Quote:
Originally Posted by SunshineSlayer
Even after Baby Don't Cry though, some of Namie's singles didn't chart that well. She's never been (in her second peak) that amazing across the board on singles. Her albums though were steadily building.
I still say, from having been a fan prior to that, the turning point was Queen of Hip Pop, which then built into the success of Baby Don't Cry.
Style charted for 23 weeks and sold 221,000 copies and Queen of Hip Hop charted for 70 weeks and sold 494,000. That's a huge upward jump in a one album span after her career had been on a steady downhill for several years. Next, Play charted for 53 weeks and while it sold more than QOHP, it wasn't by a landslide, at 540,000 copies.
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I 2nd this, I started following Jpop +- in 2003, and as, funny enought the success of jpop acts in the west tends to mirror they success back in Japan, it was probably during TQOHP that I started seeing Namie being mentioned on the foruns as a current act, and not as some has been. Want me, want me was pretty much that must see video/must hear track when it was released, and from that time on you pretty much would be aware of what Namie was releasing if you tried to be on day with overall jpop news.
Also, it's important to notice Namie was always recognized as a top performer, even at her lowest, so she never really had much problem touring, even if the scale went a little down for some time.