Ayumi Hamasaki Dream On single with Naoya Urata

On the sales charts this week, singer Ayumi Hamasaki accomplished a fairly rare feat: she was at #1 on both the album and single rankings. Her new album "Love songs" sold more than 180,000 copies, while her collaborative single with AAA's Naoya Urata, "Dream ON" sold over 40,000 copies.

This is only the 11th time that an artist has simultaneously topped the album and single charts. Hamasaki did it twice before in October 2000 and October 2001. The last artist to do it was NEWS in November 2007.

Because this week's rankings are actually counted as the charts for January 3, 2011, Hamasaki has now had a #1 album in 13 consecutive years, from 1999 to 2011. This extends her record of "most consecutive years with a number-one album starting with a first album"; the second most is Akina Nakamori, who achieved a streak of 8 years from 1982 to 1989.

At #2 on the album charts this week was Korean group SNSD (Shoujo Jidai), selling close to 61,000 copies of their Korean-language mini-album "HOOT." Although their recent single "Gee" was also ranked #2, this is the group's first album to make the top ten.

The only other new release in the top ten was a Vocaloid album by mothy (also known as Akuno-P).

As already mentioned, Naoya Urata's "Dream ON" led the single charts. A few other new singles entered the top ten: Daisuke Ono (#5), THE RICECOOKERS (#6), GIRL NEXT DOOR (#7), and ZE:A (#9).

On the overall DVD charts, NEWS took the top spot with 126,000 units sold of their "NEWS DOME PARTY 2010 LIVE! LIVE! LIVE! DVD!" This is their 5th consecutive release to reach #1 in just the music DVD category.

Meanwhile, Nana Mizuki secured the #1 and #2 spots in the music category of the Blu-ray sales rankings. Her "NANA MIZUKI LIVE GAMES x ACADEMY-BLUE-" and "NANA MIZUKI LIVE GAMES x ACADEMY-RED-" sold 16,000 and 15,000 copies, respectively.

tokyograph