Single HKT48 4th Single "Hikaeme I love you!" (24/09/14)

But then 5000 sales on oricon hardly tells you anything about mainstream popularity if it was just 50 people buying a hundred cd's each.

I forgot what this was about again

 

We should not analyse the digital charts like physical charts.

Every position in digital chart ranking has sales way lower than physical sales charts. And #1 is usually not far from #2 and so on, unlike physical chart. As such, it ain't as important to get high debut week ranking in digital chart. The most important thing is to maintain. Hence, unlike physical chart, if you get #1 in 1st week and drop off rapidly subsequently, in overall you are hardly any different from getting #10 in 1st week and dropping off from there. For example in iTunes, hit releases can just keep getting an extremely consistent 2-3k sales points everyday for many many weeks. For example, Nishino Kana's latest release and Motohiro Hata's Doraemon 3D film theme song accumulated over 200k sales points despite low sales everyday. The Japanese version of Let It Go managed to stay in top 10 for 155 consecutive days, breaking 350k sales point.

The trend for this in digital charts is natural, cause it's always there for you to download, unlike physical stores whereby the stores must clear older releases so that there's space to shelve in lots of newer releases that come in every week. This being said, idols generally can't maintain on the digital charts, with very few exceptions such as KFC. BUT, idols do perform way better than regular artists in music videos downloads, and MV downloads are more expensive. So I guess it's not that bad.

 

I was able to ask a coworker to bring this single (Type B) back from Japan for me...

I think it's my favorite AKB48 group single in recent years!

All three tracks are fun to listen to and the DVD extra is interesting.

Part of me wishes they'd sell the HKT tracks on iTunes like NMB does, but I think I'd miss having the DVDs...

 

Digital sales is indicative of the popularity/quality of the song itself because you can't buy it multiple times to handshake your girls or go on a cruise event with them or to display on your shelf. You're really only buying it for the song itself.

 

Yeah I think digital sales are interesting because it's much harder for 48 to rig the numbers.

If you'd look at oricon only you could think hkt is one of the most popular music acts in Japan at the moment.

 

Well, if we are talking about 'one of the most popular' then they are.

 

"music acts"

the problem with oricon is that it's completely meaningless if you want to compare HKT to groups outside of 48/46. But then this is the same discussion we have every single time someone brings up oricon v soundscan. Both are inaccurate and flawed.

 

Sales are Sales. That's all that matters, it doesn't matter how you get them. As long as there's enough money coming in to maintain the existence of the theatre and pay the members and staff that's all that matters.

 

But then as someone who likes music in general, I'd like to see which song or album is the most popular. Not which artists can sell the most gimmicks. I guess it's completely different if you're mainly a 48-fan.

HKT's songs aren't always the most popular songs released that week, although oricon wants you to believe otherwise. I want the most popular songs to get the attention, and being high on the charts gives you attention.

What if there's an idol group that gives away their cd's with every loaf of bread you buy? They would sell ten times as much as 48.

 

If you're having such trouble with the 48G why are you even a fan?

 

Because I enjoy certain aspects of 48 doesn't mean I have to agree with the way they're selling their cd's / rigging oricon.

That seems to be a common theme around here. Being a fan of something doesn't mean you have to agree with everything they do. It's okay to voice criticism about the things you like, I even think it's very important.

There are plenty of 48 fans who think it's all a bit silly really, including those hs tickets in cd sales.

 

In an age of rampant piracy a group needs to have a unique selling point. Most groups these days make most of their money from touring or merchandise sales, the 48-group with hundreds of members and hundreds of staff need much more funding than a normal 4 or 5 piece group so they need to shift CD's too and how to encourage people to buy instead of pirate? You give people extra stuff like contact with their favourite members.

As for music taste, this is a subjective thing, I happen to think that the 48-group makes some very good pop music. In the past phenomenally successful pop-groups like Abba, The Beach Boys and others were heavily criticised in their day for being "bubblegum" pop but underwent a critical reappraisal years after they were successful.

 

We don't have to agree with everything they do but handshakes is a central part of the business model and that isn't going to change. They could sell the tickets without coupling it with the CD but that would mean less publicity and in the end less income.

It's up to Oricon if they want to exclude groups that are using gimmicks.

 

Abba is awful of course, still is.

Don't get me started on the Beach Boys though.. Maybe they started out making bubblegum pop but then Brian Wilson made Pet Sounds.... It's one of the quintessential pop albums of all time, a masterpiece, work of a genius. It raised the bar for pop music. So much craftsmanship and musicianship went into that album , it's absolutely nothing like the music 48 churns out at random.

Here's a link to pet sounds http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW79q83govkXJJBEnMnlvJ7B1b3xPosvO

It wasn't even about the quality of the music.... You're just not getting the point. It's about including sales that have nothing to do with the music. If 300.000 people want to buy an hkt single for the music then that's great for HKT, but more than 2/3 of the sales are theatre editions. The result is that the oricon results tell us nothing about the popularity of the music. That's my problem.

^ what makes better headlines for oricon ? "AKB sells 1m first day!!" Or "AKB takes first place with 113k sold first day" ?

 

Sounds like you need to see your therapist about your "problem" because it isn't something that actually matters. As I said, sales are sales, they make good music, they entertain and they keep the members employed. If you don't like the business plan then send a strongly worded letter to Aki-P because repeating the same statements on every release thread is kind of pointless.

And if you don't appreciate the music then that's just your opinion not a fact, there are plenty of differing opinions on the matter.

 

I need a therapist? Okay that's a bit uncalled for I think.

I understand it from a business point of view. AKB is a lot of hype and very little substance. Of course they need this to stand out a bit, to make headlines etc. But I'm more neutral, I don't need 48 to outsell their competitors. Still I think all the events they have to organize and pay for to be able to sell a million, eats away their profit a bit.

Anyway this has been fun again. Unfortunately no one really addressed the point I tried to make but at least I got some free advice from Reveen.


if the video does not show watch the video here

 

It was a joke, relax. If you want a bit more advice though, try and not state your opinions as if they are facts.

As regards your general arguments, if you keep making the same points, you'll generally get the same responses.

 

Ok. Then look at what is selling on the weeks other than HKT's releases. Or look at whatever number 2 in the chart is. And then you can tell yourself that that is the truly most popular thing, if it makes you feel better.

Uh I don't think Oricon wants you to believe anything. All they do is compile sales data and present it. You can interpret that data however you want.

Well, then the CDs would be free gifts and wouldn't be tracked as sales
Either way, the other idol groups, female ones at least, all pretty much do the same things HKT does, and none of them seem to come close in sales, so you can say at least they are one of the most popular female groups.

 

Well yeah the difference with other idol groups is that they have 350 members less.

But I agree it's a wider problem

 

I was comparing them with HKT
HKT doesn't have 350 more members ^_^;