Ayumi Hamasaki makes quite a few sparks with ‘Sparkle’

Ayumi Hamasaki has a new tie-in with the Honda Zest Spark, and in the commercial a new song of hers was revealed, title “Sparkle”.  It seems to be a fast-paced electronic song, in stark to all the rock-orineted music she has been putting out as of late.  The song will be available to download through mu-mo starting on January 9th, 2009.

Hamasaki’s ‘Days’ Proves to be Another #1 for the J-Pop Queen

The Cover of Hamasaki's most recent #1 single, 'Days / GREEN'

‘Days’ is the main a-side on Hamasaki’s new single ‘Days / GREEN’.  In it’s first day, it debuted at the #1 spot with sales of 35,116 and continued to stay at #1 for the rest of the week, but sales fell a shocking 60% down to 14,048 and continued to fall the rest of the week.  ‘Days’ ended the week with sales of 4,841.  For the entire week, it accumulated sales of 127,650!  The first week sales for ‘Days’ will certainly be some of the highest first-week sales of the year for a female artist.  Overall, this is Ayumi’s 31st #1 single on Oricon and her 20th #1 single in a row!

During the second week of release, ‘Days’ debuted at #4 but climbed back up to #2 in the second day, only about 2,000 copies below her main competitor Koda Kumi’s ‘stay with me’.  ‘Days’ will likely hold the #2 spot for the week.

‘Days’ also nabbed the #1 spot on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 Singles chart and on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 Single Sales chart.  It was nowhere to be found, though, in the Top 20 Airplay.  This is Hamasaki’s first #1 single on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 Singles chart, as ‘Mirrorcle World’ peaked at #2 after Shuuchishin’s eponymous debut single grabbed the #1 spot away from Hamasaki.

Hamasaki’s ‘Rule’ to be Theme Song for ‘Dragonball’ Movie

Goku, the movie's main protaganist of who the song is written about, from 'Dragonball: Evolution'

Japanese mega-star Ayumi Hamasaki had been very cryptic in the days leading up to December 10th about a new song she was working on, saying that we would all find out soon why it was headed stateside.  The news was officially broken by Sanspo on the 10th, as promised.  Reportedly, the song would be the theme song to the new live-action ‘Dragonball’ movie, titled ‘Dragonball: Evolution’.  Hamasaki had announced the song would be titled ‘Rule’.  It is said that it is a fast-paced, high-tension rock song that captures the emotion of protagonist Goku in his fight against Picollo, the movie’s main antagonist.
Hamasaki said she is very excited about her first global tie-in, as the movie is expected to be shown in over 60 countries around the world.  This will also be Hamasaki’s first time with a tie-in for a non-Asian film (although she had previously done the theme song to ‘Confession of Pain’ in 2006, a Chinese film).
The movie comes out stateside on April 8th, but the Japanese fans will only have to wait until March to hear the song, when the movie comes out on the 13th.

Girl Next Door releases debut album, Winter Game proves popular

One of the multiple cover's of GIRL NEXT DOOR's eponymous debut album

GIRL NEXT DOOR’s “Winter Game” made a 37-12 jump on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 this week, as they prepare to release their eponymous debut album.

Their debut album debuted at #4 on the Oricon charts on Tuesday, because of the crazy holiday pre-release. It made a 4-2 jump on the proper release date selling 14,516 copies, but Ikimonokagiri’s “my song your song” still has a strong hold on the #1 position, selling 48.16% higher than “GIRL NEXT DOOR”.  Both albums are proving to be unpopular, facing only slightly better than this week’s singles.

On a side note, Mr. Children’s “SUPERMARKET FANTASY” and EXILE’s “EXILE BALLAD BEST” seem to be falling off the charts finally, both of which had proved to be enormous power sellers previously.  They currently reside at the #4 and #5 positions, respectively.

‘stay with me’ Suffers Low First-Day Sales

The cover of Koda Kumi's most recent single, "stay with me"

The last single before Koda Kumi’s “TRICK” hits stores in January was recently released.  Notably, all singles and albums were released a day early due to a Japanese holiday, so we are including the crazy holiday pre-release as part of the first-day sales..  Back on subject: The technical first day sales for Koda Kumi’s pop ballad were just that, bad.  The sales closely followed the sales of her previous effort “TABOO”, but even those were better than this.

‘stay with me’ sold 17,968 in it’s inital day along with the 2,254 sales from the crazy holiday pre-release for total sales of 20,222 so far.  This is a 6.98% drop for the first-day sales of “TABOO”.

Despite the sales drop, it seems that ‘stay with me’ will maintain the #1 position on the Oricon charts for the week.