Ok, I don't care if Ayu sells not as well as before but it's still interesting to read you guys and I found something interesting !
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/cool_ja...AJ201208100045
This interesting and precise article gives its own simple explanation why Ayu sells less than Miliyah Kato, Kana Nishino and all of them sell less than AKB48 (all these artists are quoted in the article) : lyrics.
Basically it says people (only "gals" in the article) don't want to listen to sad and complicated songs anymore. I think someone said something about that here.
However I don't like how the article only focuses on gals, way too precisely, and easily links them to Ayu's success. While I'm not sure we can clearly know what a "gal" is.
Of course we don't want Ayu to do something she doesn't feel just to raise sales, and change her lyrics-style is really a tough thing.
Maybe bring a new music-style can do something and start a new trend which will make people listen to complicated lyrics again. If we believe this article, doing like Namie or anybody else won't work. Because Ayu's lyrics won't change.
Anyway sales are not important, what matters is Ayu doing music i like.