[Charts & Rankings] The Official Oricon Thread of ~You were.../BALLAD~

[emi♡]

Originally Posted by KarenPang

releasing before Christmas will be a bad horrible idea

Nov & mid Dec were all packed full of Johnny's releases of singles & if You were ... / BALLAD were to go up against Fukuyama Masaharu's Hatsukoi , Hatsukoi would pound her super big time

especially since the single sold about 152K+ in the 1st week with 3 editions & I don't think You were ... / BALLAD is able to reach that amount despite having 1st press goodies & the works

to me it really shouldn't matter. I don't really care about her supposed number 1 streak anymore though lol

@njanjayrp: really? JUJU? How interesting~ and the boy bands don't do well digitally? Very interesting indeed. That actually...makes me kind of happy in a...mean way I guess lol

I don't know, I guess it wouldn't have sold as well if released before christmas? But it seems like the proper time to release a Winter Ballad...not on some week at the end of the year when no one even cares.

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by AyuWorld

i'm sorry but my question is,Ayu isnt popular anymore in japan? imo this is a good single and her fans should support her more >.< for what i know Exile had been in the industry for a long time too,

i'm sorry if i'm sound silly but thing isnt very clear for me

She is supported mainly by her hardcore fanbase (what would be something like 70k ~ 100k people) and her casual listeners, that don't buy everything she does, but buys everything they like from her... Still, she has some hits with the general public here and there (Days is charting on more than 1 year now on digital charts). Anyway, physical sales = fanbase + older people... most of younger people are buying mp3 now...

[njanjayrp]

Originally Posted by emiko

@njanjayrp: really? JUJU? How interesting~ and the boy bands don't do well digitally? Very interesting indeed. That actually...makes me kind of happy in a...mean way I guess lol

If you look at the chaku uta and chaku uta full yearly rankings, you'll see that JUJU ranked @ #1 and #2 with Ashita ga kuru nara and that even Sunaoni naretara got #8 in chaku uta full.

http://recochoku.jp/recochoku_ranking/yearly_uta.html
http://recochoku.jp/recochoku_ranking/yearly_full.html

Now while you can see KAT-TUN (Rescue) and NEWS (Koi no ABO) in top50/60 of chaku uta ringtones, you'll see that both Days and Sunrise ranked way better than their tracks. On the other hand they didn't even make it to the top100 of chaku uta fulls while Ayu had 3 songs in top 100. Now someone will have to confirm (Karen?) if they released the chaku uta fulls at all, if not that would explain their high physical sales to a certain extent, though considering arashi has Believe ranked quite high on chaku uta fulls I presume they did release the songs of other bands as well, which means they weren't exactly hits...

[truehappiness]

to me it really shouldn't matter. I don't really care about her supposed number 1 streak anymore though lol

Because the streak exists, it does matter. Not many acts [let alone soloists] nowadays have much of a #1 streak these days. Though it's likely that even if she does lose it this year or the next and so on, they will still try to get her #1s in the future. (GUILTY -> NEXT LEVEL)

[KarenPang]

Originally Posted by emiko

to me it really shouldn't matter. I don't really care about her supposed number 1 streak anymore though lol

I don't know, I guess it wouldn't have sold as well if released before christmas? But it seems like the proper time to release a Winter Ballad...not on some week at the end of the year when no one even cares.

I frankly do not care about the #1 streak too , Sabrina but obviously other people will think otherwise & a while back ago , it was mentioned that if her #1 streak's gone , I think her sales will take a really bad nosedive

I really don't know how singles/albums generally sold during Winter time but I guess it's not as good as other times of the year like during Spring that sorta thing

I could be wrong I don't know

[Crystal_Ageha]

I'm just wondering... Why do those of you who don't care at all about the streak feel that way..? Because, I mean, this is a HUGE accomplishment, what she's going for. She'll be forever ingrained into the history of Japanese music; she'll eternally be known as one of the top female artists - actually, artists in general - and it will ensure that she remains a Queen. Even if somebody breaks HER record (which, it probably will happen, eventually, but not for a while), she'll still be 'there' because of this, just as Seiko is and always will be. Besides, it's not like she's still thirty releases away or something--Just a few more!! She's come this far, so I can't imagine being completely apathetic about whether or not she succeeds in this.

[KarenPang]

^ erm maybe because it's just a record on 'paper' & that somewhere down the line , it might get written over/broken

but I'm not going to deny that it's 1 of the many great accomplishments she has attained in her career but sometimes people are making something like it's such a big thing where other people perceived it as just something small & minor

I hope I'm writing something that has some sense , I woke up at 7am today so

[waterballoon]

The #1 streak is something that avex uses to make Ayu look really accomplished. Usually when they interview her on magazines, or when she's on TV, they always make it a point to mention she has how many #1 singles/albums, or how many records has she sold thus far... it's not REALLY important at the end of the day, but in terms of $$$ and marketing, I guess it has a significance to a certain extent.

