I guess we'll have to wait and see for the yearly. Compared to last year, it's not good.

Thanks for the information, I hope she will reach the million copies soon :yes

well again, its been a boring week. the new releases werent strong enough. next week will start to get more interesting. by march, sales are gonna be flying thru the roof w/so many big name artists releasing albums.

well its just depends on the artist. i mean, otsuka ai is selling really well with both her album and single at the same time. (yes, Planetarium is STILL selling). and koda kumi is consistently selling 25k+ every week w/her best. so it really depends on the album and the artist.
heres the sales for BoA's BEST OF SOUL (2005). it took her 4 months to pass the million mark. if it wasnt for her tour, she wouldnt have made it pass the million. heres her 1st 8 weeks sales
BEST OF SOUL (release 2005/02/02)
week 1: 489,067
week 2: 197,821
week 3: 087,562
week 4: 050,205
week 5: 044,216
week 6: 027,734 (BOS= 896,605 vs. (m)u= 817,162)
week 7: 017,801
week 8: 014,206

3 albums (although they are BEST albums) have passed the million mark. hirai ken's BEST is approaching the 2 million mark.

look on the bright side, ayu's (miss) understood is currently the best selling ORIGINAL album of the 2006 oricon year, followed closely by otsuka ai. (ai is behind by about 50,000)

^^ Best original album so far! :)

The sales are so slow...

Yes, thats what I meant.. xD Ken's getting to 2 million, maybe a month or two more. And the only hope for another original multi-million seller is utada Hikaru's next album.

I think these are still amazing numbers

dont be so pessimistic. we're only in early feburary. theres still artists like EXILE, BoA and a whole bunch of other artists that still have to release original albums.

As I stated in another thread, I've never seen much of a correlation between record sales and tours like there is in the US. Probably because Japanese artists tour a lot more. I wouldn't expect to see a spike in sales.

a re-release wouldn't seem as bad now, if startin' sells well (and I hope it does), releasing a especial edition of (m)u with it and Born To Be.. will surely help it go over themillion copies.

But then again, it seems to me that Avex wasn't really expecting this album to do amazingly well, I think executives at Avex and Ayu's management just said "let's release an album, it seems like the next step".

well most likely not cause a spike in sales, but i think it could help stabalise the sales (ie: sell 10k consistently every week or sumthing like that) i've seen it done before with BoA last year

Sales are slow but I think It'll sell a million eventually.

i really look forward to avex releasing a special edition of (miss)understood. It will surely boast her sales and maybe get (miss)understood over the million mark :P

Just a thought.... Technically, if Ai's next studio album would sell more than ayu's next album. If her singles continue selling as much as planetarium and Smily....

And I do not think it would be smart of avex to release her first "best" already, since she seems to be getting a bigger and bigger fanbase all the time.

I've not been a fan of avex's marketing strategies anyway. Look at what they did to Ayu. And I'm not too sure Koda's sales are going to pick up after her 12 singles. It all seems as though they only had the short term in mind.

And people are really being stingy these days! 15000+ copies and it still manages to reach #11. Let's hope the following months see more CD buyers. Otherwise I really fear for the music industry as a whole.

As for million-sellers, I'm sure there will be a few originals, even though a shoo-in like Ayu is struggling. Just hope that people do realise that they have to support their idols by buying their CDs if they're want to continue to enjoy their songs.

We should blame widespread file shring and illegal downloads. :D LimeWire/Kazaa/SoulSeek are all culprits. Not to mention YSI, MU, RS and ULS.

I can't see what Avex did wrong with Ayu...? She's the top selling female solo artist of Japan of all time and she's still selling quite a lot. obiously they did something RIGHT.

Ayu's sales dropped (and chart positions) mostly after she got a lot more freedom from AVEX, and started doing her "own-thing". I know she's not her own marketing director, but f.ex releasing B&D/Pride seemed to be her own idea. And, like most idols, she's still choosing which songs to sing herself, she decides who she works with, what she wears, so If anyone is to blame for less people enjoying her music and fashion, it's Ayumi Hamasaki herself.

She also declined a lot of awards (which isen't so strange cause she won them all before), which are important tools to gain recognition and attention.

Also it seems that Ayu lost some of her "wow" factor, because she's been around for so long. She's done everything; Changing her music style in almost every direction possible, she's done every fashion, been on every show, gotten every award. No matter how many times she "reinvents" herself, she'll still be Ayumi Hamasaki kind of.

***

I don't know what will happen to Koda, she's kind of an outsider. I doubt that her regular sales after the BEST era is over will be better than her pre-best era though.

A lil off-topic but I just wanted to state how i think koda kumi's change of style to sexy and provocative actually made her popularity now. I remember back then when I actually listened to her, her sales weren't that good and she wasn't that popular (back then her pvs weren't as hot as current ones), she's became more well-known after being the vocalist for Final Fantasy X-2 theme songs where her single got into top 5.

Then when she headed for the sexy image, she really gained much more recognition and become of what she is today. Kumi fans don't take it as insults. It's a part of my opinion how the current mainstream music industry is like.

And just as petit said, Ayu has done everything that it's really hard to see ayu come out with something new with no slight repetitions at all. As for startin' pv, I think it's really considered something fresher and new already, in fact I think it's almost a direct competition to Kumi.

I dunno issit just me but I think startin' single has great potential to sell very well.

that is very true. This is the reason why i'm unsure how long her popularity will last once that "wow" factor wears off. artists like hirai ken, ayu and hikki earned their popularity with great songs, and that gave them longevity.

bt yes i agree that Startin' has the potential to sell well, too. :)
but at the same time, i also agree that while avex obviously hasn't totally neglected ayu and her sales/promotion, (miss)understood was nothing out of the ordinary for the record label the way koda kumi's releases have been lately.

Sales are so horrible lately. *sigh*
But Ayu is still doing very well. Most artists don't really get more than 500,000, so 800,000 is pretty good.

I think it'll get 1 million, it'll just take a little longer than usual.