[Utada Hikaru] ʕ•̫͡•ʔ A Vacation for Only Two Hours in the 55th thread ʕ•̫͡•ʔ

[bluegie]

^Nope, not anymore. Almost 90% of the artists from our time (Ai, kuu, Mai, MISIA, Ringo, ayu, etc...) are all pretty much going downhilll except hikki.

Originally Posted by Baco__

@DeepRiver hahha oh, the shade.

And wow 1,63 million in one day. How can they even print that much lol

Every time I talk to my Japanese student (he's a Japanese 29 yo man living in Brazil, working for some big company) and my Japanese teacher (also 29 yo, moved from Kyoto seven years ago) about Jpop we end up talking a lot about Utada Hikaru and Ken Hirai. They talk very fondly of them both and are super hyped for Fantôme as well (I actually sang along with my student to 花束を君に)

Back then 2 million copies (overall) were not uncommon for the top-tier artists. If you look at the numbers from this site for 2001 yearly album chart, you can see 22 albums sold over million copies, and the top 5 sold at least 2 million. (If you go back to 1999, you can see the top 8 were all over 2 million copies).

And yes, that 03.28 (to be more precise, it was 03.27) was a big day in Japan music. I remember that oricon renovated its website again that particular day when the number came out. It was very insane for the whole week. Hikki and ayu fans fought so badly, and those who loved both of them were really torn (including myself, though I was hoping hikki to win lol).

[Baco__]

Originally Posted by bluegie

^Nope, not anymore. Almost 90% of the artists from our time (Ai, kuu, Mai, MISIA, Ringo, ayu, etc...) are all pretty much going downhilll except hikki.


Back then 2 million copies (overall) were not uncommon for the top-tier artists. If you look at the numbers from this site for 2001 yearly album chart, you can see 22 albums sold over million copies, and the top 5 sold at least 2 million. (If you go back to 1999, you can see the top 8 were all over 2 million copies).

And yes, that 03.28 (to be more precise, it was 03.27) was a big day in Japan music. I remember that oricon renovated its website again that particular day when the number came out. It was very insane for the whole week. Hikki and ayu fans fought so badly, and those who loved both of them were really torn (including myself, though I was hoping hikki to win lol).

yeah, I know that, but... let's say: now we're thinking they printed 400k for fantome for it's first press. how much did they used to print for the first press back then. I mean: the first DAY sold more than a bunch of other albums lol were those numbers predicted?

[bluegie]

Originally Posted by Baco__

yeah, I know that, but... let's say: now we're thinking they printed 400k for fantome for it's first press. how much did they used to print for the first press back then. I mean: the first DAY sold more than a bunch of other albums lol were those numbers predicted?

It's not hard to predict. I think the first press for Distance was about 3.5 million copies or so. Back then, cds were still the dominant source, and people preordered copies in stores (as it wasn't that easy to order online). So they could use the number of preorders to determine how well the albums would sell. Ayu was at her prime time, and hikki's first album sold like a hot cake. Plus both companies (esp avex) have already prepared lots of advertisements everywhere like... a month before hand. You can see their promotions basically in every corner of Shibuya. And as you can see the cd stores made some stands outside the store to sell Fantôme, they did the same thing for Distance and A BEST (but 10x... They even put stands down the streets). That was really the golden era of female singers...