[Namie Amuro] ◍ 「TSUKI」 the 81st thread ◍

[UHPlus]

New images from Feel Tour 2013

[Benikari47]

Happy that TSUKI is doing so well on Chaku Uta, i'm so excited for the first day sales.. it really seems like it could do well over there.

And the FEEL tour pics look great! I'm really considering buying the Blu-Ray as it would be my first Namie DVD and i love the setlist so much.

[Benikari47]

TSUKI is 2# on Oricon today, with sales of 18,680. Great start and already very close to the weekly sales of BBC/Beautiful (23,000)

[Minttulatte]

^Great sales!

[ILoveGeniuses]

^^Nice. What's in 1st place? *crosses fingers its something good*

[Benikari47]

Morning Musume, with sales of 119,442. So yeah no chance for weekly 1# lol, but 2-3 would be fine with me either way

[ak.malfoy]

We all know how big the idol groups in Japan are, and considering how Namie topped the solo artists charts last year (and the fact that she beat out aiko at #3), #2 is still an achievement for her! Cheers!!

[ILoveGeniuses]

So much for my fingers being crossed. I should have expected as much. Oh well, all that really matters is that my dear Namie's still putting out quality wonderful music I love after all these years. ♥♥♥♥♥

[Bigtop]

Morning Musume? How could they be popular than Namie even though they've been both in the business for quite some time?

[SKYia]

Originally Posted by Bigtop

Morning Musume? How could they be popular than Namie even though they've been both in the business for quite some time?

Take one look at all the 40ish guys on any girl group concert and you'll know how. They don't have any interest in 35 year old woman (just a shot, don't remember how old Namie is). I don't like or watch any AKB or MM concerts but I saw the audience during SNSD concerts in Japan, they were pretty scary, and maybe it's too much of a generalization but I've been to Akihabara many times, saw all those idol-puppy-eyed old guys who spend each yen in idol cafes, I totally can understand the sales. Sorry for this comparison, but Ayu / Kuu / Namie's audience is actually pretty mixed in case of age, gender with few cosplayers, while Kinki Kids and other JE groups have mostly girls / women, and AKB / MM have old guys (probably lonely with lots of money). I'm generalizing of course but there's quite a lot of truth to it.

Originally Posted by orangeakira

I'll never understand sales numbers. 18,000 is considered good? I guess it is if you compare it to the population of Japan. Someone needs to explain this stuff to me.

Let's be honest, with today's access to media (internet the most) I'm kind of wondering that people still buy music at all. I have a huge collection of CD from the 90's and early 2000~, I used to buy CD of artist that had only 2-3 great songs, right now I only spend money of singers I truly appreciate and even though Namie is in my top10, maybe even top5 performers and has albums I usually love as whole with every song, I don't have any of her CD in my collection. My point is that people probably listen to her a lot but spend money only on one or two of their favourite performers hence the lower and lower sales, just my guess.

[pimenta]

Originally Posted by SKYia

Let's be honest, with today's access to media (internet the most) I'm kind of wondering that people still buy music at all. I have a huge collection of CD from the 90's and early 2000~, I used to buy CD of artist that had only 2-3 great songs, right now I only spend money of singers I truly appreciate and even though Namie is in my top10, maybe even top5 performers and has albums I usually love as whole with every song, I don't have any of her CD in my collection. My point is that people probably listen to her a lot but spend money only on one or two of their favourite performers hence the lower and lower sales, just my guess.

This is centainly my case as well (though for me Namie is one of the artists I do buy the albums, but not the singles).

Now a days it's just so easy to go and download for free that it's no wonder sales are decreasing. People don't need to buy to be able to listen anymore, so they buy just what they really like, and even like that many just prefer to buy digitally than having CDs now a days...

[visionfactory]

Originally Posted by Bigtop

Morning Musume? How could they be popular than Namie even though they've been both in the business for quite some time?

I can tell you why Morning Musume is now popular because I've been a hardcore fan since 2005.

In one word = Events

The group always did a few events for their releases but they started to do it massively (The AKB way) since last year. The group splits in duos and trios to do handshakes events separately all over Japan intensely for a pair of weeks after the release of the CD. To attend these kinds of events you have to use the lottery tickets inside their CDs. They have some crazy fans who use to buy up to 300 CDs to get more tickets. Artists like Ayu and Namie never do these kind of events because they are more unreachable than idols. Apart from this they also started to release 6 editions of each CD and now they only release Double and Triple A-Side singles.

