[Charts & Rankings] 10th Album: NEXT LEVEL - ORICON STYLE

[Ayumiko]

well hopefully the appearance on music station and the upcoming tour will boost the sales a bit. The sales are lower than what I expected but what can you do...atleast I know I contributed.

Why ashamed? That's really stupid.

LOL @ tag: people being overdramatic

[~Inori~]

Originally Posted by jbrat2219

I don't feel like making another thread, so I hope someone sees my question(s):

What is going with with Oricon? Are they multiplying the 1.7 everyday instead of every week now? Are they not doing it at all? Are they surveying ALL of the stores in Japan now? What exactly changed?

What changed is they don't go by indexes anymore. The numbers they post are the actual sale numbers.

[jbrat2219]

^ From every store in Japan?

[~Inori~]

Originally Posted by jbrat2219

^ From every store in Japan?

Give or take a couple. Mostly give. When Oricon posts the sales they sometimes change.

[StarSUCKER]

About album sales~

1) Once you hit the top, sometimes you're left with no choice but to go down for a while.

2) The economy IS crap, and even if it's too early to judge how big a role that plays, remember that avex also charges an arm and a leg for CDs, and they always have, especially in Japan. Many people use digital pay-downloads, yes, but those that want to collect are more likely to find a free download somewhere now so they can wait until they have the money or there is a sale to get a physical copy of the CD, and still have the songs in the meantime.

About DBSK, etc.~

Come on now, whether they get the #1 spot or not is all well and good, but this is an AYU thread! Let's celebrate Ayu's success on its own merit instead of comparing her to everything else that was released at the same time!

[sitara]

every time she releases something, people instantly get their knickers in a buch. yet there isn't anything wrong in the first place. all her albums debuted at #1 the day it is released. (i don't consider oricon's way of calculating now) ayu sells millions. she has proven herself to be the most influential singer in japan. and even overseas she has many fans. how many jpop artists can say that about themselves??

so be content and enjoy life. i'm sure ayu makes less of a deal about her sales than you guys do. she should just enjoy life.

[jbrat2219]

Originally Posted by Kolongi

Give or take a couple. Mostly give. When Oricon posts the sales they sometimes change.

Okay thank you very much! I still think it's slightly unfair, not because of her current sales, but because of other stores not only in the country that weren't counted but the ones outside of the country. I kind of factored in my sales from YA and such in that 1.7 hahaha.

[Maemi]

I doubt it will be able to sell in first week more than 400k (like Guilty). It would be nice to outsell Guilty though...

[greenteadrinker]

Yeah, I'm pretty much happy with the performance of NEXT LEVEL, esp. considering the lack of TV appearances...

So what actually annoys me is the comparative decrease in promotion by Avex.
It just seems to me that they cut down on the marketing for this album...

[sparkle glitter]

Yeah, I think people have a right to be ashamed. I guess what someone said about the Japanese hating her were right. I have a cousin in Japan and when I told her I was an Ayumi fan she was like "ew, are you serious?", and said people are pretty much over her. This is really sad.

[ayumisrael]

Originally Posted by sparkle glitter

Yeah, I think people have a right to be ashamed. I guess what someone said about the Japanese hating her were right. I have a cousin in Japan and when I told her I was an Ayumi fan she was like "ew, are you serious?", and said people are pretty much over her. This is really sad.

The fact that she sells greatly and going to have her longest tour yet with 35dates is contradicting the "people are over her" theory.

[Megshere]

Apparently lots of peeps dropped and TVXQ dropped more than Ayu dropped.
Also people saying the economy isn't a big factor, I highly disagree. Japan's economy is in serious trouble; it's a BIG deal. Almost everything is down and I don't see why the music industry wouldn't be effected. This is a scary time for the world. People are saving their money for more important things than CDs. There are recent reports on how Japan's economy is on course for its worst recession since World War II. I'd say that is pretty serious. Last year, the Japanese economy had its worst performance in almost 35 years during the last quarter of 2008.
No, I don't think that's the only reason for the sales because music sales in general have been decreasing for a while, but the economy is definitely hitting people hard and you can't say it's not a big factor. Anyway, I am still happy with this and I'm surprised at the people saying this is so bad and they are ashamed. There are female solo artists who can't hit 100k in their first week; Ayu almost broke that in 1 day. Once again, get ova yourselves.

[njanjayrp]

Originally Posted by sparkle glitter

Yeah, I think people have a right to be ashamed. I guess what someone said about the Japanese hating her were right. I have a cousin in Japan and when I told her I was an Ayumi fan she was like "ew, are you serious?", and said people are pretty much over her. This is really sad.

LOL why do people have to make things up? Don't you have anything else to be ashamed of than someone's album sales? It's really dumb to be ashamed of things like that.

[~X2RADialbomber~]

^ Japan has been in a recession for 12 years. :\ 'recession' - i.e. no growth or negative growth.