Either way, I wished the single would be released on its original date too... obviously it'll lose to Hatsukoi, but at least people would be buying it lol. Now even the #1 single is selling less than 2k copies oh my God sun!

[Andrenekoi]

I dislike it cuz imo it makes her release very generic singles sometimes @_@

[truehappiness]

I don't think that striving to get the #1 spot has anything to do with the "generic" quality that some speak of when it comes to her music as of late. If anything, the only thing that the #1 streak affects usually is the date that it is released.

I feel bad for Ayu because if she does something too experimental or out there, people might completely reject it like B&D/Pride and t2m. She's stated in the past that her singles tend to be the more easily digestible tracks, but by no means are they generic imo. If she's doing the innovative and out-there stuff on the album and the songs meant for the public as singles, then what the heck is there to complain about? That she isn't trying hard enough to be break away from her own sound?

[Andrenekoi]

^ Summer singles mash up

[C+R+E+AYUMI]

REACHED 100000 K CONGRATS AYU

[jbrat2219]

Originally Posted by truehappiness

I don't think that striving to get the #1 spot has anything to do with the "generic" quality that some speak of when it comes to her music as of late. If anything, the only thing that the #1 streak affects usually is the date that it is released.

I feel bad for Ayu because if she does something too experimental or out there, people might completely reject it like B&D/Pride and t2m. She's stated in the past that her singles tend to be the more easily digestible tracks, but by no means are they generic imo. If she's doing the innovative and out-there stuff on the album and the songs meant for the public as singles, then what the heck is there to complain about? That she isn't trying hard enough to be break away from her own sound?

You have a great point. I mean GUILTY gave us Marionette, Mirror/Mirrorcle World and (don't) leave me alone (even the title track I find to be highly experimental). NEXT LEVEL gave us a whole boat load of experimental tracks. People keep saying she's in her comfort zone when for the past two albums she's been way out of it.

[truehappiness]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

^ Summer singles mash up

What about it?

Her summer tracks imo are mostly defined by their arrangements by HAL. Most of the time [since '02/'03] when people think a song sounds like some summer song from way back when, they are most likely involved. Whether or not it's a bad thing that she has such a signature sound when it comes to her summery tracks, it depends on the listener, but I think that if you strip away the "typical for Ayu" arrangement [piano versions of her tracks] you realize that the songs really aren't that similar to begin with. I do see why she might want her summer-infused upbeat tracks to all have similar feelings of summer, so she has HAL work on them, but it wouldn't hurt to have someone else take over once in a while.

[Andrenekoi]

But is the arrangment that make her summer/winter tracks being generic on the first place... and even if i can understand they importance to her career, and really like some of those tracks, I just wish she stopped releasing those... But still, when she does so, people over here that complains she is being too generic start crying cuz they didn't get a summer track...

about her music being on a comfort zone, even if she released a track made of fart and clapping people around her would say she is at her confort zone (something she isn't besides seasonal singles since I am...)

[njanjayrp]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

But is the arrangment that make her summer/winter tracks being generic on the first place... and even if i can understand they importance to her career, and really like some of those tracks, I just wish she stopped releasing those... But still, when she does so, people over here that complains she is being too generic start crying cuz they didn't get a summer track...

about her music being on a comfort zone, even if she released a track made of fart and clapping people around her would say she is at her confort zone (something she isn't besides seasonal singles since I am...)

That's the sad truth and that's just because people prefer one artist over another that at times they deny the obvious, while claim that someone else changes with every song s/he does just because they like that someone better.

[waterballoon]

imo, she hasn't been very experimental cos she's still a pop singer, and she has always been churning out pop, ballads or "rock" songs. Granted she could have "different" sounds for each album, but basically they're either pop/ballad/rock right? Haha I mean I'm not bothered by her being "generic", but really, I don't think we should expect too much from a pop singer. If she were indie, maybe. But under a big label with all the usual songs to release each year... I'm not expecting too much.

[miskiq]

drop to #4..quite big gap

*1　3,277　C-ute
*2　2,212　福山雅治
*3　1,295　9mm

*4　浜崎あゆみ

[zyoeru]

I don't think Ayu's overall sound is generic. Yes she's a pop singer, but what is pop? Popular music. About two decades ago the "pop" was stuff like enka. But really people use this term "pop" to excuse Ayu being generic (which I think is a load of...).

What does it mean to be pop nowadays? What does it mean to be rock? It doesn't matter what genre Ayu has tried or tried because everyone just says it's pop.

Because of You, kiss o' kill, talkin' 2 myself. Are they really pop?

To me pop is bubblegum sounding music, stuff like Beautiful Fighters, ANGEL'S SONG, HONEY.
We don't have too many of those songs in Ayu's discography, surprisingly.

[njanjayrp]

^ it's the same way people classify Gackt as rock even though he is a "pop" singer with rock music and classical/electro influences...