***48′s total dominance of 2012′s single charts has raised more than a few eyebrows amongst music lovers in Japan, with some voicing concern about the fact non-idol groups now barely feature at all…
The single sales figures for 2012, as compiled by Oricon:
1. 1,820,000 – AKB48 – Manatsu no Sounds good!
2. 1,437,000 – AKB48 – GIVE ME FIVE!
3. 1,303,000 – AKB48 – Gingham Check
3. 1,215,000 – AKB48 – UZA
5. 1,215,000 – AKB48 – Eien Pressure
6. 649,000 – Arashi – Wild at Heart
7. 620,000 – Arashi – Face Down
8. 593,000 – SKE48 – Kataomoi Finally
9. 588,000 – SKE48 – Kiss Datte Hidarisaki
10. 559,000 – SKE48 – Aishiteraburu
11. 559,000 – Arashi – Your Eyes
12. 449,000 – NMB48 – Nagiichi
13. 391,000 – NMB48 – Virginity
14. 376,000 – NMB48 – Junjou U-19
15. 375,000 – Eight Ranger – ER
16. 355,000 – Kis-My-Ft2 – WANNA BEEEE!!!/Shake It Up
17. 353,000 – NMB48 – Kitagawa Kenji
18. 322,000 – Kis-My-Ft2 – We never give up!
19. 320,000 – Kan Johnny∞ – Ai Deshita
20. 305,000 – NEWS – Chanpana
Japan’s collapsing music sales and the industry’s apparent near total reliance on “mass produced” idol groups have been the subject of much debate online, with explanations ranging from the creepy purchasing habits of otaku to the increasing irrelevance of CD sales to actual music…
JC School Sex Teacher Sacked
AKB48 “Connected To Yakuza”
GungHo Stock Plunges: “The Social Bubble Finally Bursts!?”
Photo Kano Wet Meganekko Anime
Busty Maoyuu Maou Figure
Otaku Elect Fan Sex Rino in “Creepiest Ever” AKB48 Election
Louis Vuitton’s Hatsune Miku Figure: “Miku = Fashion Icon!”
“70% of Guys” Hate Nail Art
Top 20 Anime of the 21st Century
If My Heart Had Wings Announced
Xbox One “Clearly Inferior” To PS4, Sony Stock Surges
Microsoft Unveils Xbox One – “Enjoy Your TV & EA!”
China Quality Crossing: “Cross 100m in 5 Seconds…”
One Piece Cancelled Again as Eiichiro Oda Hospitalised
PS4 Revealed as “Square”
Top 25 Anime Girls Love & Guys Hate
Hyakka Ryoran Samurai Bride Naked Apron Anime
BlazBlue Gets TV Anime
Guilty Gear Xrd Sign: “In 3D & Using The Unreal Engine!?”
Electrifying Mikoto Misaka Figure
Korean Plastic Surgery More Impressive Than Ever
Fancy Frontier 21 Cosplay Fancier Than Ever
Wonder Festival 2013 Winter Cosplay
Ultra-Sexy Babes of Tokyo Auto Salon 2013
“Why Are Seiyuu Such Great Artists As Well?”
Even More Comiket 83 Day 3 Cosplay
Comiket 83 Day 3 Cosplay Cuter Than Ever
Comiket 83 Day 2 Cosplay Has Otaku Wet With Desire
Comiket 83 Day 1 Cosplay Cool As Ever
Chinese Cosplay Pure Quality: “They Even Have Enako!”
Pop music in any culture always caters to the lowest commom demoninator. The West doesn't have a monopoly on talentless hacks like Justin Beiber, Rebecca Black, and One Direction.
so true. fear the idiocracy
*idiocy, i think you mean
*Idiocracy* is a film the poster is referring to.
A satire where the dumb rule the earth.
You're claiming someone else is an idiot when you're the one reading a site that is the internet equivalent of the National Enquirer? Reality check, bro.
Don't forget the pop artists of previous generations: Kiss, Elvis, Buddy Holley, The Beatles, Chuck Berry.
