Well we are talking about like a 23% decrease in a span of just over 1 year. Memorial address and MY STORY managed to sell pretty much the same. There had to be a significant amount of people from the MY STORY crows that didn't like (m)u and therefore didn't buy the album.

But I do generally think that high sales =/= high quality.

I think the present album influences the sales of the coming album. Maybe people did not like My Story, so they ignored (miss)understood. It makes sense, as you can see that sales from A Best helped I Am..., which in turn gave a great debut to A Ballads, which in turn made sales of Rainbow suffer, which in turn made Memorial Address a success, which in turn made My Story a success despite the quality and promotion.

Not really.

Well, the 1st 3 (m)u singles all outsold at least 2 MY STORY singles. People probably didn't like B&D/Pride + other album tracks that much for them to buy the album.

in other words, B&D pissed ppl off =X (though it's actually quite fun)

Not really... Obviously people didn't decided to buy an album because they didn't liked one song. M(U) wasn't the only Ayu album with a disapointing single (in sales and quality).

What I read lots of times is people saying they stopped being interested in Ayu music after MY STORY. Of course I don't have the opinion of every single person in the universe, so don't start the "oh, you read that in a few blogs and boards and sites but it isn't the opinion of everybody" because that's obvious D=. But IMHO, I don't think Ayu album sales will go up anytime soon (unless her next album is a BEST, of course).

Oh well, that's a sale discussion thread so...

Quality wise, that could go either way but sales wise, the 3 singles all did pretty well...

Well, industry-wise.. it's blah.

Even the great-seller-of-CDs, Utada Hikaru can't pull a million D:

Amen to that..

Keep in mind that mystory had 4 covers...so you know...that could also helped the sale abit...

Personally I thought Mystory had a really nice flow, much like ultra blue, but the tracks individual wasn't that great. (m)U didn't have that flow, but each track was better.

Koda Kumi can...

BEST albums shouldn't count. Just look at Mika and Ken Hirai among others with 'zomg million selling' best albums.

Their original albums probably won't do as good D:

Well Ken did a pull a million+ (in total) last year. Ketsumeishi and OR were pretty close with 1st week sales alone.

Mika's sales are so strange. Her singles hardly sell but her album sales are very good. Look at LOVE, the singles sold somewhere between "low" and "sleeper hit" but the album broke 1.4 million.

Even MUSIC, there weren't any hit singles at all, but it sold 500,000. Amazing, ne? I wonder, if STEP you/Is This Love? and HEAVEN were her singles, how much would the album sell?

The reason why Ayu and Hikki aren't selling like before is because their popularity is winding down. It's a natural phenomenon in J-pop music, especially with female artists and female-fronted groups (Namie Amuro, globe, ELT, Akina, Seiko, Yumi Matsutoya, etc.). The new era of J-pop is already upon us, much as I'm not particularly fond of the music it's been producing (in the area of hit songs, anyway).

And some people would hate to admit it, but Koda Kumi is really the new queen of J-pop. I myself have trouble letting go.

I'll have to disagree that My Story is the worst sonically among Ayu's albums. When the tracks are taken separately, they're not brilliant (except perhaps for three that I really like), but within the context of the album, all the tracks are solid and range from good to great. Inspire and Game, which I did not like so much, have even become better songs for me.

Probably, the most sonically unimpressive Ayu album is A Song for XX. But even then, I think it's a good enough album. Good meaning that none of the tracks were offensive enough to warrant skipping.

MC Tatsujin, Rainbow came before A Ballads :)

What I took issue with was you generalizing that people didn't like her music anymore. Reading 50 to 250 opinons on blogs/boards/sites does not speak for the majority.

In my case, I hate most of the songs on the album except Carols, Walking Proud, Moments, Game and My Name's Women. The album tracks were quite unimpressive, especially the rockier tunes.

In that case, Rainbow which benefited from I Am...'s recognition ruined A Ballads chances. And sorry, made a mistake there.

She still isn't selling like a queen though.. Maybe it's the end of the queens era?

I think the sales of A Ballads suffered because of poor marketing strategy. What was Avex (and Ayu) thinking, releasing it only a few months after Rainbow...?

She does have the highest selling album of the year so far (I'm not counting Ken Hirai's Best album, which was technically released last year). But I agree, her single sales have not been up to par. 4 hot wave is only selling so well because it's a quadruple A-side, but even then as a quadruple A-side its sales haven't been impressive. I doubt it will even be in the top 5 at the end of the year.

I wouldn't say I hated any of the tracks. It just took me a while to appreciate them. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on My Story :P

In that case I agree. :D
Yeah, it was a little ridiculous, some of the tracks were even on A Best. H/\L's rearrangements were hardly different too, probably worse. But it had a very beautiful artwork and concept.
Very, very unimpressive. Ayu's first triple-A sold a million and she was queen then. But maybe it's the decreasing sales so... Still, & managed to pass 650,000 and Ayu wasn't even at her prime then.

There's a chance that Ayu is still the queen, I guess we'll have to wait for her next single/album. :laugh Look at how out of topic this has become.

Well, I believe & was released at the last year of her prime. That was the last year she won her third and last Nihon Record Taisho and she was voted by Japan as artist of the year (the "10 million people vote for artist of the year award"). It was also the last year her overall sales was the most of any artist (though thanks in large part to the release of two albums, albeit one was a mini-album, in the same year). I'll have to say 2003 was the last year Ayu was at her prime.

I can only hope Ayu is still queen :) Maybe with her next single collection, but I think she's going to wait until her 10th anniversary to release that. Ah well, I'm just glad that I was already a fan when the LOVEppears era cause her popularity to skyrocket.

I think A was a quadruple A-side, by the way. H and & were triple A-sides (theme for a-nation wasn't an A-side).

We haven't veered entirely off topic... We're still talking about sales :D