[HTMSD]

Dear mellody, I just want to answer your post with this four quotes from an ayu thread.
Again, sorry for bringing ayu's on miwa thread, but I hope this will open your opinion about sales > rank.

Originally Posted by TeamAyu2004

Yeah, the fans are there and thats all the counts.

As for the early post, position DOES count. Sales are more important true, but if you are a company then you want the artist that has more number 1 albums then albums that don't even reach the top 5. A ton of people go by positions on charts. If its a number 1 seller then people want to know why and go out to buy, which adds more to the sales.

Its all in the marketing and what not.

Originally Posted by njanjayrp

Then explain to me why the Japanese general public isn't interested in buying Ayu's singles that always reach #1 and albums with so many #1 hits? A ton of people don't care about the charts (in Japan, where it counts in this case). The record labels care about the money they earn.

Let's say you have two artists, one who got 3 #1s and sold 10-30k with each album, or the other one, who has never reached #1, but keeps selling 100k+ with every release? Which one would you sign to your label? Now days good position on charts usually means good timing

Originally Posted by Misa-chan

I seriously disagree. This is ayu we're talking about. The girl personally selected by avex CEO Max Matsuura, and who still has a close friendship with him after all these years. The woman who has been Queen of Jpop for a decade, and still going strong. The artiste who has sold too many amazing releases with crazy sales to count. The first person who more or less everyone thinks about when we say "Japanese music industry".

Selling well is not an issue anymore. Not making money is not an issue either. ayu is one person who will never be dropped.

Let's not even talk about ayu here. I listen to many other artistes, some of whom have been releasing music for years and years, with number of singles/albums in the Top 5 less than 10 times. But they are still around, releasing wonderful music. An extreme example, look at Perfume. They have been around a decade, and only started selling really well a couple of years ago. And look where they are now, one of the strongest girl groups in Japan. If your theory of "drop an artiste if they don't sell" is true, then Perfume would have been gone long long ago, and we would have lost an awesome group.

The Japanese music industry is about people who have talent and the passion to work hard, not about some silly numbers and charts. That's my honest opinion, and I do hope people would stop thinking that money means everything.

And do you remember this?
1988/04/14 Marrakech # 1 , 181,540
1988/09/07 Tabidachi wa Freesia # 1 , 209,080
1989/11/15 Precious Heart # 2 , 129,320
1990/07/15 The Right Combination(Seiko and Donnie Wahlberg) # 28 , 50,420
1990/11/21 We Are Love # 16 62,790

kthxbai.