Quote:
Originally Posted by jbrat2219
I know that sales drop for everyone every year but I always wondered where those people who bought 800k copies of her album but only about 600k copies the next album went?
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Since you listed 800K and 600K, so let's use (m)u and Secret as example for my hypothesis then.
Let's say there are 80K causal fans didn't really care about Secret (they didn't like Startin' or BLUE BIRD or whatever). Then 60K fan decide not to buy this album since a) they thought the album was bad or b) they didn't have money to buy the physical release. Probly they also thought digital was the new "in" thing to do (they didn't care about oricon anywayz). The remaining 60K fans... Well they have been following ayu since whenever. They didn't wanna give up ayu, but at the same time they have already lost much interest on ayu anywayz. They only bought MY STORY and (m)u because they wanna support her, and in fact they might probly only like one or two songs from each album. Now they came to a point that they didn't have enough reason to support ayu anymore, so they decide not to follow her anymore (i.e., buying her new stuff).
And you see, there will be fans leaving whenever a new album comes out. This applies to other artists. Getting new fans are not easy, but losing old fans are probly just a click. Thinking about that, ayu is actually not that unfortunate. There are lots of other artists who rose around the same time with ayu, how many of them could still worth being valued by the industry (e.g., being invited to music programs, getting better positions in lives)? Mai-K was the best seller in 2000 (I'm talking about albums), Misia had several good sales, CHEMISTRY was yearly no. 1 in 2003, Ringo was pretty strong during those years (well she's like hikki, who only does her own stuff, so probly she's an exception). Mika was like the new female star in 2002-2003, Ai-chan was the kawaii sexy girl in 2004, and they sank before ayu does.
The only person who probly can still hang around like her is hikki, her truly rival (LOL) since the beginning. It's such an honour to be their fans
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