[Chibi_Venus]

Originally Posted by Megshere

Apparently lots of peeps dropped and TVXQ dropped more than Ayu dropped.
Also people saying the economy isn't a big factor, I highly disagree. Japan's economy is in serious trouble; it's a BIG deal. Almost everything is down and I don't see why the music industry wouldn't be effected. This is a scary time for the world. People are saving their money for more important things than CDs. There are recent reports on how Japan's economy is on course for its worst recession since World War II. I'd say that is pretty serious. Last year, the Japanese economy had its worst performance in almost 35 years during the last quarter of 2008.
No, I don't think that's the only reason for the sales because music sales in general have been decreasing for a while, but the economy is definitely hitting people hard and you can't say it's not a big factor. Anyway, I am still happy with this and I'm surprised at the people saying this is so bad and they are ashamed. There are female solo artists who can't hit 100k in their first week; Ayu almost broke that in 1 day. Once again, get ova yourselves.

^ Completely agree with everything you said.

And THANK YOU for bringing up the economic issues we are ALL dealing with.

[kirei_ayumi]

As for the economic status, I can understand why ayu sells are down a bit..
all that matters is that she can remain the #1 female artist...

[SunshineSlayer]

Originally Posted by ayumisrael

The fact that she sells greatly and going to have her longest tour yet with 35dates is contradicting the "people are over her" theory.

I don't really want to start this whole topic again, but Ayu has a very large hardcore fanbase (something like 70,000 members of TA?) and that really keeps her alive. When talking to just regular people, I often get the same reaction that sparkleglitter talked about or people will say that they like a couple of her songs (but none are anything recent). She still does appeal somewhat to a broader audience, but I think it really depends on the song (for example Days) - but those instances are definitely the exception now rather than the Rule.

Originally Posted by Megshere

Also people saying the economy isn't a big factor, I highly disagree. Japan's economy is in serious trouble; it's a BIG deal. Almost everything is down and I don't see why the music industry wouldn't be effected. This is a scary time for the world. People are saving their money for more important things than CDs. There are recent reports on how Japan's economy is on course for its worst recession since World War II. I'd say that is pretty serious. Last year, the Japanese economy had its worst performance in almost 35 years during the last quarter of 2008.

There is no way to know how much of a factor it is right now. It doesn't make sense to me to say that "the economy is bad....but ONLY for female solo artists." There are other artists whose sales are doing quite well. If it is all the economies fault, then everyones sales should be struggling, but that is not the case. I'm not saying that they economy can't play a factor, but I also think it is an easy excuse for people to use when their favorite artists sales are lower. And lets not forget that in the mid-late 90s, people in Japan were saying the same thing "worst recession since WWII" - yet music sales soared at the time. In fact if you look at historical data of recessions throughout history, the one industry besides the food industry that gets least effected by economic downturns (and sometimes even profits from them) is the entertainment industry. Just look even at the American Great Depression of the 1930s (and as much as the news likes to use scare tactics, we are nowhere near that....yet at least), the entertainment industry seriously boomed HUGE. It has been proven many times that when in economic hardship, people want an escape from reality and that takes the form of music, movies, games, etc etc.

There is just simply not enough evidence at this time to say that Ayu's low sales are primarily economic based.

[Andrenekoi]

Japan's economy actually is THAT bad... there's a lot of brazilians over there losing their jobs and coming back because they can't find anything else... (I have some relatives living in Japan and having problems), it's the biggest number of brazilians coming back since when they began to go there...

And about her hardcore fanbase keeping her... EVERY big pop act that remains strong for years works like that... some stuff apeals to a major audience, but most of the time only die-hard fans know all the songs and stuff like that... It's not only with Ayu...

[SunshineSlayer]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

And about her hardcore fanbase keeping her... EVERY big pop act that remains strong for years works like that... some stuff apeals to a major audience, but most of the time only die-hard fans know all the songs and stuff like that... It's not only with Ayu...

There are definitely exceptions to that. Southern All Stars, B'z, and Mr. Children are not like that at all really.

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

Japan's economy actually is THAT bad... there's a lot of brazilians over there losing their jobs and coming back because they can't find anything else... (I have some relatives living in Japan and having problems), it's the biggest number of brazilians coming back since when they began to go there...

All I can say is that when I was just there, I didn't feel that the economy was all that bad. Although I wasn't working there, the yen was actually quite strong when compared with dollar. (The exchange rate was freaking 83yen to the dollar! Its never had that wide a gap before in my 16 years of going to and from Japan.)

[ayumisrael]

Originally Posted by SunshineSlayer

I don't really want to start this whole topic again, but Ayu has a very large hardcore fanbase (something like 70,000 members of TA?) and that really keeps her alive. When talking to just regular people, I often get the same reaction that sparkleglitter talked about or people will say that they like a couple of her songs (but none are anything recent). She still does appeal somewhat to a broader audience, but I think it really depends on the song (for example Days) - but those instances are definitely the exception now rather than the Rule.

Though ayu's last year's tour had 250,000 people which the numbers covers Team ayu's members numbers by almost x 3.5.
This tour has more venues (and not by 1 or 2) and it's her longest.
This time it might be around 350,000 or 400,000. I don't think that those are only fans, maybe half of it (if at all).

Japan must be hating ayu according to what you say then..