yeah. it happens for compilation album like AC, A BEST II b/w and A BEST but never happened for studio album. I dont think NL will back to top 300 anymore...

Even so I am hoping the drastic change in music style will never occur in Ayu's case. I don't think she needs to start over and I am perfectly fine with what she is/has now. The fact that her singles sales don't always go down shows that she is still able to pull out the occasional hits and hopefully the albums sales will start going the other way at some point.

Well... it's not like Ayu can sit, think about it for 30 minutes and produce the biggest hit even on Jpop.... You can plan a lot, but in the end, u can't really control how well received a song will be... I mean... Vogue, Madonna's best selling single ever, was meant to be a b-side o_O

^ Right. If you're hoping for a hit, all you can do is try your best to give the general audience what they are asking for, or maybe go risky and try to bring them something completely new (but that's definitely much harder to pull off...).

Nope. Ayu is a one of a kind. I really don't think she'll ever need to "reinvent" herself [*ahem*] as Namie Amuro had to. No matter what genre she takes on, she still remembers she's a pop star. And that's why it works. She doesn't try to put out something drastically different that she realises just isn't her. In the end, either she'll spring back up again to ultimate popularity or she'll slowly die down to a low plateau. But either way she'll still be here, and I really don't think we have any need to be concerned that she may completely disappear.

Hopefully Ayu gets her comeback in her next single/next album, otherwise... but she's still doing pretty well in all honesty, so... we should see how things go

I have a question... isn't physical sales too expensive in Japan anyway?? I mean, even the cost of the CD only version is pretty high... If they could sell the albums a bit more cheaper I'm sure they would have more sales after all.

Awww... that sucks. :(

Anyways, job well done NL! :D

That's what I thought. Most English albums go for around 14 bucks - 20 bucks. But maybe it's because JPN artists include a lot with their CD's. Their linear notes are usually a lot bigger than English artists (I have yet to find an English artist booklet with a lot of content in just the linear notes).

I dunno but the CD only version should be like any standard album in the USA or Europe at least... I remember a few years ago albums used to come with the lyrics for the songs, pictures and stuff, but not many still do it nowadays (western music). Anyway I guess Japanese must be used to buying expensive music XD

^ Yeah, Japan has to set CDs (and video games) at a certain price. And it's higher than, say, places like the US. (New video games usually start off at $70, rather than $60, and CDs at $30, rather than $20. Take a few dollars here or there.) And that's just how it is, so yeah. They're probably used to it, lol. Sucks, though. >_< Then again, the few extra dollars are usually worth it, considering Japanese CDs tend to come with bonuses.

Who says Namie's style isn't her? She's said countless times that this is the direction and style she always wanted to have, but wasn't allowed it in the past AND she has always remained a pop star. I don't know why you would think she ceased to be one and that Ayumi has always remained one - both of them are. And to say that Ayu hasn't reinvented herself, doesn't really make sense either. She is compared to Madonna so often because she does reinvent herself. Most of her albums had a completely different theme and image from one to the next - it's a big part of the reason why her popularity has lastest so long. That's also part of the reason why she may be hitting a wall now - she has actually reinvented herself too many times that it makes it hard to know where to go from here. And let's not forget that even Ayumi has done hip hop and rap in the past too - pre Avex, but she still did it, even going so far as to boast that she was the youngest female rapper in Japan.

Your last two sentances I agree with though. :)

^If u take off the vocals, Depend on you, Kanariya, Vogue, M, Real Me, ourselves, moments, bold & delicious, 1love, guilty, mirrorcle world and sparkle doesn't sound as something released by the same person, even if all of them have that "ayu" feeling to them in the end... Agreeing with Sunshine Slayer (omg :O this is getting more and more common), this is reinventing yourself... I'm pretty sure that if Ayu didn't release one album a year, she would be a lot less "old" to japanese right know cuz she really knows how to keep fresh (taking Utada as an example of jpop singer that's keeps changing on every album but doesn't over release).

Even if I'm not a Namie fan, she faced LOTS of taboos and still was able to return to the top, when she started the hip hop thing, it wasn't the "it" thing on Japan, and when she released Play, everyone who follows trends were doing hip hop and she was already changing to something else. IMO Namie is not as good as Ayu when it's about reinventing, but she still is far better at this than most female jpop stars. She deserves respect, as much as the other few jpop singers that were able to... (and to be a little more direct... my problem with Seiko Matsuda is that she is stuck on the 15-years-old-cute-virgin-girl for more than 20 years, and Koda is trying to change her sexy image for some time now (she stated at least twice that she was going to have a more serius and less sexual image) and needs to go back to it everytime... But Namie, she doesn't need to sing Can you celebrate anymore if she doesn't want to...

^ Very good points. I can tolerate Seiko because I like some of her old material (though she has never been a big favorite of mine), but yes, she never evolved and is stuck singing the same songs from the early 80s which can definitely be off putting coming out of someone her age. :)

ho so disapointing ='( whatever the same chart life as Duty NL did a great job congrats !~

Even when Namie wasn't at her peak (1998-2004), she was still considered a HUGE name. I mean, if you look at magazine covers from that period, you'll see there was only two singers who often appeared in magazine covers: Ayu and Namie. Only the two of them, even though there was a huge gap between Ayu sales and Namie sales at that time. Namie was still a fashion leader and highly influential all those years and she never stopped being one of the most recognizable face in the Jpop industry even when she was being outsold by lots of other acts.

Today, in my opinion, a huge part of her popularity has to do with the fact she wasn't over-exposed in the last ten years. She had a big stable fanbase, was a recognizable face by almost everyone and worked steadily but she wasn't an omnipresent figure like many other acts (Ayu, for example). Besides, during those years she went through a lot of stuff that at the time really affected her image (pregnancy, shotgun wedding, divorce, family drama) but were vital to build the "strong woman" image she has now. She is really respected by women in Japan because of everything she's been through.

Also, the fact she was never overexposed helped her to attract back lots of fans who were with her during her peak. The nostalgia factor really helped her. Since she had such a huge impact on the 90s in Japan, her comeback means a lot to many people who were kids or teenagers during that era. It's usual for us to be attached to things we liked during our childhood or our teenager years and that really helped Namie's comeback.

Besides, Namie has always been a respected and well-liked figure by young woman in Japan. When the Vidal Sasoon commercials started airing, it reminded lots of women that besides a cute fashionable girl, Namie was still doing music.

Ayumi has always been an over-exposed figure, she never laid low so people could miss her (since her debut, she has always been Avex most important star and has been promoted such. Even now). Besides, she doesn't have such a "positive" image in Japan as Namie have (many people see her and her style as extremely annoying or are very sick of her). So I don't think she'll have a comeback like Namie is having now.

Ayu posted about this once. A year back or so (was it really that long ago?!) she said TA has reached 70,000 members. :)

Is there any studio album revives on the other week after it was eliminated on top 300?
I hope it happens :(

That's one of the things why I consider Ayu to be quite superior in when it comes to making music - diversity of genres. Her image is constantly changing which is a good thing in a way. I pretty much agree with what you said :)

Me too. :( I thought I accepted NEXT LEVEL's death, but I guess not. >_<

Maybe it's impossible, but I would really like NEXT LEVEL to reach 400k... :(