[Utada Hikaru] Volume XLVIII: The Return of the Queen

[mizuki-7]

Yes yes I don't speak about her music but business aspect ^^

[Andrenekoi]

And he is pretty good at that... Hikki most likely has the best marketing machine among the female soloists... It keeps her amazingly safe both as a person, an artist, a popstar and as a brand.

[Zahara]

^That so much.

I never got the hatred her father caught with some of the fans. The guy knows his stuff, and in that industry you need all the help you can get. While she may not have the best personal relationship with him, he looks out of her in a professional manner and as her father.

It's a pretty clever way of going about business. Thankfully her label isn't Avex

[CoriKaru]

Forget her funky father. Who she needs is her Ex-Husband back. Not one good video since he's been gone.

I want to know what he has been up to. I guess no more music videos for anybody.

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by Zahara

^That so much.

I never got the hatred her father caught with some of the fans. The guy knows his stuff, and in that industry you need all the help you can get. While she may not have the best personal relationship with him, he looks out of her in a professional manner and as her father.

It's a pretty clever way of going about business. Thankfully her label isn't Avex

When we remember how little her divorce hurt her image for example... If Namie and Ayu weren't so popular, they would be done right now after theirs... But it barely did anything to Hikki.

[Yumsushi]

Originally Posted by ahtka-chan

Her dad said on his twitter that the radio show is to "test" her popularity, so It's better this show gain lots of love so she'll comeback for us.

I never thought that Utada would even care about stuff like this but I guess maybe her Dad took SC2 and Sakura Nagashi's sales to heart that he has to 'test her popularity'???

Anyone actually listening to the show though?

[U-GO-BOY]

does anyone know where I can download or watch Ima no Watashi with English subtitles?

[Zahara]

Originally Posted by CoriKaru

Forget her funky father. Who she needs is her Ex-Husband back. Not one good video since he's been gone.

I want to know what he has been up to. I guess no more music videos for anybody.

I think he made a movie(?) A few years ago. He kind of disappeared off the face of the world.

I was indifferent to them together. Towards the end of their marriage I saw a strain in the making of pv's that wasn't there in, say, Sakura Drops. She looked pretty distant, too.

[NintendoHTF1242]

lol I'm so done with Utada's father.

[bluegie]

Originally Posted by Yumsushi

I never thought that Utada would even care about stuff like this but I guess maybe her Dad took SC2 and Sakura Nagashi's sales to heart that he has to 'test her popularity'???

With Sakura Nagashi's sales, I guess it's safe to say that she's still pretty popular (2 week no. 2, and monthly no. 1). I dunno about SC2 tho. Best albums usually sell in decent amounts, and I expected SC2 would get at least a million sales (if HS got over a million). Then, it didn't sell pretty bad, but it's totally not up to hikki's standard.

[Andrenekoi]

Well, SC2 covered the least popular half of her career (that wasn't unpopular, just not as popular as 3 of the 10 best selling albums of Japan :v). She is also much more a digital artist than a physical one right now... something that she is educating her public for on the last few years.

Also, the tracks on SC2 but the new EP and 3 old singles had over 1 million digital sales (+- half of them reached 2 million). People that could be interested pretty much had everything already.

People buy compilations when they like an artist hits but don't care about their albums... And she never really went through this.

[Yumsushi]

Maybe, but then again Best albums are also bought by alot of casual listeners and I would've thought the new of her hiatus would've helped boost the sales. I'd blame the boring, uninspired cover but SC1 had a worse cover lol

[bluegie]

I think SC2's cover is worse than SC1's. At least SC1 was quite sophisticated, and made her like a queen of JPop. SC2 was just.... a bunch of stars. I know that it has to do with the first character of her name, still it's so lame.

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

Well, SC2 covered the least popular half of her career (that wasn't unpopular, just not as popular as 3 of the 10 best selling albums of Japan :v). She is also much more a digital artist than a physical one right now... something that she is educating her public for on the last few years.

Also, the tracks on SC2 but the new EP and 3 old singles had over 1 million digital sales (+- half of them reached 2 million). People that could be interested pretty much had everything already.

People buy compilations when they like an artist hits but don't care about their albums... And she never really went through this.

