[Utada Hikaru] ʕ•̫͡•ʔ A Vacation for Only Two Hours in the 55th thread ʕ•̫͡•ʔ

[thinkingoutloud89]

^thats not quite true. Ayes peak was with the A single and the 2nd and 3rd album...after A BEST compiled everything she went down.

[bluegie]

^Here are you can see those six different covers (just scroll down a bit).

Originally Posted by thinkingoutloud89

^thats not quite true. Ayes peak was with the A single and the 2nd and 3rd album...after A BEST compiled everything she went down.

Nope. She started getting popular around the time she released a bunch of singles like LOVE~Destiny~, Boys & Girls, etc. A was the one that determined she's popular enough to be a rising star. LOVEppears was great but it was just over a million copies on the first week. (And FYI, Addicted To You released on the same week and got over a million copies as well, as a single. That was the first time I went to oricon, so I remember so well lol). She was really popular at that time, but not stable enough to considered as the queen. So her next new releases (not counting kanariya and fly high, since both were album cut) were doing so-so (vogue got about 300-400K on the first week, Far away got below 300K on the first week). It wasn't until the release of SEASONS (over 500K on the first week), where she got back on her feet. Duty was definitely the stepping stone to climb to the peak. It was a hype during that moment (even tho... all ayu fans at that time were a bit disappointed that it only got 1.6 million copies on the first week. We really thought she could compete with Mai Kuraki, who got 2.3m copies on the first week a few month ago). The hype died down a bit between Oct and Nov (AUDIENCE was released btw). Then the hype came back with the release of M, and the release of Limited A Model TU-KA phone (sigh I remember that I wished I had that phone). Then the story continued back to the release of A BEST).
I know why you think her peak was at the 2nd and 3rd album, as both sold better than I am... and RAINBOW. But I can tell you that both were yearly no. 2. This means at that time, all album sales in Japan declined. Also, you would still not be able to avoid seeing ayu everywhere during 2001 and 2002. She was still on her peak until 2003 I think. Remember that H was the yearly no. 1 album, and that was released in 2002. It was the only single that could sell over a million copies in that year. (I know... three limited editions and one regular edition, then one called "million copies celebration edition". Still, if her fans were not that crazy, she wouldn't be able to achieve that).

Originally Posted by jean-baptiste

All that and yet...didn't Utada get #1 the first week? Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Distance is, in my opinion, Utada's lesser album.

Originally Posted by Tio/Tayumi

She got #1 in the first week but it in the second week it was Ayu with around 500k copies sold.

Distance got no. 1 on the first week with over 3 million copies, while A BEST got..err... 2.96m I think. The second week was interesting. A BEST only got no. 1 on the first day of second week, and for the rest of the week, Distance was no. 1. Yet, in the end I think A BEST sold about 50K more than Distance. It's such a mystery that ayu could win that week with only getting no. 1 for a day. And normally the first day of the week was probably the weaker sales day. Still, I can't complain since I'm a fan of both. Lots of hikki fans said avex did something to make ayu getting no.1 for that week tho.

And I agree that Distance is my least fav album....

Originally Posted by ahtka-chan

Distance had that LP version, wasn't it? I guess it was released together with the normal version...

The Vinyl version didn't release until July. I can't remember if the vinyl sales counted in the cd sales though.

[Miduhyo]

Originally Posted by bluegie

^Here are you can see those six different covers (just scroll down a bit).


Distance got no. 1 on the first week with over 3 million copies, while A BEST got..err... 2.96m I think. The second week was interesting. A BEST only got no. 1 on the first day of second week, and for the rest of the week, Distance was no. 1. Yet, in the end I think A BEST sold about 50K more than Distance. It's such a mystery that ayu could win that week with only getting no. 1 for a day. And normally the first day of the week was probably the weaker sales day. Still, I can't complain since I'm a fan of both. Lots of hikki fans said avex did something to make ayu getting no.1 for that week tho.

Thanks for the link! I've seen those pictures before but just thought they were more promo for A BEST but didn't have actually anything to do with the album.

Now with that bolded part. That would not surprise me in the least if avex did something like that. I mean, it's obvious with all their promotion they REALLY WANTED Ayu to beat Utada while Utada was just chilling and flossing like Captain Picard. I mean, they put so much money into those promotions and work for Ayu at that time, you can bet your good money that they wanted to get her an 'official' number one no matter what.

I mean, like you said, I'm fans of both too so it really shouldn't bother me but it kind of does. xD

But, you know, this could all be hearsay. I shouldn't even be adding to this theory but the forum-loving side of me had to say something. Besides, this was fifteen years ago. It's not like it matters much now.

[ExodusUK]

Originally Posted by Miduhyo

Thanks for the link! I've seen those pictures before but just thought they were more promo for A BEST but didn't have actually anything to do with the album.

Now with that bolded part. That would not surprise me in the least if avex did something like that. I mean, it's obvious with all their promotion they REALLY WANTED Ayu to beat Utada while Utada was just chilling and flossing like Captain Picard. I mean, they put so much money into those promotions and work for Ayu at that time, you can bet your good money that they wanted to get her an 'official' number one no matter what.

I mean, like you said, I'm fans of both too so it really shouldn't bother me but it kind of does. xD

But, you know, this could all be hearsay. I shouldn't even be adding to this theory but the forum-loving side of me had to say something. Besides, this was fifteen years ago. It's not like it matters much now.

In the NTV special, Ayu said herself that she made the decision to schedule her promo and purposely overworked herself during the promotion of A BEST as she naively believed at the time that it would be her last album. I remember in an interview Ayu said she released in the early morning of March 28th (the release day of A BEST and Distance) that she had been up working for 40 hours and that was becoming a martyr.

More about March 2001 - http://deliriumzer0.com/?p=189

[Miduhyo]

Originally Posted by ExodusUK

In the NTV special, Ayu said herself that she made the decision to schedule her promo and purposely overworked herself during the promotion of A BEST as she naively believed at the time that it would be her last album. I remember in an interview Ayu said she released in the early morning of March 28th (the release day of A BEST and Distance) that she had been up working for 40 hours and that was becoming a martyr.

More about March 2001 - http://deliriumzer0.com/?p=189

20 albums later.... xD

But I can totally see Ayu having that type of mindset and thinking 'if I'm going down, I'm going down with a bang.' Luckily it wasn't her last album. I don't know what my life would be like if I hadn't heard the album I am... that brought me here and introduced me to Ayu. (but that's a conversation for a different thread)

But it's good that things have cooled down for her/for them both. I've been learning a lot about this time from this conversation and I find it a lot more interesting than I did before. I didn't realize just how much was 'at stake' (in Ayu's mindset at least.) and I'm gaining more appreciation from these artists and why Ayu is so protective of taking control of her career. I knew that she bashed with avex at one time but I didn't know exactly when it was and why. Now I do.

and thanks for that link as well. It's an interesting read.