Single rankings -- my opinion

I am always happy that Arashi always gets consecutive no. 1 singles, but recently, when I saw a certain post concerning about Ohno's mini-single competing with Arashi and the reactions of other people concerning the breakage of the no. 1 streak, I felt really bad.

It's okay to be happy when your favorite artist gets a no. 1. It's okay that the artist gets consecutive no. 1. It's very okay when they go up like how the KinKi Kids got in the Guiness because of their consecutive no. 1 singles. But is this really the determiner of an artist's popularity?

Before, when I was starting to be a fangirl, I even monitor the daily rankings. And I feel happy when Arashi gets the top 1 for the weekly rankings. But being in other fandoms, I realized that it's not really the weekly rankings that matter, it's more of the yearly (joke!) and of course, the quality of the song. Because, as they say, "to each his own." People might like this particular song from an artist, others might not. A strong fanbase who will buy your singles even though it's not really HQ can get you to the top spot then what? There should be sustainability, that even a casual listener would want to buy your single. There are times that a chart-topping song becomes a flop entirely because of it's total sales...

That's why I became more impressed with Arashi when they started to rule the yearly rankings. This reflected the overall sales of their songs, right? And of course, it meant good.

When I go to the Namie forum (I'm not comparing or anything), I kinda liked the people's attitude when someone says, "This artist will also release on the same date!" and that will hinder her from getting the no. 1 spot. However, the people there will say that "The yearly rankings will determine who is really better." Because of course, there are cases that the excitement is too much that there are a lot of buyers in the first week, but the songs fails to gather more listeners. However, since Namie is constantly touring, many people listen and appreciate her songs, enough to gather more listeners. So I really wanna see the outcome of her new single.
I just pointed that out because there was a point in time that she and Arashi released their singles on the same week and Arashi got the top spot. However, at the end of the year, her single sold way much than the boys' single, so that like a bigger determiner, right?
When Yuna Ito released "Endless Story", it did not get the top spot. "Glamorous Sky" did. However, Yuna's single sold more copies! There are cases like that.

This means, I do not really care anymore if they get the stop spot or not (quite impossible, though). The important thing is that they give us quality songs, PVs, and stuff. Sometimes I want to say that to the "ranking freaks" that I meet but, oh well...

Comments

[sitiko]

yeah..i do agree with you..
somehow we have kind of lose track of the importance of supporting at times..
at times, we become so absorb in making them no.1 that we forget abt the importance of supporting them for their music...
i so know wat u mean..
those who are always gg ah, they dropped off fr number 1 or ah, this so and so is releasing on same date with many version, not fair, it will affect sales...
i feel like saying...why are you so bothered? as long as there's quality music, everything will be ok right?

[Choshi]

yep, very well said. Fans should not be bothered. As long as we know that the song is great, getting the no. 1 is not really a big deal.