Tokis

Those AKB x MM comparisons are kinda irrelevant. AKB is in trend right now that´s why they are selling well. There is no special recipe for their success. The sames was Morning Musume during their so called golden years. But trends changes faster as you can imagine. That´s why MoMusus sales were constantly going down. And who knows how AKB will do in a few years or months? More imporant is if Morning Musume's new era may change the fact to become trendy again in Japan. A really high selling "OTT/TMS" single would make a great start.

I personally believe AKB48 is selling well due to its mastermind/excellent promotion- H!P has taken some cues from it, but its been pretty slow on the uptake etc. I agree though that just because AKB is very successful right now does not mean that it will continue to go from strength to strength forever- all good things come to an end as they say. Just based on what has happened to other highly successful groups in the past, this is a likelihood.

I also agree that the 50th single could be the turning for MM- i really am beginning to believe this is the case much than i ever had with any other MM single for many years now. Its not just the new line-up & image and the fact that the 50th single is in fact very good (at least the majority of people seem to be very happy about it) but i feel other things have changed in Hello! Project too- the picture of H!P & it's stars is different, changing. On the other hand (probably a gain for MM) AKB does seem to have been struck by quite a few scandles & depressing news recently.

@Tokis

I think nearly all of the other sales talk was comparing this specific single sales to previous MM singles. You've made it specific discussion about why MM in general isn't/hasn't been selling as well as a specific other group...that's a valid argument to have, if someone makes a new topic somewhere anyone who wants to smash into each other can do it. Also when did anyone accuse you of trolling?

Nobody accused me specifically of trolling but i think its pretty plain for all to see that most people here expect such discussions to be guarenteed to turn into wars. But my real objective in bringing up AKB as a factor at all in all of this success & sales talk is because i think the reason for its success is not down to its music but rather the groups management in general- it has been exceptionally well promoted in so many area's of it's promotion, and i think H!P & MM could take many methods/idea's from AKB.

As long as we're on the subject though, I do agree with most of what's being said, but I think an important thing to note is that yes, it seems CD sales have stabilized these past couple of years, but as someone pointed out, hardly anyone is buying physical CD copies just for the music anymore. They're usually buying it for the extras. The whole reason I preordered the new AKB album yesterday was because it is a 2CD+DVD album with 30 songs plus several features on the DVD plus a special poster for first press plus the photo that it will come with plus the fact that, well, AKB CDs are pretty to look at, lol. And it only costs a bit over 3000 yen. Their lyrics booklets are always nice-looking with nice pictures, etc. When you compare the quality of their CDs overall (not the music itself, but everything else) to H!P CDs, if you're wondering "Oh, should I buy the new AKB album or the new Morning Musume album?" I think it's kind of a no-brainer. You get a lot more for your money with the new AKB album, while you'll only get 1 CD and a jewel case and the lyrics booklet with the Morning Musume album for the same price.

At least, that's how I see it.

That is a very good point. I have heard about the great deals you get out of AKB single CD deals- there's no denying that for what you pay for, you get a great deal more from AKB. And all the CD goodies probably help fans feel closer to the group (a very important thing when staying mainstream).

Morning Musume's 50th single promotion has been very good, but can it be better? This single seems to be getting promoted much more in general than previous single's, but the main promotion difference i have noticed is that there are a great deal more handshake events surrounding this single. There have been other improvements too, like a much better quality TV CM and more music in the release.

If they want to be marketed as an idol group, then yes. It's incredibly important. Maybe not to us, but to those hardcore fans who buy a tons of singles to support their favorite girl, it's hugely important. I think I remember reading earlier this year there was an AKB scandal and a girl was found to have had a boyfriend back in like 2009 while still in the group, and a fan actually tried to sue her for misrepresenting herself as being pure and a virgin and that he had wasted millions of yen on voting for her. I think declining sales doesn't so much have to do with them being booted from the group but with them making the mistakes in the first place that resulted in them having to resign. I think needless graduations have more to do with it than scandals, though...

I am not so familar with AKB as i am with MM, but haven't there been boyfriend scandals in AKB where the member in question was actually kept by the company?

Anyhoo other people's news stuff (so that my posts don't keep on covering up potentially interesting news lol);

Interesting stuff on Youtube:


Someone isolated Tsunku's backing vocal for the Matenrou Show and created a PV (starring Tsunku) for the single here.

A female wota opens up a package containing the singles here. You get to see what the individual handshake tickets look like. I think these tickets are a new thing for Momusu.

