol groups -- whether they're imported from Korea or homegrown in Japan -- sell so well and really don't have anything worthwhile to commend them... I mean, it's not like they're important or GOOD musicians. They're wind up dolls. That doesn't mean people can't like them, and I'm not saying anything against those who do, but look -- if things like THAT sell well, doesn't it suggest that high sales are never a reflection on what's GOOD but instead on what's POPULAR?
I'd rather Ayu put out music that's worthy of respect and my admiration and I think, after all her years in the business, she's probably more concerned about that than how well she lines the company's pocket. If that even ever meant anything to her in the first place...
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SO True. Ayu has been through more genres than I can count in Madonna's history... (If you can find one hard rock song by Madonna, I'll bow out on this one... but Madonna's catalog seems very plain compared to Ayu) and she's managed to make #1s with very unlikely songs. I know I was not the only person who expected her streak to end with "talkin' 2 myself".
Sales reflect trends. I have to say though that quality is more important in Non-US markets. We'll buy any piece of crap CD here in the US... people still have to work a little for a record to be something in Japan.
And if Ayu were truly concerned about money and fame, she would be attending the award ceremonies. If I remember correctly, she stopped several years ago.
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Originally Posted by Pieces_of_SEVEN
I saw 70k and was pleased...nothing is ever good enough for people.
stop living in 2002.
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2002 was a good time for Ayu. But I think I'm more amazed by the last two years than anything else. Since her announcement that she had lost hearing, I have been waiting for the last single or last album... She's still there, and that makes her a bigger hero to me than even Michael Jackson. Her music and all of us mean something very important to her... And the fact that she doesn't just decide to wait for whenever its convenient for her to do a new album makes her a true representation of the virtue of love for her fans.
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Originally Posted by lumieregrl
Yea, 70k is GREAT sales compared to some of the other artists I like...I'm happy for Ayu. I think she gets most of her $$$ in tours and merchandise anyway.
I'm just glad she's regularly producing unlike someone else. *glares at Gackt* XD
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*MAJOR glare at Gackt* How could one of the most gorgeous men in entertainment just... like disappear?!?!
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Originally Posted by Raleigh
This was very predictable. 70k is good considering there's almost little promotion of this album apart from the usual drivel of billboards and internet. Also this year she had no big hit. Not that she tried... she barely promoted any of her singles which imo is very lazy of her and her team.
So mostly the ones who will buy her album will be her hardcore fans. She really needs to get busy otherwise she'll slowly have a dwindling fanbase, which isn't sustainable. I think Ayu shouldn't be taking it this easy though and work on promoting this album also to casual fans and try to attract new ones. To be honest I think she's focusing too much on her concerts and ergo her existing fans and being nonchalant to the idea of getting new fans.
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I think it's a mix of the drop in average sales and the fact that Ayu really isn't trying to be a hit anymore. She doesn't have anything left to prove, so there's not a huge push for her to promote by Avex because she's been established for a long time and she's paid her dues.
Ayu will always have a fanbase. If people are still buying Matsuda records, Ayu is definitely long-term for sales. And I'm not sure new fans are really a desire... A lot of us who came around in recent years have backtracked through the years of Ayu that we weren't around for and now don't think as new fans. I first heard Ayu in 2006, but I know her music and career so well now, I think as a fan who was around for "poker face" would. Those fans are more important to any entertainer than the ones who might buy for popularity's sake.
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Originally Posted by SunshineSlayer
Well, at least in my experience when it comes to AKB (and I hope AKB fans won't kill me for this), AKBs popularity seemed almost entirely created by the media. I swear it literally went like from no one in the general public knowing or caring who they were to them suddenly being EVERYWHERE quite literally overnight. The media made them seem popular and that then in turn actually made them popular, because in Japan especially, people have a need to follow what is considered the hottest trend. That's the only good explanation I have of how a group that was mainly only ever supported by Otaku went to being a huge group among teenage boys and girls who usually consider all things Otaku and Otaku related disgusting.
In Mr. Children's case, the Japanese just seem to like that type of music and I have learned over the years that they do grow on you, although it tends to take a while for foreigners to get used to and to like their sound.  Also, they are very loved for their lyrics in Japan. |
Every time I see an AKB single or album, I think about gravure idolism. I think those girls are popular because men can drool over 16,000 girls in bikinis trying to squeeze in front of the camera for the .0026 seconds each of their voices are in a song. I thought Beginner was a really good song, but there were WAY too many voices on that track... It sounded like the producers were in the studio going, "We want all 19,275 and a half of you to sing in the style of federal agents raiding a suspected kingpin's house... Oh, and which one of you has played a victim in a horror film?? Cause we need one of those human-rape-whistle-meets-nails-on-a-chalkboard-hugging-banshees sounds in the middle of the song."...
And Mr. Children rule, simply for the fact that they have some very {o_0} songs.
