I have to disagree, I don't think they've had any real impact in the Japanese music industry apart from their huge sales.

AKB48 is marketed mostly as a fetish for older men who are interested in really young-looking girls whose record label swears are all virgins. That's why having a boyfriend, drinking, and partying is completely forbidden for them). There's something lacking in the life of those old men and they fill the gap inside them with an obsession for a girl band that lacks any real talent or skill (at least for music).

I don't care that someone outsold Ayumi, it just bothers me that even though AKB48 is very popular, their sales are only huge because each fan spends 1/3 of their house income purchasing 200 copies of each single. They're not ashamed of that and even post the pictures online. Those are not real sales, that's not real popularity and finally, that's not a real impact. :no

And last but not least, I am not by any means trying to offend any of the girls personally or any of their fans. You should listen to whatever you want and buy as many CDs as you want, but I also believe it's extremely important to be realistic.

It's hard for me to give them too much credit because they just don't appeal to me. But that said, they have had some level of impact.

I think image-wise, they have deviated a bit from what was more typical in the past, like with MoMusu. Sub-groups and solo projects certainly existed and were a major component of MoMusu, but the regional aspect of AKB and its associated groups is something unique -- I think they've even had overseas units, right? Their huge number of girls is comical, but also changed things -- I remember when MoMusu having 13 girls at their peak was outrageous! I also think the idea of having daily theater performances (in addition to the other gimmick-y events like handshakes) has mad them accessible in a way that major stars were not in the past.

So, all that to say, I don't necessarily think their music will stand the test of time or be remembered, or specific members of the group even will be -- but they have had some kind of impact as a whole.

I don't hate them nor do I feel particularly butthurt about Ayu's records, but I just feel like they're more of a new, separate category of entertainment, rather than actual musicians. And applying musicians' rules to them doesn't really seem to work.

Exactly, they are #18 in Recochoku's top selling artist which imo is a good indicator of general public's taste. They have ranked in annual karaoke top charts, being Heavy Rotation the #1 song in 2011. I have also seen plenty of references to them in dramas and anime in the past few years. It's true their relevance in the J-music industry is fading away really fast but during their peak (2011-2013) they definitely had real impact.

gazillion of girls, sketchy marketing strategies and fetishising teens - LOL that just shows how much you need to beat down REAL music lol There's nothing there to be proud of, it's laughable to say the least. Ayu is a single person with a single voice that gave her that record (minus the team that works with her, but they don't count).

O.O!!!!!!!!

That's.

So.

Many.

They could populate a small town on their own.
Can you imagine that.
I'd rather not. :D

Just wondering - so those sales are less creditable, ause less people bought more copies compared to more people buying single copies? Why?
I mean, nobody is forcing anybody to buy anything, looking at it objectively.

You can dislike them as much as you want (not a fan either), but they had quite a big impact the last ten years.
So I agree with Voltron. Even if they fade away within a year now, they will be remembered.

Also compared to Ayu, who made a huge part of her sales in a time, where physical sales were much higher than they are in the last years, AKB48 was popular in a time with steadily and heavily declining physical sales ( and no, digital isn't that big, it"s just about 20% of the whole Japanese market).

Though Oricon should separate groups and solos in their ranking for sure. That's strange.

Their numbers reflect their sales strategy way more than it reflects their popularity, but as Oricon's goal is to map market influences through sales, they deserve their spot.

Also, it's not like Ayu didn't released multiple versions of singles or changed the date of releases to manipulate her position either.

This so much. There are teams of people behind both Ayu and AKB who have put in a lot of hard work and dedication who may get some much deserved validation from this.

And I don't even know why numbers mean anything. There are plenty of amazing aritists who barley sell. We all know Ayu makes great music, numbers aside.

OMG thanks for doing that it was always of my curiosity:laugh

For me the argument is that it's less creditable because each fans buy 100 CDs and throw them away

Does this sounds legit to you?

https://image.ibb.co/jXWOKF/Captura_...s_00_44_27.png

This is trash thrown away at AKB events. Is it garbage or is it valued music by its fans?

wow... I didn't know this. that's too many girls lmao

I know, this looks bad and I don't appreciate it.
But everybody has its own reasons to buy CDs. And it's their money. You know, it's pretty common for Japan to resell CDs and DVDs at stores like Book Off and auctions sites as well (and you don't get that much money back for it). Doesn't mean they value the actual music less. There are for sure also Ayu fans throwing away stuff from her. Or any other artists.
There is a spot for disposing CDs at the garbage info calender e.g. Most apartements are small and so on.
The physical market is all about packaging and editions.
Ayu as well. Most people don't use CDs anymore, even though they're buying them support the artist. And in the end every CD is going to be thrown away at some point.
So no, it isn't. For whatever reasons, people buy the CDs.

But out of curiosity. Do you know how many are thrown away? Percentage?

Also I want to correct a mistake I made - the digital share of the Japanese music market is about 20% (vice versa for the USA). The numbers for 2016 are out. Had a wrong number in my mind.


Quoted for truth!
I listen to so many artists, who aren't popular at all.
It really doesn't matter in the end.

:shakehead

Wow, that is surely NOT environmentally friendly as well...

Sorry, I'm a bit offtopicbut can you link me the source, please? I tell my friends every once in a while that digital sales are far lower than physical sales in Japan, but they never believe me, so I'd like to have something to back up my claims haha

They can make a small concert audience. :P

The only thing that surprises me out of this news is that it took AKB48 this long to surpass ayu's record. I mean, they've been selling like crazy for years now!

I think it's silly to compare a group to a soloist but on that token consider that near everything related to sales = popularity is almost impossible to measure.

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.

The only thing I want to see if Ayu's record increase a whole bunch when her next album drops to widen the margin.

I completely understand your point. But yes, I do think their sales are less credible in the sense that they don't really reflect popularity or impact. Yes, they are famous and have a lot of fans, but when one of their singles sell one million copies in a day you might think that there are approximately one million people listening to their songs, and that's absolutely not true. Ayumi released different versions of her singles and changed release dates in order to manipulate the charts a little bit, but it's very unfair to compare these marketing strategies to AKB48. Most people are actually listening to her songs for almost ten years...

And by the way, I'm not blaming AKB's team for being great at making them sell tons of CDs—that's their job after all and they do it very well—but it's very sketchy to think that the results of those strategies can actually be understood as genuine impact or popularity. They literally can't.

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 :laugh.