Quote:
Originally Posted by orbitalaspect
Actually, I disagree. If we took the same concept and applied it to FIVE (127,000 FW Sales), we would see that the sales from FIVE were a good indicator of where Party Queen (98,000 FW Sales) ended up falling on the charts. Ayu's sales have been steadily declining, and "again" honestly is a good indicator of where Ayumi's next LP may end up on the charts. Hell, we saw the same shift in sales after Memorial Address going into MY STORY. The only thing we could honestly look at and say wouldn't be a good indicator is a single vs. an album.
I honestly doubt that the Japanese listeners are irritated because of Maro. They're probably uninterested because Ayumi isn't a 96,000-Member Girl Group, isn't a shirtless Korean boy band, and hasn't made a coherent and lasting shift in the style of her music. Like with Mariah Carey in the US, people get really tired of hearing the same thing over and over again and simply stop buying the records.
They choose to not buy the albums because Ayu is old, she's not a young idol anymore, she hasn't really changed her style (unlike Namie, for example), and she really doesn't put as much effort into her newer releases (unlike Namie, for example). One of the first things I noticed about the videos for Wake me up and snowy kiss was how god-awful boring they are, just like You&Me, just like Song 4 u, Missing... I'm tired of seeing Ayu stand around and fake cry while over-lip-syncing a song. Worse, I'm really tired of seeing everything be about a fight or a break up or something with some guy from somewhere. I want to see songs like evolution, M, and WE WISH, or AUDIENCE. I'd like to see Ayu do more than stand or sit or lay in a video for 70% of the time she's on camera. What happened to THE SHOW? The ARTIST? The PERFORMER? Do you see what I kind of mean here...?  |
I totally agree with you on most these points actually. Hopefully you saw my first post in this thread, but I mentioned that most people in Asia already consider Ayu to be a relic of the past, and although an important and still active one, not really relevant to today's entertainment industry. I think a possible reason why Namie has revived is that most of the tracks she does choose to promote has urban clubbing overtones to the sound, and it's obvious that the Japanese market digs music that's similar to the U.S. Top 40.
I personally think that Party Queen is a fail due to the content itself, and also distanced more conservative fans of Ayu. I agree that she is on a steady decline, but long-time purchasers of Ayu's products may assume on her release patterns. I think that the success of FIVE was because the songs were consumer-friendly, and its track-listing and promotion made the release seem to be exclusive. With these minis, in comparison to her last singles, she jacked up the prices by around 300 yen for some remix tracks, and the track-listings look like multi-A side singles. A few hundred yen isn't much if a fan wants to buy the release, but because living costs outside of metropolitan areas are relatively cheap, I'm sure casual listeners would rather use the extra money for more groceries than more remixes, and I recognize that I'm assuming for most that they'll think the main songs will eventually be on another big release anyways.