[NEWS] 2008.01.01 New Album

[bluegie]

Originally Posted by asongforXX

I personally don't think Kingdom will sell extra well and better than Black Cherry, but it does have a concert and PVs for each songs. And Koda, even though she has past her peak, is still popular and I think the album will still sell well and probably better than Ayu's new album.

Oh I never doubt Kingdom could be selling better than ayu's new album (cuz I kinda think ayu may not be able to pass 400K on the first week like last time). The thing is, I have faith on ayu's materials. I'm sure she will not produce craps. And sales is not as important as it is, as long as her total sales over 500 - 600K in the end, I will be happy.

[njanjayrp]

I do agree that AVEX is slowly letting BoA become a new Shimatani (the same thing is happening to BoA's sales, what happen with Shimatani's after Garnet Moon) , and I am really sad cuz her voice is getting stronger and better every year, she had some amazing singles the last 2 years, and I thought that she was slowly getting back after Winter Love, but MIT was poorly promoted and I guess the fact that there were no PVs probably made it even worse.And I am guessing that AVEX is just going with the current flow, and investing in what seems to be earning the most atm.

[*Petit*]

Originally Posted by Demure_Dusk

Yeah I fully agree with Kikaru. 2007 has been a year of bad decisions for avex. BoA might not be a huge seller any longer but she's only 21. That's really young for an artist and she has the vocals and the dancing talents. They're truly wasting away a potential artist who could still regain back some of her sales with careful planning and promotion. I feel the same for Ai Otsuka. She had a lot of potential back in 2004-05 but seems her talents are now being wasted because of sloppy marketing schemes.

I think the main reason avex is doing this is because japan is always craving fresh meat. I can only think of two female solo (actually you could include groups too.. ) artists that have had a career that's been somewhat revived (in terms of CD sales) and not constantly declining after a peak (which both shimatani and BoA had) and that is Namie Amuro and yuming. Yuming shouldn't even count as she's not an idol in the way the others mentioned are, same thing with Utada.

I don't know why it's like this, male artists do not seem to follow this pattern to the same extent. Maybe it's because the society values (young) looks above everything when it comes to female artists. That could certainly explain the new gained success of namie amuro (she still ooks like she's a 14 year old).

ANother reason is that it's probably more profitable to have semi peaked artists slowly decline in sales to 50 % of what they did when they were at their peak level, while at the same time promoting other artists to their peak level. As an example, look at what's been happening in avex after the sales peak of ayumi hamasaki (she's still their most profitable artist though. ). It's more profitable to have ayumi at 50% of what she sold during A best / I am while having a two more artists selling almost at the same level as she currrently does (Otsuka and Koda) than having one ayumi selling at her peak level all the time. Thus, is' more profitable to spit a little more money in into promotion of new artists just in case they hit it big. Giving Kose Visee to Beni arashiro was such a move IMO, allthough it did not work well in her case.

All in all it might be sad for their fans, but it makes perfect sense. And IMHO it's not affecting the quality of the music as the artists seem to get more control and choice in their careers after their peak.

[elepop]

Originally Posted by austin. ♥

Yeah but the titles all suck. D:

Titles aren't important.

[Impracticable]

^ yes they are.

I actually considered not buying "Kingdom" simply because I think "Kingdom" is mildly (or more than so) conceited.

I'm going to buy it, yes, but I really, REALLY, didn't want to buy it at first because of the title.

[futureLOVE]

Well, first of all, i don't think anyone can say whether or not anyone has passed their peak or not...mostly because a lot of these people saying these things aren't label executives, nor paid critics.

Kumi obviously hasn't lost her popularity. I mean, she's having her first arena tour this year which is definately a step up from an all-hall tour.

I think Kingdom will sell comparably to Black Cherry, maybe not quite as much, but calling it a failure for not selling 500,000 copies in it's first week is absurd...especially since our own Ayu's Secret didn't sell that in it's first week.

ANYWAY....
i hope we get a name and tracklist for this album soon...it's making me anxious!!!

and, although i loooooove Together When..., i sincerely hope that it isn't the only song she sings to promote the album...if that's the case, we may have another Secret on our hands...Don't get me wrong, I adore JEWEL, i just hope that she uses an upbeat song to promote aswell.

[ayumisrael]

Originally Posted by INSPIRE1978

Well, first of all, i don't think anyone can say whether or not anyone has passed their peak or not...mostly because a lot of these people saying these things aren't label executives, nor paid critics.

Kumi obviously hasn't lost her popularity. I mean, she's having her first arena tour this year which is definately a step up from an all-hall tour.