^
^ Where exactly do the estimated sales come from, are they posted somewhere on Oricon?

http://www.oricon.co...music/970037/1/

I'm trying to make sense of what the individual this single profile page actually means, but it's tested my limited knowledge to breaking point.

^ Hm not exactly how I think about it, although I agree on a lot with you. I see it kind of like inflation that has to be calculated in dropping sales.
So to me it's a wonder that Morning Musume didn't drop even lower since 2006 considering they they hardly got any promotion and the music industry in general was in a downwards spiral.
Momusu could really have gone down the drain because UFA were lazy mofo's for the most part!

Most acts that have broken loose of that downward trend did that because they know their promotion tactics. Look at AKB48, their music style is not all that new and refreshing, but they got promoted like there was no tomorrow. If you push hard enough, eventually your act will stick to the public. This single is proof of that, Momusu hasn't had this much promotion and visibility in a long time and look where it got them. So hopefully this is a wakeup call to UFA because they are indeed the most important reason why Momusu hasn't been as successful as they could have been.

I completely agree with the promotion.

I do think H!P's promotion has not been great over the years. I definitely think there have been other factors that have negatively affected the group, for example gradution & auditions mistakes as well as some scandals which cannot have been said to have helped the group or H!P in general at all. For example i think both Mari Yaguchi's & Fujimoto's Miki's resignations hurt the group a lot- i know Tsunku has always emphasised an exceptionally "clean image" of MM and had a very low tolerance for scandals, with even very long standing members being kicked out for having boyfriends (with the members in question long duration or age seemingly giving them little defense in such situations etc) and i know Tsunku has been heavy-handed like this because of the way such scandals can affect fanbases & sales. But still, i do wonder what the negative cost of getting rid of such members is in comparison to keeping them. Does the group really always benefit more from being rid of such members, etc? I find it debatable.

But regardless of the other factors, IMO promotion is the strongest one. A good H!P example i think of this would be C-ute's 18th single Kimi Wa etc- jpop ballads do not stereotypically sell well and i think that given the usual C-ute level promotion treatment, this single would have certainly flopped and just been another poorly achieving single on a downwards list. But it didn't. It did exceptionally well- the best in fact any C-ute single has done since its very formation (and it will probably rank fairly highly too by the end of this years when compared to other H!P groups 2012 singles).
Does this mean ballads at the key to success? Not at all !!
The single did well because of the EPIC promotion it had (what was it again, like 32+ MV's? And it had a lot of promotion on top of that as well)! Do think Kimi Wa etc was the best single C-ute has ever released? Not anymore than i think Love Machine is for MM (sometimes lol- i do like it a lot, definitely one of my top favourites!). IMO some of MM's best singles have not sold great, and some of its highest selling singles were not necessarily the groups best.

So promotion is one of the most (if not THE most) important keys to a single's success. Even the most generic/mediocre/mundane jpop single can do great if only it is promoted enough (and in the right way- crucial), and vice versa the best singles can flop if not promoted properly.

Why cannot people handle groups being compared? I don't even get that. I think its childish. So what is Morning Musume is not reaping in excessive single sales harvests like AKB48, does it really matter that much (especially considering MM is still incredibly successful)? How come things have to be this bad, that to even compare groups is to be accussed of trolling? What about for those who really GENUINELY want to discuss business & Morning Musume, and not just tell themselves what they want to hear and ignore what they don't want to see? It's like fluffy BS.
...These days its almost like you're less of a fan to just even say something more positive about another group.

This seems to have nothing to do with the current single. Unless you have something relevant to say about OTT/TMS, please stop.

How is talking about sales not relevant to the release of the new single? I did not even bring up this subject to begin with (i was merely giving my opinion to what was already being discussed).

Oooh, ok i get it. Absolutely fine to talk about sales if you're saying things most people want to hear, not if you not.

^ that's fine then, so rather than 8 years of mismanagement we've proved it was only 2 years.

Well everyone is entitled to their theory.

My personal opinion is that decling CD sales is just a convinient scapegoat for many fans who want to excuse MM's comparative lack of current success to its past success. AKB48 is just the giant octopus sitting in the corner of the room that such fans choose to ignore/pretend not to see even though it is clearly visible. I would love it if the blame of MM's troubles could all be heaped on factors which the group has absolutely no control over (which i feel is the real objective of the "declining CD sales" theory supporter group), but i fail to be convinced that this is the case.

