Quaoar

Oricon Charts - 15th March 2006 Top 30 singlesTop 30 albums Singles: According to Sony's script, chart story of the week was to be the return of Maiko Sakai to the world of popdom. If you know anything about japanese pop, you will know the name ZONE. Over a five year period, this four piece girl band established themselves as one of the most successful and popular acts in Japanese pop history. They split in April 2005. Deserted by her three former sisters-in-arms, Maiko painstakingly set about forming a new band called MARIA. Their debut single "Chiisana Uta" was released on March 8th. At the start of the week their progress looked good. The single grabbed the number 7 slot in the daily rankings. But by the time the weekend arrived it had slid to around the 20 mark and at weeks end MARIA have to be satisfied with an initial chart placing of 10. There is no doubting Maiko's personal popularity, however this band seems to have been put together with the intention of inheriting and maintaining the ZONE fan-base. Perhaps the buying public didn't learn their part of the script quite as well as Sony intended and some people may feel this initial chart showing leaves questions unanswered. Will Sacchin ever take her hat off, why does Reina jump up and down so much and is Ayuka really a natural blonde? But premature conclusions about MARIA would be unwise. They played their first live date on March 5th and most of this story is yet to unfold. If the pre-sales data is to be believed, Morning Musume, Every Little Thing and Hitomi Yaida are some of the names to be watching for in next weeks singles chart. Albums: As so often happens, Sony have been upstaged by Avex. It is Koda Kumi who provides the real chart story of the week. Her "Best ~second session~" album debuts at number 1 this week with first week sales of 983,000. That's enough plastic to start a re-cycling biusiness. These are the best first week album sales for a female artist since Utada Hikaru's "Singles Collection Vol 1" was released in March 2004. Kumi's "Best ~first things~" album, released 21st September 2005, is still in the charts after 5 months (back up to number 16 this week) with cumulative sales now approaching the 1.7 million mark (first week sales 558,916). For comparision, the total combined sales for Kumi's four previous albums (the ones that provided the raw material for last September's best of) are still a little short of 1 million. So how do you follow up a big selling best of album when there is no more old material in the can waiting to be recycled. Avex's answer to this question was inovative and some European record company executives might like to take notes. Starting 7th December last year, 12 singles were released in 12 weeks. Every one of these made the Top 10. Nine of these singles were limited editions with pressings of 50,000 copies while the other three were regular singles. Twelve hits in as many weeks gave Kumi saturation coverage on radio and television. And it's worked. Those who raised eyebrows last November when this project was announced have had their sceptisism drowned out by the sound of cash tills ringing in unision across the lenght and breadth of Japan. The twelve singles, plus an introduction and a couple of bonus tracks, have now been put together to make the "Best ~second session~" album. Koda Kumi has pulled of a real stunt and this will go a long way towards cementing her claim to be included on the A list of Japanese entertainment celebrities. If you ferret around on YouTube you will be able to find videos for 10 of the twelve singles. Here's four of them to get you started: Wind | Candy | Ima Sugu Hoshii | D.D.D Sales of the sixth Crystal Kay album "Call Me Miss" are holding up well. Three weeks after it's release it takes the number 7 slot. The album includes her most recent single "Kirakuni". Crystal commences a nationwide tour this Friday (March 17th) with a concert at Zepp Sapporo.

http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/8012/ep22ej.th.jpg I've not seen any reference to this other than mention of the album release on 8th Feb. They turned up on yesterday's edition of NHK's Pop Jam and turned in a performance of "Without you". [Oricon Interview]

Top 30 singlesTop 30 albums I've been following the Japanese charts for a while now and am deluded enough to beleive I can write something sensible on the subject. The Oricon web site is the definative source for chart information. Oricon is the organisation which compiles the Japanese charts and there is a huge amount of interesting information available on their site to anyone who has the patience to poke around and discover how it works. New charts are published each Wednesday. A few comments on items that interest me. Utada Hiraru has slipped to 5 this week (from 2 last week), with her latest "Keep Tryin'". She is planning a tour of Japan this summer and it will be interesting to see just how much support she still has after taking a year off to work the US market. Ayaka's debut single "I believe" is still holding on to a top 10 place more than a month after it's release and is shaping up to become one of the biggest hits of 2006. KOTOKO makes an all too rare chart appearance this week at 21. "Face of Fact" is an old song which has just been recycled as opening theme to the "Baldr Force Exe Resolution" video game. Nanamusica's second single "Kururi Kururi" slips to 27 this week, but the good news is a debut ablum is now scheduled for a 2006-04-26 release.