Their boobs makes music
Their boobs allow something that sounds like two cats mating to be sold as music.
Shit list. Period.
I recognize ARashi because the Jun guy was in all those Dramas. It looks to me as if each girl in the AK48 group has a song written for them so they are 'possibly' making 48 songs per week while other groups only make 1 or 2 songs a month. That would be kind of hard to beat.
Nah, no one listens to their music anyway.
They could release the same song over and over, or simply sell blank CDs, as long as the actual merchandise, the handshake ticket, is included people will buy.
The songs have to be made. They are part of the advertisement for the handshaking ticket.
Quantity over quality.
Actually the music that is so very popular can't really be called poor quality, they have to be doing something right if they manage to make metric fuck tons of money off of it. Don't get me wrong I can't stand pop music and think only sheep would like the stuff, the makers of this stuff just happen to have found the magic formula that gets as many people to like it as possible.
Kind of like how World of Warcraft owned the MMO genre for so long. Despite it being so damn generic to anyone who didn't like it, they managed to find the right combination that sucked in as many people as possible.
It makes sense if you look at it with the right logic.
I recognize arashi because Matsumoto Hitoshi seldom mention them on gaki no tsukai shows
It's more about publicity than quality. AK48 are everywhere so of course they'd get number 1. Arashi is also everywhere but not as much as AK48. Doesn't matter if you can sing or not.
No hatsune miku? son i am disappoint...
Well these are for music "sales". You could mainly get vocaloid music for free >.>
Two cats mating is my favorite sound!
It's kind of sad you don't get to hear the Vocaloid music that doesn't feature cat's mating such as:
http://youtu.be/9bnFEb3qrT0
or:
http://youtu.be/gxmkM02NfV8
or:
http://youtu.be/MqiZar4IWtI
Miku and AKB48 are the same... they are both artificially made music. No soul at all. I think this is the crap the Mayans were predicting. The end of the world in music.
What AKB stands for: in spanish "A(a)""K(ka)""B(be)" means "I came"
(I know, I know, lame pun, but hey, some spanish speaking guy had to say it)
es raro, viste? yo siempre lo pronuncio como ei-kei-bi porque sino queda re raro jaja
So mainstream pop music is crap in Japan just like it is in the US.
It doesn't really surprise me at all.
the thing that bugs is that not a long time ago, like fifteen years back, this prerogative was not true. we had natalie imbruglia, 10 thousand maniacs, alanis morisette, cardigans, etc. how the overall level of mainstream music decreased so much and so fast??? either way, I think this is pretty sad.
Really?... Alanis Morrisette? Natalie Imbruglia?? You're going to place them on a higher pedestal than AKB48? The only chick you mentioned who was remotely cute was the Cardigans girl
You disgust me Sir
Yes, because cuteness is the only important thing to consider with female singers.
Not sure if you're being sarcastic or just a moron.
He's being a moron
With "music" like this, it's no wonder the industry wants harsh anti-piracy laws so badly.
Shitty songs and shitty list. I mean come on. THere is no real talent in the song or singing. AKB48's only selling point is their stage presence, which I'll admit. They work damn hard for a 3000 cd. They are more like a jack of all trades but master of none. Except their workload is 100 times greater. The sheer amount of work and the many types of jobs they deal with is amazing, aside from how well they deal with the schedule, that's about as far as it goes.
Though I do notice though that when some members of AKB48 graduate and go solo and break away from the whole idol setup but concentrate more on the singing aspect, the song quality SOMETIMES improves. Sadly, most AKB48 graduate and disappear.
Culturally right now: This doesn't mean that much, since so many fans will buy boxes of CDs to push them up the charts.
Commercially, and culturally in the future: This sucks, because labels and producers will probably put more effort into making more groups like this when most people probably don't really want that. Kind of like trying to find anime that isn't all moe and ecchi these days - the hardcore consume it enough to more than make up for the mainstream dropoff, so they dictate the direction it takes.
I have three words for this shitrag of a excuse of a poll chart:
OPPA GANGNAM STYLE!!!