This is how i feel it goes;

1, Current Morning Musume single sells very well, MM Fans: "OMG well done Morning Musume, you're are so great, we love you Tsunku, return of Golden Era etc etc!!
2. Current Morning Musume single sells poorly, MM Fans: "ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with Morning Musume, it's just the market, i am shocked at this great unfairness- it's someone else fault etc!"

You also get the group of sales focused fans that go like this;
1. Fan hears single preview: "OMG I love it"
2. Fan then see's PV: "OMG i keep on loving this single even more!!"
3. Single then nears release: "I love this single and i think it is going to do great- definitely at least much better than so-and-so etc!!"
4. Single does not sell well: "........."
5. After total sales statistic have been gathered, fan is like: "Well i didn't think it was going to sell that well anyway (and when you look at it this was not done right and that could have been done better and it's Tsunku's/H!P's/UFA's etc fault that the single didn't do as well as i expected etc etc)"

I have been a fan of Morning Musume since 2005 and have been aware of things like sales since 2006 and i have seen these cycles play around SOOO many times now.

Very few people look at the group and how it is actually percieved in Japan etc.
Most people try to blame MM's woes on factors that it has no control over, other's blame the company, some blame people Tsunku. An absolute minority might suggest that a single could have been done better by the group itself. I have even seen people (seriously) coming up with conspiracy theories as to why MM's sales are not like AKB's with theories like the Yakuza corrupting the TV stations and forcing them to not let Morning Musume on etc. Some people have even gone so far as to say AKB48 is sponsored by the Yakuza/Japanese Mafia and the reason why MM is not doing as well is because it is less corrupted (I mean for real?!! Yes, unfortunately i have seen people even go this far to excuse MM's troubles, and this is sadly not as rare as you might think).
But it seems the most taboo subject of all is to look at the group itself to try to find the reasons for its "woes".

Why cannot people handle groups being compared? I don't even get that. I think its childish. So what is Morning Musume is not reaping in excessive single sales harvests like AKB48, does it really matter that much (especially considering MM is still incredibly successful)? How come things have to be this bad, that to even compare groups is to be accussed of trolling? What about for those who really GENUINELY want to discuss business & Morning Musume, and not just tell themselves what they want to hear and ignore what they don't want to see? It's like fluffy BS.
...These days its almost like you're considered less of a fan to just even say something more positive about another group.

Crazy times '_' .

edit: spelling

Before a proper argument starts everyone is kind of right.

As a general trend CD singles have fallen around a third of their total value since 2002 and fell to nearly 50% of that figure recently, however the last two years have also seen a good increase CD single sales and almost certainly most of this has been down to the explosion in Idol acts (especially the ***48 acts). I can't find figures going back far enough yet but current figures are probably going to be far lower than the 1990s when 7 acts went way over 2 million and 8 of the top 10 selling singles came between 1991-2003.

Source:
http://www.riaj.or.j...e/single_m.html

So in reality CD sales are not declining anymore (and haven't been for the past 2-3 years) but rather sales have been increasing, which is proof that if Morning Musume's lower sales figures were due to an overall decline in CD sales then they would have also had an overall increase between 2009-2011 (there is not statistic on that website for 2012 yet), which they have not. If anything the more time goes by the more flawed the whole "declining CD sales" argument is not applicable to MM anymore than it is applicable to AKB48.

The whole CD sales argument really irritates me as i find it incredibly flawed and do not genuinely believe it to have anything much to do with Morning Musume's successes or falls.
IMO Love Machine did not sell over a million in 1999 because people back then threw money at CD's like no tomorrow, it was a success because of it's & the groups own merits etc- it was a massively cool single that caught perfectly the vibe of the times. And Morning Musume didn't (in comparison) drop off the sales radar because all of a sudden people decided to stop buying CD's so much, it happened because of many other (but much more important reasons) down to mistakes in the management of the group and the publics changing perception of it etc.

You disagree with data?
The data came from RIAJ itself.

If you want to see how bad the market in Japan is, take a look at this chart
its the total value of the Japanese music market

http://www.riaj.or.j...oney/index.html

More than 50% reduction.........

Funny how you seemingly ignore the consecutive 2-3 year increase in the last 2-3 years. If MM's failings are to do with a declining market, then how come their sales have not gone up in accordance with it either? I believe the "declining market" thing to merely be coincidence (far more evidence for this being the case).