[NEWS] 2008.01.01 New Album

[*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.

[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.

[elepop]

Originally Posted by 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.

Well, that's just crazy. "(miss)understood" is one of the most ridiculous album title I know, and it didn't affect me on buying it or not. I bought it for the songs. Titles don't matter to me. Ayu has some of the most common and bland titles, but who cares if the songs are good? Sure, "Kingdom" totally scream "Hey! It's me, Koda! The new Queen of J-Pop. I rule." but I will consider buying it if the songs are good. (Which I doubt somehow.)

[KuroixShiroi_Namida]

Originally Posted by asongforXX

Sure, "Kingdom" totally scream "Hey! It's me, Koda! The new Queen of J-Pop. I rule."

I can't wait. I love this feeling of anticipation/suspense XDXD!!

[cloud♥honey]

Sure, "Kingdom" totally scream "Hey! It's me, Koda! The new Queen of J-Pop. I rule."

Absolutely agreed! That's why I think all her production and stuff sucks. She's a little bit beautiful and funny but NEW QUEEN OF JPOP? Just **** it

[Ayumiko]

Originally Posted by asongforXX

Well, that's just crazy. "(miss)understood" is one of the most ridiculous album title I know, and it didn't affect me on buying it or not. I bought it for the songs. Titles don't matter to me. Ayu has some of the most common and bland titles, but who cares if the songs are good? Sure, "Kingdom" totally scream "Hey! It's me, Koda! The new Queen of J-Pop. I rule." but I will consider buying it if the songs are good. (Which I doubt somehow.)

yea me too...if it wasn't for the songs on it, I wouldn't of bought it even though its ayu and the album came with a extra photobook. The covers were just ...too bad the cd version is worse or else I would of bought it too for the other photobook.

[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.

[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

[hiroshi_ben]

i really cant take it anymore!Everything about koda kumi always revealed so fast!The tracklists,covers n everything!And her new album is like 3-4weeks after ayu!!!What is avex doing man!LOL

[Ayumiko]

ayu's team and koda's team do things differently...ayu likes making us wait....I'm still waiting for the covers to see if I should order the cd only too....and where is my asia tour dvd???

[bluegie]

well I like ayu's way. What's the point of revealing the covers and tracklist 2 months before the actual release? It makes more sense to release such valuable information about 3 - 4 weeks prior to the release. This will create a higher anticipation LOL .

[Luv ~Venus~]

^Excellent point, bluegie! I think Ayumi's team is very wise to wait a few weeks before the release of the album. I don't know what Kumiko's team was thinking about though. Her album isn't schedule to come out until to months from now. That's way too early plus by releasing early info like that would kill all the buzz surrounding the album. Also, I think oit was quite dumb that Avex would release a single a week before album especially in Kumiko's case. I mean, c'mon....We know that "anytime" is going to be on the album yet is releasing a single but only it's the "single" version. I rather wait for some one the put video on youtube than buying the single just to see the "single" version. This also proves that AVEX are really money hungry.

[cloud♥honey]

Probably a lot of persons will forget about "KINGDOM" in the next weeks and just will remember with "anytime" promotion, if the song is really good.

Ayu is always making us anxious, and Together When... was a success of critique by fans. I don't care about the sales if they are medium, I just know we'll have more an ayu-ish thing. But I just hope she won't disappoint us with the album tracks (it's quite impossible but well... nightmares happen) and perform other songs of the album. I got tired to listen JEWEL past year. It was really repetitive. I know it's a high risk of the people dislike the song if it is a different song/rock/pop song instead of the ballad. But why do not take risks? Why do not make a super powerful song to everybody like?

This is what I hate in avex.

[cttncandy]

Actually I think there might be an advantage to releasing information a bit early. With the track list out and the covers people start getting really excited about the album. They already know what is coming so they start pre-ordering more fervently. I don't think Ayu should wait too long to release information because it just makes people kinda forget about the whole thing. Die hard fans will be on top of the information no matter what, but other people who might just be "so so" might forget about the album altogether and when the information comes out they might not be as interested anymore or they might have decided to go spend the money on something else.

Its good to create an expectation but it's not too good to just bombard people with information about the album just like a week or two before its released.

[cloud♥honey]

Originally Posted by cttncandy

Actually I think there might be an advantage to releasing information a bit early. With the track list out and the covers people start getting really excited about the album. They already know what is coming so they start pre-ordering more fervently. I don't think Ayu should wait too long to release information because it just makes people kinda forget about the whole thing. Die hard fans will be on top of the information no matter what, but other people who might just be "so so" might forget about the album altogether and when the information comes out they might not be as interested anymore or they might have decided to go spend the money on something else.

Its good to create an expectation but it's not too good to just bombard people with information about the album just like a week or two before its released.

If the album has a super promotion with the covers and tracklists revealed early, it does mean: SUCCESS!

I prefer be expecting covers and tracklists to be released later.