I think Kingdom will sell comparably to Black Cherry, maybe not quite as much, but calling it a failure for not selling 500,000 copies in it's first week is absurd...especially since our own Ayu's Secret didn't sell that in it's first week.

I don't think Kingdom will sell close to BC.
Our own ayu started to loose popularity when kumi just started to get it.

I just don't know why people actually can't see kumi's popularity decrease lol it's funny. It's just like that. Her singles this year pretty show it. Except for the general flop of most of the female artists.

When ayu sell a bit low from her strandarts so it's a flop, but when kumi sell slightly less than her own standart so it's the general flop, well it doesn't go like that.
kumi suffers from popularity decrease just like ayu did, and she won't keep selling a million for an album... like ayu didn't. That's it pretty much.

[ayu_fan929]

Originally Posted by ayumisrael

Our own ayu started to loose popularity when kumi just started to get it.

I don't get the point of that. It's just like saying how Namie started to lose popularity when Ayu started to get it. :\

Originally Posted by ayumisrael

When ayu sell a bit low from her strandarts so it's a flop, but when kumi sell slightly less than her own standart so it's the general flop, well it doesn't go like that.

I think Ayu's flop this year was talkin' 2 myself which didn't do well physically or digitally. As for Kuu, it might be LAST ANGEL (not sure how it did digitally yet).

[ayumisrael]

Originally Posted by ayu_fan929

I don't get the point of that. It's just like saying how Namie started to lose popularity when Ayu started to get it. :\


I think Ayu's flop this year was talkin' 2 myself which didn't do well physically or digitally. As for Kuu, it might be LAST ANGEL (not sure how it did digitally yet).

Yeah but ai no uta and even FREAKY didn't go greatly either.
From 250,000-300,000 (and 390,000 selling 4 hot wave) selling singles last year kumi could only get 195,000 for her best selling this year, which had 4 songs and was promoted (not consitently but 3 songs were used on that way or another to promote it).

kumi's single sales this year were close to ayu's sales this year (I mean for singles) so they're aren't that far though the only single glitter/fated couldn't manage to get to its sales (Because of 30,000 copies) was FREAKY.

[ayu_fan929]

Originally Posted by ayumisrael

Yeah but ai no uta and even FREAKY didn't go greatly either.
From 250,000-300,000 (and 390,000 selling 4 hot wave) selling singles last year kumi could only get 195,000 for her best selling this year, which had 4 songs and was promoted (not consitently but 3 songs were used on that way or another to promote it).

Well Ai no Uta has the strong digital sales to back the lower physical sales. 250,000+ downloads of the entire song in 2 weeks is pretty good.

For FREAKY, it's the 3rd highest female single this year no? That's not much worse than 4 hot wave which was 2nd. And fpr this year, compare 2nd to 3rd, the difference isn't very big. Plus, FREAKY was able to do one thing that 4 hot wave couldn't do and that was have 1 song certified digitally (which was girls and it was certified Gold)

glitter/fated - It did OK this year. If we compare things to last year, I think it would have done better than Startin' but just a bit less than BLUE BIRD.

[Impracticable]

lulz.

I think Kumi's declining single sales are not a sign of declining popularity, but a sign of generally declining physical sales of Japan as a whole.

As I have said MANY times, Kumi and Ayu are going badly compared to their previous sales, but compared to the rest of Japan they are doing wonderfully.

With the exception of Utada Hikaru, the outlier in this situation.

[ayumisrael]

Originally Posted by ayu_fan929

Well Ai no Uta has the strong digital sales to back the lower physical sales. 250,000+ downloads of the entire song in 2 weeks is pretty good.

As for FREAKY, it's the 3rd highest female single this year no? That's not much worse than 4 hot wave which was 2nd. And compare 2nd to 3rd, the difference isn't very big. Plus, FREAKY was able to do one thing that 4 hot wave couldn't do and that was have 1 song certified digitally (which was girls and it was certified Gold)

Yeah but now you're comparing digital sales and digital sales (even ina huge amount) aren't close to the worth of physical copies I guess...
I think that digital sales mainly show how many people liked the song and doesn't really a fan of the artist or like him/her, because the digital sales are mainly ringtones or of that 1 full song, but not the whole single and stuff.

Physical sales are more showing fans, people who like the artist because it's the whole deal.

But anyway, I still didn't say kumi had bad sales, I only said that her popularity decreased since last year, it's sad I know but it happens to eveyone... are you saying that she is as popular just as last year?

