Actually, I disagree. If we took the same concept and applied it to FIVE (127,000 FW Sales), we would see that the sales from FIVE were a good indicator of where Party Queen (98,000 FW Sales) ended up falling on the charts. Ayu's sales have been steadily declining, and "again" honestly is a good indicator of where Ayumi's next LP may end up on the charts. Hell, we saw the same shift in sales after Memorial Address going into MY STORY. The only thing we could honestly look at and say wouldn't be a good indicator is a single vs. an album.
I honestly doubt that the Japanese listeners are irritated because of Maro. They're probably uninterested because Ayumi isn't a 96,000-Member Girl Group, isn't a shirtless Korean boy band, and hasn't made a coherent and lasting shift in the style of her music. Like with Mariah Carey in the US, people get really tired of hearing the same thing over and over again and simply stop buying the records.
They choose to not buy the albums because Ayu is old, she's not a young idol anymore, she hasn't really changed her style (unlike Namie, for example), and she really doesn't put as much effort into her newer releases (unlike Namie, for example). One of the first things I noticed about the videos for Wake me up and snowy kiss was how god-awful boring they are, just like You&Me, just like Song 4 u, Missing... I'm tired of seeing Ayu stand around and fake cry while over-lip-syncing a song. Worse, I'm really tired of seeing everything be about a fight or a break up or something with some guy from somewhere. I want to see songs like evolution, M, and WE WISH, or AUDIENCE. I'd like to see Ayu do more than stand or sit or lay in a video for 70% of the time she's on camera. What happened to THE SHOW? The ARTIST? The PERFORMER? Do you see what I kind of mean here...?
