Quote:
Originally Posted by kotora
If Utada comeback and has a song with ayu, that single may have over 100,000. I guess the whole music industry is not making big money now.
|
I imagine a part of why Utada went on hiatus was record sales plunging as much as they did. She was always higher than average for female soloists, but even for her the drop was enormous. HS sold 1 million, TITO sold only 250k, and then her singles collection barely hit 450k. I can't imagine she doesn't know that Ayu, Koda, MIKA, Ai Otsuka, and even Namie have lost a ton of steam to groups like AKB48. Their peak peak began in 2008/2009, just before Utada announced hiatus.
I don't think a Utada comeback would be like some Japanese Adele. She wasn't selling more than 80k on her last two solo singles, and unless she could get massive promo that every other female soloist isn't getting, I don't think she'd get enough attention to sell even 50k.
And the industry is making big money, it's just all concentrated on groups like AKB48 and NMB48, who had 14 of the top 20 selling singles last year, and have held the top 4 or 5 in sales every year since 2009. Last year was the first year since 2009 that AKB48 had at least one single not sell more than one million copies in its first week. But even with that, they had the entire top 5. And keep in mind, ONE MAN is making all that money. One man apparently writes all the lyrics, does all the production, and collects all the royalties. (Which I don't believe at all. I think he has lyricists and producers working for him, but he puts his name as the sole credit for everything.)