[ayu_fan929]

Originally Posted by ayumisrael

Yeah but now you're comparing digital sales and digital sales (even ina huge amount) aren't close to the worth of physical copies
because the digital sales are mainly ringtones or of that 1 full song, but not the whole single and stuff.

Digital sales may not be worth as much as physical sales, but they do show popularity of the song. It's like saying because Mikazuki sold less than Yume no Uta physically, Mikazuki is less popular when in fact Mikazuki was pretty much more popular than Yume no Uta due to it's 1 million + downloads.

Plus, all these certifications I used are based on the entire full song and doesn't include any ringtones whatsoever.

Originally Posted by ayumisrael

But anyway, I still didn't say kumi had bad sales, I only said that her popularity decreased since last year, it's sad I know but it happens to eveyone... are you saying that she is as popular just as last year?

I thought we were talking about flops this year.

[s1012h]

Utada is just a monolith in the j-pop industry
i am almost 100% sure her next album will sell extremely well, especially since Flavor of Life will be on it
and we all know that it's the world's most downloaded single

[ayumisrael]

Originally Posted by ayu_fan929

Digital sales may not be worth as much as physical sales, but they do show popularity of the song. It's like saying because Mikazuki sold less than Yume no Uta physically, Mikazuki is less popular when in fact Mikazuki was pretty much more popular than Yume no Uta due to it's 1 million + downloads.

Plus, all these certifications I used are based on the entire full song and doesn't include any ringtones whatsoever.
I thought we were talking about flops this year.

Oh well. We were.
Sometimes I just wished you wouldn't try so hard to show ayu's flops, and when it comes to kumi's then no.

[ayu_fan929]

Originally Posted by ayumisrael

Oh well. We were.
Sometimes I just wished you wouldn't try so hard to show ayu's flops, and when it comes to kumi's then no.

I just assumed that since I quoted the flop part of the post, we were talking about flops.

And if this makes everyone else feel any better; as I said, LAST ANGEL might well be Kuu's flop this year - so they're tied with 1 each.

[Impracticable]

Originally Posted by ayumisrael

Oh well. We were.
Sometimes I just wished you wouldn't try so hard to show ayu's flops, and when it comes to kumi's then no.

Well, look at it this way also, though.

"A" single has four A-Sides, but it sold 1.5 million copies or so.

But dividing that between A-Sides, thats pretty much only 375,000 or so copies per song.

Now look at HEAVEN, which had 2 A-Sides, and had total sales (physically+digitally) of nearly 2 million. Divide it up, and it's 1.0 million copies per song.

I'm not saying this is how it works, but it's a way of looknig at it.

Some people will be like, to a triple a side, they will say the title track is a more popular song whatever week than a single a-side single, even though the sales are near ever.

its like ... for example

1. 3 A-Side (110,000 copies sold)
2. 1 A-Side (100,000 copies sold)

It's probably a more powerful/popular song, since it got 100,000 on its own rather than getting 110,000 with the help of two other songs.

see what I mean?

[ayumisrael]

Originally Posted by Impracticable

Well, look at it this way also, though.

"A" single has four A-Sides, but it sold 1.5 million copies or so.

But dividing that between A-Sides, thats pretty much only 375,000 or so copies per song.

Now look at HEAVEN, which had 2 A-Sides, and had total sales (physically+digitally) of nearly 2 million. Divide it up, and it's 1.0 million copies per song.

I'm not saying this is how it works, but it's a way of looknig at it.

Some people will be like, to a triple a side, they will say the title track is a more popular song whatever week than a single a-side single, even though the sales are near ever.

its like ... for example

1. 3 A-Side (110,000 copies sold)
2. 1 A-Side (100,000 copies sold)

It's probably a more powerful/popular song, since it got 100,000 on its own rather than getting 110,000 with the help of two other songs.

see what I mean?

Yeah, with that one I agree.

[LacusClyne]

Originally Posted by ayumisrael

Yeah but now you're comparing digital sales and digital sales (even ina huge amount) aren't close to the worth of physical copies I guess...
I think that digital sales mainly show how many people liked the song and doesn't really a fan of the artist or like him/her, because the digital sales are mainly ringtones or of that 1 full song, but not the whole single and stuff.

Physical sales are more showing fans, people who like the artist because it's the whole deal.

i disagree on this.

i knew for a fact that youngsters prefer to have the songs on their handphones, thus the high digital sales. and it's easier then ripping the cd to the phone.

[cttncandy]

sooo when is Ayu going to release anyyything about the new album! I pre-ordered like two weeks ago and now I am getting angsty because I would love to have ANY new information... track list... covers..... PVs.... ANYTHING!!! lol