I kinda agree with your last point, but not really sure if that occurred after digital purchases had became phenomenal. Before digital downloads, almost every compilations' sales were big, as Japanese loved best albums so much. I think ayu's albums were pretty much loved (probly except ASfxx), and A BEST still sold like a hot cake. SC1 was yearly no. 1 even tho her first three albums were yearly no. 1 as well. So my point is that I'm not really sure if it's her popularity went downward, or the digital sales affected her physical sales. As I recall, only Can't Wait 'Til Christmas was the only no. 1 digital dowloads out of the five new songs in SC2, and it wasn't that popular until the week before X'mas. I must say I was a little bit worried about her popularity when SC2 released, but Sakura Nagashi's sales proved that her popularity was still pretty good .

So, is that radio show popular? This is what I wanna know at this moment. (and geez... I forgot that she's doing a radio show until I read the last page... )

[Andrenekoi]

^ Goodbye Happiness still sold over 2 million copies in digital sales, as did most of the older tracks from the compilation. Hikki is a pretty unique musician on the sense that almost all of her singles during her whole career are pretty much huge hits, but I really doubt she has 2 million hardcore fans... I would count the SC2 sales as her core fanbase (as it came with a new EP) and her usual digital sales as her casual listeners.

Even if SC1 had huge sales sales, it also sold way less than any of her previous albums, and this fact itself goes against the usual for the jpop market, where the compilation tend to be the last relevant relese and the overall best selling album. Japanese loves compilations, but this doesn't mean they will buy again a lot of stuff they already have just because it is a compilation. Even more Hikki that is marketed towards adults for longer than Ayu or Namie for example, and adults are less likely to buy something just because there's an idol name on it.

[Delicious n Bold]

If I was able to, I would have bought SC2.
Those 5 songs are totally worth it, and that ****** cover is ok to. Symbolic, yes. Quality, no.

[Andrenekoi]

BTW, let's be honest, if covers affected sales, Hikki wouldn't have survived so long

[Delicious n Bold]

First love would have bombed. I hate that cover.
Makes sunrise look like Picasso

[bluegie]

First Love cover is MAGICAL! When I first figured out who she was in 1999, and when I saw the cover, my thought was: so conceited... no wonder she could sell 7 million copies... It was her "conceited" look that brought me into JPop world lol

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

^ Goodbye Happiness still sold over 2 million copies in digital sales, as did most of the older tracks from the compilation. Hikki is a pretty unique musician on the sense that almost all of her singles during her whole career are pretty much huge hits, but I really doubt she has 2 million hardcore fans... I would count the SC2 sales as her core fanbase (as it came with a new EP) and her usual digital sales as her casual listeners.

Even if SC1 had huge sales sales, it also sold way less than any of her previous albums, and this fact itself goes against the usual for the jpop market, where the compilation tend to be the last relevant relese and the overall best selling album. Japanese loves compilations, but this doesn't mean they will buy again a lot of stuff they already have just because it is a compilation. Even more Hikki that is marketed towards adults for longer than Ayu or Namie for example, and adults are less likely to buy something just because there's an idol name on it.

When SC1 released, the music industry was already shrinking, so actually its sales was extremely good in 2004 (if not, it couldn't be yearly no. 1 rite? ). Of course, we can't deny that it didn't sell as good as her previous albums.

I didn't know Goodbye Happiness had 2 million digital downloads, because it never went to no. 1 daily in recochoku. And when I looked at generasia, it only said it was certified gold (100,000 downloads) in the end. So I dunno. I would love to find the source for that .

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

BTW, let's be honest, if covers affected sales, Hikki wouldn't have survived so long

True ... Well probly except DR and UB, those covers are actually quite good. Honestly if wasn't her popularity, Distance would have bombed instead. I was so disappointed by that cover. It was pretty ugly compared to A BEST (well at that time, almost every single JPop fans were watching the battle rite? Including myself ). I could accept First Love cover because it was a way to show her face to the whole world. Distance was her second album and all she did was wearing a fur coat (?) and making that weird pose. It didn't have any concept at all.

[Andrenekoi]

^Read that on Wikipedia, but they have no source for it, so maybe it was just a Hikki stan... Still, it got 13 million views on Youtube, what is pretty decent.

[CoriKaru]

What is the story behind her Single Collection 2 Cover? I didn't know there was one.

I was just disappointed in her lie..