[jbrat2219]

Originally Posted by Misa-chan

I seriously disagree. This is ayu we're talking about. The girl personally selected by avex CEO Max Matsuura, and who still has a close friendship with him after all these years. The woman who has been Queen of Jpop for a decade, and still going strong. The artiste who has sold too many amazing releases with crazy sales to count. The first person who more or less everyone thinks about when we say "Japanese music industry".

Selling well is not an issue anymore. Not making money is not an issue either. ayu is one person who will never be dropped.

Let's not even talk about ayu here. I listen to many other artistes, some of whom have been releasing music for years and years, with number of singles/albums in the Top 5 less than 10 times. But they are still around, releasing wonderful music. An extreme example, look at Perfume. They have been around a decade, and only started selling really well a couple of years ago. And look where they are now, one of the strongest girl groups in Japan. If your theory of "drop an artiste if they don't sell" is true, then Perfume would have been gone long long ago, and we would have lost an awesome group.

The Japanese music industry is about people who have talent and the passion to work hard, not about some silly numbers and charts. That's my honest opinion, and I do hope people would stop thinking that money means everything.

My Japanese Language History professor says that the Japanese never get rid of anything! I guess that's true in music, too! I listen to some artists who made hits back in the 80's early 90's and not so much anymore and other's who have never even appeared on the pop charts and they all continue to make wonderful music. Groups usually end by disbandment more than being dropped by a label, right?