With this strategy Morning Musume single sales increased from 30-70k to 80-150k

They also applied the same strategy for their sister groups:

ºC-ute single sales increased from 20-30k to 50-80k
Berryz Koubou single sales increased from 15-25k to 30-40k

How I know this is the way they increase their sales? They don't apply this strategy to their albums, their albums sales just increased in 4k.

[tsumekaze_]

I'm not into momosu that much but I believe they've experienced a decline in last years and made a comeback some time ago and now they are very popular again. They even changed their name to morning musume '14 to mark the difference or something like that XD so that's why, probably. By definition, idols groups always chart higher than solo artist somehow. Good for namie tho, number two is fab! ~

[orangeakira]

I'll never understand sales numbers. 18,000 is considered good? I guess it is if you compare it to the population of Japan. Someone needs to explain this stuff to me.

[jiarongisme]

Originally Posted by orangeakira

I'll never understand sales numbers. 18,000 is considered good? I guess it is if you compare it to the population of Japan. Someone needs to explain this stuff to me.

For today's standard, 18k for a female solo artist is actually pretty good. I mean, if it's 2002 then it'd probably be out of the top 10, maybe even 30.

[ILoveGeniuses]

^I think Oricon also only includes physical sales numbers which I'm personally not fond of. A release could be slaying in Digital DL numbers while not so much in Physical and so it gets beaten out on the charts cuz of that. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Billboard over here in the Western Hemisphere counts both physical and digital sales for each release which imo feels more fair and more accurate.

[ILoveGeniuses]

^the other thing with CDs is they need to be frequently changed every 45-60mins on average and you can also just add it to your portable device and plug it into headphones or speakers and play everything by every artist at once. Also means you dont need to carry around disks or worry about it getting damaged. Plus physical fornats can take up a lot of space. Come over to my place where i live with a couple people obsessed with DVDs and you'll see what i mean. I admit I still buy some albums but its only my absolute favorite artists i bother with. Not to mention also cause Japanese music is ridiculously expensive and also simply cuz even with my CDs I hardly use em all that often anymore.

[tsumekaze_]

^ another simple thing...
because everything that you all said corresponds to reality imo, one would wonder why tho only idols/group's CDs sell instead of the other ones...
Idk about other groups but for akb for example is because they put this thing to vote your favourite member inside singles/album so that it can top the tournament where they choose who should take the highlight into the next single. So the more you buy the more votes you have. Hardcore fans will eventually end up buying all of their editions (usually four)...and also because of the variety of the material inside (ex. different subgroups/girls singing different songs into every single). Plus they do a lot of handshake event and things of the sort, even hug events when fans go to meet them and buy the single XD and many many other promotion stunts like this. That's why they get this incredible number of copies sold. It's just a good marketing strategy, really...
I really like AKB very much but I doubt they would sell THIS MUCH without such strategies. Maybe digitally like any other artist! but the need for physical copies is because of these reasons I listed. That goes for every idol group I think...

[S4MU3L]

Today: #2 8152.

Mornin Musume is now at #4 lol, I have no idea who is #1.

http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/js/d/2014-01-29/

But on digital sales, she's the queen:

http://recochoku.jp/ranking/single/daily/

[ILoveGeniuses]

Other thing with not buying physical copies is with all the money I've saved between this and limiting myself on buying collectibles and other such things which aren't overly necessary, I can afford to now do many other things than just sit here and jam to my favorite songs. I've been able to afford the desk & speakers I needed for my laptop in my room and I've also bought tickets (good seats too) to a few different concerts and events I wouldn't have been able to afford if I kept spending it elsewhere. So all-in-all, they're still getting my money one way or the other. Just for a different thing.

Originally Posted by S4MU3L

Today: #2 8152.

Mornin Musume is now at #4 lol, I have no idea who is #1.

http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/js/d/2014-01-29/

But on digital sales, she's the queen:

http://recochoku.jp/ranking/single/daily/

Only thing that saddens me on that chart is Ayu's Pray is down at #6. I Love Namie in 1st though.


Btw, somewhat unrelated, but have they announced what the First Press poster for Namie's FEEL TOUR DVD/BLURAY when you order it online at like CDJAPAN or YesAsia will look like?