aleyna lectures

np. 徳永英明 – 時代 (中島みゆき-cover)

Involves the promised details of the TRICK-project of 東方神起 [Tohoshinki], plus the highlights of the charts from the past few weeks and some notable details of this year’s overall-charts so far.

Shortly, it’s a total mess of chart-updates.

東方神起 [Tohoshinki] – TRICK-project
This was the project they had in February-March 2008, releasing individually the parts of their song TRICK that was a mix-match of these five tracks. Each one featured a different member as the lead vocal and the B-sides were the Premium Live -solos of each member.

2008.02.06 東方神起 – Two Hearts / Changmin – WILD SOUL
1st week rank: #13 (14,898 copies sold)
Total sales to-date: 23,046

2008.02.13 東方神起 – Runaway / Yoochun – My Girlfriend
1st week rank: #8 (18,371 copies sold)
Total sales to-date: 26,070

2008.02.27 東方神起 – If…!? / Junsu: Rainy Night
1st week rank: #12 (18,689 copies sold)
Total sales to-date: 25,038

2008.03.05 東方神起 – Crazy Life / Yunho – Crazy Life
1st week rank: #9 (14,842 copies sold)
Total sales to-date: 20,039

2008.03.12 東方神起 – Keyword / Jaejoong: MAZE
1st week rank: #7 (21,097 copies sold)
Total sales to-date: 25,073 (still charting)

Top-10s in Oricon year 2008 this far:

SINGLES
#1 418,660 KAT-TUN – LIPS
#2 384,721 青山Thelma (f. SoulJa) – そばにいるね
#3 369,275 嵐 – Step and Go / 嵐
#4 286,450 NEWS – 太陽のナミダ
#5 266,142 すぎもとまさと – 吾亦紅 [Sugimoto Masato] (rel. in 2007, tot. 356,378)
#6 221,312 関ジャニ∞ – ワッハッハー [Kanjani8]
#7 214,160 安室奈美恵 – 60s 70s 80s [Amuro Namie]
#8 173,586 SMAP – 弾丸ファイター
#9 158,503 EXILE – Pure/You’re my sunshine
#10 155,154 SMAP – そのまま/White Message
#11 151,328 JERO – 海雪

ALBUMS
#1 1,433,401 EXILE – EXILE LOVE
#2 1,342,786 コブクロ – 5296 [Kobukuro]
#3 867,656 EXILE – EXILE CATCHY BEST
#4 772,256 DREAMS COME TRUE – AND I LOVE YOU
#5 675,873 宇多田ヒカル – HEART STATION [Utada Hikaru]
#6 636,088 BUMP OF CHICKEN – orbital period
#7 592,948 倖田來未 – Kingdom [Koda Kumi]
#8 566,869 浜崎あゆみ- GUILTY [Hamasaki Ayumi]
#9 437,929 柴咲コウ – Single Best [Shibasaki Kou]
#10 328,046 **4,522 Various Artists – アイのうた (rel. in 2007, tot. 355,281)

Thelma should be able to pass LIPS soon with this amazing charting her single is doing.
Also, I included JERO’s single in the listing, because it’s quite.. spectacular for an enka-song, and he’s still charting as well.

Kobukuro are likely to slowly but surely take down EXILE’s #1-spot, but I think it’s safe to say that this year is EXILE’s indeed and they’ll be really high in the final rankings of 2008. Their original album that just got release, is already #3 as we can see, and is still selling huge amounts.

I think I should mention also, that last year’s comet, tenor 秋川雅史 [Akikawa Masafumi], released his (mostly) cover-album last week and landed on the #12-spot in the weekly charts with 千の風になって ～一期一会～, with 16953 copies sold.
It’s certainly not bad for a classical album and when looking at the obvious lack of promotion. However, I (having bought and received the album and it IS genious) am fairly certain it will have a rather long chart-life.
It’s not like classical/opera albums would sell masses in Japan any way.

Right now the happenings are concentrated on the pop-queen 浜崎あゆみ [Hamasaki Ayumi] coming out with a new single and topping the daily chart.
Her single was released on Monday already, so she has got one day advantage to the other releases of this week, when it comes to the final weekly sales.

Not that it would actually matter, there is nothing that could rival her to be released this week.
Just an interesting point to make is the comic-trio 羞恥心 [Shuchishin] making their debut and doing rather well with the single.

In the albums we have YUI making nice progress with the album sales on daily charts. I could mention 徳永英明 [Tokunaga Hideaki] releasing his famous VOCALIST-series as a complete box too.