^Yea, agree. I think Namie did a pretty good job keeping her private life private. That gives her a mysterious image, at least to me lol.

But I wonder why Ayu's image might be worse than Kuu...??

Just a guess, but Kuu keeps her private life private as well.
She's married for over 2 years now, her son gets 2 as well this year and we don't know anything about their family life. Not even the name of her son.
Just that she seems really happy as eg. she wrote the b-side darling for her husband Kenji.
With Ayu we had this small "scandals" the last 2-3 years with her private relationships.

Yes. First time in Japan 2007 I proudly presented myself to new people as an fan of Ayu and in generall no one thought it bad. They just found it nice that a non-Japanese liked her. Second time in 2009-2010 I once again presented myself as a fan and the reactions was very divided. Once in a while I got sneezy comments about Ayu being someone they really really dissliked. Out on clubs they only played Amuro and Kuu songs. In one year I think I heard Ayu on clubs like... two times. Last time 2012-2013 it was pretty much shameful to say that I was a fan. Naturally I stood up to it, but I got to hear all kinds of stuff that Ayu is a total bitch and so on. Saying I liked Kuu was much better. And saying that I liked Amuro, now that was a jackpot. The general public only agreed and only wanted to talk about her songs and albums and what not.

And yes.

public sure is harsh. Still, I'll stick up with ayu till the end. Honestly I feel it's very hypocrite for japanese people to think better of kuu because now she's married and has a child and so she looks "serious" and so on. They bashed her like if there was no tomorrow because of her erokakkoi image. And it's even more hypocrite for them to be bashing ayu now because of some relationship gone bad. She stayed 7 years with the same man. She's such a bitch!!!!! And now they IDOLISE magnificient namie amuro. She was not this well seen when they bashed her because she "started the trend of shotgun weddings" when marrying TRF's guy being 3-months pregnant. What I want to say is that NONE of this women deserves the hating. Still they got bashed, and probably will be again. It's just the pop industry which sucks in this sense.

^
That's just a part of japanese culture that sometimes becomes truly irritating.
I just think it has to work. Sure, there are reasons that can be more o less plausible, but in the end it's just someone's moment. At one point everything works for someone, there's just the spark. It's Namie's moment.

Hmm...

I'm not sure...but why would aiko be ahead of Namie? I already heard the 60,000-90,000 copies , so why is she more popular these days?

She always does mid-tempo and folk ballads, she never had a scandal attached to her image, she is very carismatic, she sings a lot about love and has a kawaii touch in everything, so it's not hard to wonder why she is loved by Japan and why her sales didn't drop too much compared to other solo female singers...

so basically she's boring? :P

Are you talking about Amuro Namie or Ayaka?

I'm talking about aiko :thud

We were discussing why she will sell more than Namie (both are releasing new singles on the same date).

I have never listened to aiko before..........is her music good?

^Yokogao was nice (from Hotaru no Hikari) but any other song I've tried was not my taste, definitely not similar style to Namie but after AKB success (or Bieber's, etc) in sales I no longer feel that high sales = good music, so I'm not worried about Ayu or Kuu (as long as they are not discouraged by lower sales and still release new stuff).

Listen "milk", "beat", "Futari" and "Modorena Ashita wo". aiko's music is nice too

One of my favorite songs of aiko is "Hoshi no Nai Sekai" and her singles are also enjoyable, the problem is that nowadays her album tracks are getting quite boring more and more... but you know japanese people, they tend to love more those artists who don't change too much musically.

I think I pretty much agree :)

The thing is that having a company behind you actually means they can work with that. If you have a bad image, they can turn it around. They can clean it.
What are public relations for if not for that? They could clean her image easily by making her release a charity song for the earthquake striken areas, or visiting Africa, or doing whatever.

The thing is that Ayu produces her own stuff, so she probably doesn't let anyone handle her stuff... and that's where she's wrong. Or right, to her standards.
She doesn't care about what she puts out there anymore. And of her own tours, all we see is her getting married and getting divorced, her firing Maro and her appearing with a 25yo guy AND GETTING MARRIED AGAIN.
Maybe it's some mid-life crisis and maybe she just cares more about not being alone than anything else.

But I don't see how anybody could see this incursion in the charts as someone's who still cares.
40k might be "good" for solists nowadays, but you cannot deny she could have done much better if she wanted.
I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years she releases a documentary and says this was a mock single or whatever to see how many people buys it.

Since she has a company releasing her CDs and distributing them (and it also happens to be her management), I'm sure that they serve at least as a certain traffic light to an extent.

Are people forgetting that Amuro had her share of bad publicity and scandals. Getting married to a man who was years older and getting divorced soon after. It took her years to get her act straight. Give Ayu some time~

^Getting married because she was pregnant! :P

Public Relations don't have godly powers... Ayu actually did more than any other big act during the earthquake, from her endless tweets to help locate people or to pass information foward, the big donation, changing her whole release pattern and the Vivi collab... People called her desperate for attention.

And nops, she most likelly wouldn't sell "a lot more" of her singles... Her sales aren't that different from artists of similar size... Most acts selling tons of copies are idols. Last year, the first time a single that wasn't either a boyband, a girlband or associated to the Johnny's appears on the year-end chart is at position 30. The first time a solo effort that isn't associated to the Johnny's appears is at position 39.

And really... why are people on this forum so obsessed with her personal life? Usually we know nothing about it other than the name, age and nationality of who is she dating.

This. It's not like she's Holy Mary.

Btw am I the only one who doesn't give a pony about who she sleeps with? She's 35, famous, rich and beautiful.
Let her choose whoever she likes. I wish I could HA.
Some people are just obsessed with judging.
Ain't nobody got time for that.