Except that's korean
And he's anti-american but changes his tude when we make him rich.
Psy studied at Berklee College of Music here in America. He lived here for four years. He returned to South Korea after that to pursue a music career.
I'm fairly certain he's not anti-American. At the very least, he's ambivalent.
ITT: Fucking morons that never went to either Korea and believe whatever bullshit they see in the internet.
South Koreans are so fucking pro-American, say you're American there and they'll treat you so well. North Koreans couldn't give two shits they're too busy getting oppressed, talk about their leaders now that's something I could believe.
@04:30 PSY sucks.
@04:34 So does your mom but I'm not complaining.
She's agree with me but she can't talk with her mouth full right now.
What Korean ISN'T Anti-American until they are made rich and/or famous. Most of the world is anti-american until they need something.
Not only Korean, misspelled the title aswell
Well this is a sad list indeed. It's missing Mihiro, Juno, Kat-Tun, Cimba and Tsuyoshi.
Theyre even making songs for us. Like the "Sugar Rush" theme in Wreck-it-Ralph.
I heard theyre even renaming the movie Sugar Rush for Japanese release in March
I loved Wreck it Ralph so I actually like the Sugar Rush song.
But I saw a video of the AKB48 girls singing and dancing to it and it was just awful.
Now I'd rather have the song just be something from the movies soundtrack and never have known AKB48 had anything to do with it.
Sugar Rush was made for that movie. Made for Disney. Disney planned the stupid video and choreography. Go watch something else.
I see the list, and not being of the Japanese persuasion I have never heard any of these. I head over to the Youtube and sample the '48s artistry and quite frankly am underwhelmed. Cookie cutter crap stamped out by the yard with vocally indistinguishable performances and singularly unimpressive dancing.
If a Japaneser ever accuses me of bad taste all I need to do to refute them is the magic number 48.
I'll just have to go back and masturbate to my copy of
Hinoi Team doing the para para version of King Kong. Now there is art!
Whats with the damn 48 in so many groups
They're all part of the same franchise. AKB48 is from Tokyo (Akihabara), SKE48 is from Nagoya (Sakae), NMB48 is from Osaka (Namba). AKB is the original which is why it's the most popular, the others are spin-offs.
Another reason most people dint mention yet: PHOTOS!
Yes, I saw it myself in my trips to Japan. Photos have its own market now. "Fans" buy CDs just to get not only the Handshake tickes, but also to get as much photos as they can. One single photo can be priced 2,3 or 4 times the price of the single (1600 yen) or even more. All new CDs alone without photo or HS ticket cost 200 yen, yes you read right (I buyed one).
AKB,SKE,HKT,NMB singles CDs are nothing more that Trading Cards packs. Analyze this AKB's sales phenomenon under this logic and all have sense.
Like I said before I saw it myself; I saw the stores, the lines of photo collecting fans in Akihabara and events, the trades, all.
Imagin a Magic the Gathering tournament trade floor.
The only photos that come with the CDs are bonuses for buying from a certain store, so they are quite common. The photos that get traded are monthly releases that are sold directly from the shop in a blind pack (5 random ones for x amount of yen). So it's pretty much identical to how Basketball cards etc are sold.
Yep. The photos people trade aren't the ones from the singles most of the time. Nice try tho.
Sorry, but I really got to do this;
Hey Japan, originality called, they said you abandoned it some 20+ years ago and replaced it with good looking people who can sing and dance.
And that's how it is. Fuck, the Japanese music industry is in even worse shape than the American, pre fabricated stars without any musical talents what so fucking ever. Forget writing their own songs, these bitches lack everything except looks. The worst part is the fact the idiots actually like it...
I forgot to add this, Justin Bieber is a musical genius, closer to the likes of Beethoven and Mozart than he is to these girls.
Again, the Japanese population is fucking retarded compared to their western compatriots in so many ways. Hell, in the western world, only teenage girls likes and buys this prefabricated shit, in Japan, the men buys this stuff. I mean, wtf?