[Charts & Rankings] AKB48 surpass Ayu as best selling female Japanese artist

[Diego-kun]

Originally Posted by kendelle

Ayu's A BEST is her highest seller, but that also had 6 cover variants....and almost everything has a CD/CD+DVD/TA Version minimum which artificially inflates stats for everyone. The fact that AKB started in 2005 and took off in 2006 but still took another 11 years to outpace Ayu (even with their million sellers and the A/B/C/D/E/Theater versions of everything) is pretty phenomenal in itself.

Ayu has had albums with different covers but, aside from that, the content was the exactly same. Fans had the choice to choose their favorite cover when purchasing the album and that's it. How many people do you guys think that got 6 different copies of A BEST just to collect the different covers? My bet is 1% at most. ASFXX, LOVEppears, Duty, I am... and RAINBOW sales are huge and they had a single edition with just one cover.

AKB48 and other idol groups release singles with different songs, PV, photobooks, etc for each edition. That's the gimmick. I used to be an AKB48 fan, in fact, I own 26 singles and 4 albums. I bought just one version per single/album mainly because I'm not that wealthy. If you wanna be their number one fan you'll feel the need to buy multiple copies to get all the content. The problem is you will have to spend a lot on CD cabinets to keep them too .

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by Diego-kun

Ayu has had albums with different covers but, aside from that, the content was the exactly same. Fans had the choice to choose their favorite cover when purchasing the album and that's it. How many people do you guys think that got 6 different copies of A BEST just to collect the different covers? My bet is 1% at most. ASFXX, LOVEppears, Duty, I am... and RAINBOW sales are huge and they had a single edition with just one cover.

AKB48 and other idol groups release singles with different songs, PV, photobooks, etc for each edition. That's the gimmick. I used to be an AKB48 fan, in fact, I own 26 singles and 4 albums. I bought just one version per single/album mainly because I'm not that wealthy. If you wanna be their number one fan you'll feel the need to buy multiple copies to get all the content. The problem is you will have to spend a lot on CD cabinets to keep them too .

Later into her career, when her name alone wasn't enough to have huge sales, Ayu actually did release different versions of the same release with different content, like the bonus gifts, different remixes, etc, so even someone who only wanted to have every track she ever released would need to buy more than one version.

And Oricon itself already said the point of the chart is pointing out who sells the most in Japan, not who is most popular. The main point is helping the industry knows who is more viable as a marketing brand. AKB48 is selling a lot, it doesn't matter if it's not to a lot of people if the fandom still buys several of a chocolate, for example, the girls are promoting.

[njanjayrp]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

Later into her career, when her name alone wasn't enough to have huge sales, Ayu actually did release different versions of the same release with different content, like the bonus gifts, different remixes, etc, so even someone who only wanted to have every track she ever released would need to buy more than one version.

And Oricon itself already said the point of the chart is pointing out who sells the most in Japan, not who is most popular. The main point is helping the industry knows who is more viable as a marketing brand. AKB48 is selling a lot, it doesn't matter if it's not to a lot of people if the fandom still buys several of a chocolate, for example, the girls are promoting.

That all stands. However at least during her peak Ayu did not have to release X different versions of an album to get it to sell. It was mostly when avex was desperately trying to keep the streak and break the record (Mirrorcle World anyone?) that they started to go all gimmicky which is as legit as what AKB's management is doing. The thing that I find debatable is their cultural impact and the significance of their music.

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by njanjayrp

That all stands. However at least during her peak Ayu did not have to release X different versions of an album to get it to sell. It was mostly when avex was desperately trying to keep the streak and break the record (Mirrorcle World anyone?) that they started to go all gimmicky which is as legit as what AKB's management is doing. The thing that I find debatable is their cultural impact and the significance of their music.

I don't think they had much of a cultural impact either. Manufaturated acts rarely do.

[visionfactory]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

I don't think they had much of a cultural impact either. Manufaturated acts rarely do.

Maeda Atsuko's hairstyle had a heavy impact for a while but now the trend is gone

ayu's blonde & fashion had a heavy impact in 2000 and look how Kana Nishino is still out there living from what ayu raised

Originally Posted by Corvina

So as long as the record company or the CEO isn't buying their own stuff, but actual fans do, I personally don't see a problem.

I kind of sense that you think is ethic the way fans wallet is exploited by AKB. If it was ethic in the first place AKB wouldn't have been kicked out from their previous record company SONY (After the conglomerate was sued for a marketing practice of putting 1 out of 48 random posters inside of CDs, therefore even if you buy all the 48 CDs you wouldn't get all the posters).