I'm with you. I don't see the appeal, and I'm used to seeing them ridiculed in the US.

Aww man this single is doing as good as I hoped :(. I think it deserves better! >.<

great! it's only a small drop

Japan isn't in a boyband phase. They're popular, but not more than in the past.

Arashi just isn't a good example of your typical boyband. They're in an entirely different league of their own : P

Japanese just happens to love musical groups... It's an aspect of that culture and it's far from going away anytime soon.... What is natural considering that they are raised to put the society over the person, and for living on a way where nobody really stands out for better or for worst... A boyband/girlband is the perfect translation of this cultural aspect on pop music

^Yeah... but I've been waiting for another transition already. Boybands (and girlband? but only AKB48 is selling) have been dominated the music charts in Japan for like 3-4 years. I really miss the time when female artists dominated the charts between 1999 - 2002 (oh hikki and ayu.. and misia, mai-k, ringo, etc.).

Well, they have been dominating the japanese charts since forever xD every era has at least 1 big boyband/girlband...

AKB48 needs all the sales they can get. I didn't realize until recently that there are actually 48 members... That's scary.

LOL at all the Arashi hate. Even it weren't for them, Ayu wouldn't have held the Number 1 spot in the second week anyway. And Nackar + Karen, it is useless to try to explain that Arashi are not just a typical boyband and that their music isn't even the reason why they sell as they do. If people are going to hate them because they are a boyband - who cares? :rolleyes We know better and so does Japan. :D

^^ Yeah... and don't they switch around when they release singles? My brother told me only 5 members (most popular members) manage to get on every single.

Anywayz, I dun hate boybands. And I do believe that Arashi is more than a typical boyband. It's just that boybands have been dominated for a bit too long, and I think it's time to switch to another phase. Either female or male solo domination is fine for me :P.

Of course Arashis sales will decline sooner or later. Atm, though they are at their peak. When Ayu was at her peak, nobody but a few fangirls cared about Arashi. Now Ayu is at a place where she'll never sell that much ever again. But she also releases her music digitally and Arashi doesn't. She is an old woman (yes that's cruel, but me I'm also a Christmas cake so I'm allowed to bring it up) not fresh and new like Kana Nishino for example. If you take all this into consideration, her sales are very good. People are never satisfied though, it seems.

I agree with that. :yes Things have really changed over time: when she was at peak back in 2002, the time that her consecutive #1 streak broken with Daybreak early on in the year and then restarted with Free & Easy back on April, there was not much of the digital music revolution; now, this is 2010, which is eight (and a half or more) years later, with the fact that she's aging, she's not at her peak anymore, some are getting tired of Ayu, and the digital music revolution that Ayu is part of while Arashi's popularity is increasing but with Johnny's no-digital-sales policy (especially when their releases are actually distributed through Sony Music Entertainment, and a combination of Johnny's policies as well as the dispute between Sony Music and Apple/iTunes that prevent the releases of Arashi as well as other Sony Music artists, such as ikimono-gakari, Mika Nakashima, miwa and SCANDAL, to be sold on the iTunes Store worldwide), it seems that Ayu is facing tough competition. Even though with tough competition, it seemed that Arashi's "Dear Snow" single was released on a week when Ayu was not releasing a single, and it seemed that the Arashi team and the Johnny's management may have respected Ayu in some way to allow her to break Seiko Matsuda's consecutive #1 record (by a female artist/any soloist). Ayu's #1 singles (crossroad and L) that she has achieved, along with Ayu's reiteration to fans that were thinking about if she would be retiring, saying that she's not retiring within the foreseeable future, proves that Ayu is still viable to the Japanese pop market and will STAY for years to come, maybe possibly a decade or two, or even three. Maybe she could become the "next" Seiko Matsuda! We'll just have to see with the long-term, but it's only October 2010 already...

wasn't it enough for ayumi to get #1 for the week of HER release? so why is everyone complaining about arashi now? does ayumi need to get #1 this week, too? :rolleyes

her record wasn't broken, so no one should be complaining.

^This is AHS, we need to complain about something! LOL

I would prefer her to be the next Matsutoya Yumi over her being the next Seiko Matsuda any day of the week :P

I dont know what you mean by being a Christmas cake and I get what you're saying about being new and fresh in the market but I think you meant to say that Ayu is older, not old. But just her age alone isn't the only hinderance since Namie Amuro is even older than Ayu but has somehow managed to reinvent herself and make herself more appealing to the general public.
At the end of the day that is what making it is all about no? Appeal!

No, no...we don't have to complain about it. Ayu already got a #1 weekly, so we don't even have to worry about Arashi - they're a different story: they released their single yesterday (and they're doing another one later next month!), and Ayu already released her 50th single LAST WEEK, with no new data if she's going to be releasing her 51st single or even a new album at this time, as she's still busy with the RnRC tour...

LOL @ the direction this thread took.

:roflmao

So true!

:yes :laugh

C'mon, she already got her #1, guys... What'd you expect, for Ayu on her second week to still be #1 against The Storm?