Ayu AND Hikki

[emi♡]

FIRST OF ALL IT IS ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE THAT YOU READ THIS FIRST POST. THIS IS NOT A PLACE TO DEBATE WHO IS BETTER. THIS THREAD HAS A DIFFERENT PURPOSE.

And I have had threads in the past that got no where because some people just insisting on posting without doing what I asked so pleeeease, read this.

I know that people have debated time and again who is better, Ayu or Hikki. What I want to know is why. I personally have seen no similarities in style, or voice. If you have then what is it? I want to know if they were simply just all of a sudden considered rivals because they were two female stars at the same time. Why were they constantly put against each other and compared. What do you guys think?

^^was that attention grabbing enough?

[Tasked]

TOP 10 of ALL-TIMES in JAPAN (+ years active, so you can compare them fairly)
01. B'z; 71,878,000 - 20 years
02. Mr. Children; 46,207,000 - 18 years
03. SOUTHERN ALL STARS; 43,937,000 - 27 years
04. Ayumi Hamasaki; 41,074,000 - 7 years
05. DREAMS COME TRUE; 40,065,000 - 20 years
06. Yumi Matsutoya; 37,594,000 - 30-something years
07. GLAY; 35,798,000 - 12 years
08. ZARD; 35,451,000 - 14 years
09. Hikaru Utada; 32,158,000 - 7 years
10. CHAGE & ASKA; 31,192,000 - 27 years

REASONS

Because they both belong in the A-group of singers (Ayu, Utada, Mika, Namie, Boa (koda)) that are most popular today.

Because the most respected japanese female superstars are Yuming, Ayu and Utada. They 'control' the Japanese music scene. Yuming was the star of her era, but Utada and Ayu debuted at the same time.

Because they ARE very different. Utada is a musician. She creates and produces music of great quality, manages to sell lots of copies and she gets lots of respect. But she is no superstar like Ayu. Ayu also sells alot and stuff, but she has that whole diva-thing going on. The "queen of Jpop" who changes her style every second and releases anything from pop to trance and rap. Ayu is not a musician like Utada and Utada is not a star like Ayu.

NO RIVALS!

Those are the main reasons why it's interesting for people to debate about them. But they showed that they are very friendly to each other. Utada once said really good things about Ayu in a radio show, and when the two of them were in the same music station in 2005, they had a lot of fun together. In this episode, they also said they like each other's songs.

WHO IS MORE SUCCESFUL?

This could go on and on. Let me just say a few things about it. A few years ago, Utada sold more than Ayu per CD. But this was also because of the fact that Utada makes her fans wait alot for her releases while Ayu release a new CD every month. It's impossible to say who was more succesful. Ayu was way more exposed in Japan. She was on every corner of the street. but Utada wasn't so exposed, didn't change her image much, and STILL managed to get amazing sales-numbers. Now that's a reason to respect her!
But what is the status now? Well Utada went to the US with her releases, and Ayu took her trance to Europe. Ayu stayed also in Japan but Utada just left Japan for a while. Now, Utada is back. But this time it won't work that well. Her singles are weaker than they should be from a succesful artist as Utada and her latest single "PASSION" didn't even reach the Number 1 position. Ayu never left Japan and even though her sales are lower than usual too, she gets #1 every single time because most of her releases sell alot more than Utada's latest releases.
But did Ayu really lose success? Not really. Around 2000 she released singles that sold *700k and didn't even got #1. Now she gets #1 with a single that sold a small *120k. The economy has changed, so did her sales. But Ayu seems to get #1-hits easier than before.

Ayu's sales dropped. Ayu's exposure dropped. Ayu's popularity dropped. But her success is really stable.
Utada's sales dropped alot. Because of this, her success is not stable anymore, and only time will tell if she'll get back to her success.

Before 2004 you could say either one of them is more succesful. It depends on what you look at. Now, it's different.

IN THE MEDIA

During the A BEST vs DISTANCE period, the battle between the two was the hottest thing in Japan. Everywhere you went to there was one of the artists trying to make you buy a copy. There were many many posters, many promotional sales-stands and in magazines they were all talking about it. I'm not sure if Utada did it too, but during the release of A BEST, Ayu was on the cover of more than 40 magazines. Because the battle was so much talked about by fans, the papers tried to increase their sales with the battle also by reviewing the albums and publishing articles about who is more succesful and who is gonna win. There even was a special article on yesasia.com entitled "Battle of the JPOP Princesses" (Click here & Click here -articles itself were removed). In addition, yesasia.com also created a short competition to see which of the two albums would sell more. Also, the fact that Ayu's most upclose interview ever (the NTV interview of 2004) talks alot of the battle, proves that it was a hot item in the Japanese media.



* Note that all these salesnumers are in only from the CDs sold in Japan (not counting web-sales either)
Ok I wrote like a whole article about it =)

[momobean]

Someone once said they like each other's songs, I don't know if it's true

[dulceku]

well, I think it is just taste of everyone. Ones prefers Ayu and other prefers Hikki... I have no explanation.

I like both, I think they are great artists. Anyway, I prefer Ayu... Maybe because of her biography, I think she is very special. And she really has worked on her career. I know also Utada worked a lot... But ... Hmmm why do you answer this?? Now I can't stop thinking "why I love Ayu so and not Utada?" (`A´)

Hehe calm down girl..!

[emi♡]

another thing I wanted to know is, does the media in Japan put them "against" each other like the fans do?

[Tasked]

i'll update my article about that

[truehappiness]

Because it sells! >> Why else? lol

[Mad_Cactuar]

Woot! Go rody! your article rocks! I agree with their stability.

[momobean]

Read your edit.... good points o_o

[~AyUsIcK~]

WOW RODY!! ever wanted to be a reporter?

[Raleigh]

Good points there Rody! I agree about the whole popularity issue. Ayu has remained a queen and Utada has ended up losing a lot of her popularity because of her leaving Japan.

[Yarumi]

nice points RODY... you took all the ones I was gonna say and made it WAY more eloquent

[ruixiong89]

Great article you've got there! I absolutely agree with all the points that you make! I can't really contribute since you've pretty much got all the points!

But to address some concerns:

On a corporate level, it's MORE than just Utada Hikaru against Ayu. It's Toshiba-EMI against Avex. During this period of time, Ayu was pretty much Avex and Avex pretty much Ayu. Utada Hikaru was a breakthrough TOP NOTCH artiste for Toshiba-EMI and so of course, I doubt they were going to let this chance pass. Both of them were pretty much at the peaks of their popularity. As such, it's common for the media to place them against each other so as to create more hype. (Which kind of upset Ayu and probably Utada Hikaru ... I'm glad Ayu took the opportunity to talk to Utada Hikaru during Music Station to clear up the long time rumoured animosity between them. However, there's yet to be clearing up for the "Namie-Ayu Animosity" episode ... but that's another story)

Because they're both awesome and people like to see who's better. ;D

[Qt Mashi]

wow Rody! that article was relli good!! so interesting! write more please lol

Originally Posted by Winterkill

Because they're both awesome and people like to see who's better. ;D

nice point, simple and short

[elepop]

Didn't people already told why on the "Who's bigger: Ayu or Hikki?" thread?

Probably. O_o

[andre2907]

I dunno but I think this rivality is more with Ayu fans than Hikki fans.

But yes, they're "rivals" because they started at the same time and both were the best-selling female artists in Japan. Just because of this.

[emi♡]

Originally Posted by asongforXX

Didn't people already told why on the "Who's bigger: Ayu or Hikki?" thread?

They might've, but I thought that was more a debate over who was better.


thanx, Rody.

[Ryoko]

Nice article. Well clearly the two respect eachother. Ayu even said in an interview she didn't want to release a best album and was thinking about quitting, but since it was avex versus Toshiba EMI, there was so much animosity.

I agree, Ayu fans tend to say Hikki sucks. Which is terrible, considering the quality of Hikki's music is amazing. Nevertheless, Hikki is still a BIG star.