kudo_maharizu wrote:My copy from Amazon JP arrived yesterday...

... but turned back because no one was at home.

Dang, that sucks. They should've shot u a text, telling u when its gonna get delivered, and a link for delivery options. Like where u want ur packaged place, change delivery date/time, no signature options, delivery direction just in case u wont be home, etc.
 They always do that to me a day before its 
delivered.

My package was supposed to be here Friday, but it got delayed some how, now I think its coming Monday. Though i won't hold it against AJP,  never had a problem with them before now

Star~world96 wrote:Like where u want ur packaged place, change delivery date/time, no signature options, delivery direction just in case u wont be home, etc.
 They always do that to me a day before its 
delivered.

No biggie - prolly being overdramatic, me. It'll come back Monday, but for some reason the usual DHL re-delivery online request is a bit different atm - can't seem to let them know about what I want doing (they usually leave it at my neighbours all this while). I'll prolly put a post-it to remind em on the door this time!

peachclub wrote:

victor_survive wrote:I didn't notice that masterpiece/mabataki debuted at #5 on Oricon

Today is at #6

Its at #12 now

It fell down to #16 yesterday and came back up to #11 today

Just got my package today, wasn't expecting it to come on early Sunday, but hey I'm not complaining.
I got my pre-order and first press bonuses, with the clear file and prism triangle. I really like the look of both, especially the clear file with all the members on them. 

The magazine is great, short but sweet, I can't read a lick of Japanese, so i basically just looked at the pics inside lol

Small Single Review:
Masterpiece- super cool punky song, still can't get the opening riff out of my head, it's just too cool. It reminds me of listening to their other songs like 24 jikan plus no yoake mea, Onegai Navigation, and Queens are trumps. Mami really knows how to make a lead riff. I just wish the heaviness with the intro carried out with rest of the song, but hey it's still a very good rock song through and through. The lyrics is also fantastic, a bit uplifting I love the " I've overcome these several days
To be able to sing this "masterpiece" now" part. I bought the single on itunes again, so I listened to the instrumental, it's a really good listen.

Mabataki- I really like this one, it's such a contrast to Masterpiece, but it's still a very good pop tune. I love it when Scandal goes retro, so i was happy when it turned out to be an 80's style song. It's soft sweet and dream like and i absolutely love the chorus. I really like the way they're singing too, especially Tomomi. It make me want to listen to their other retro pop tunes like short short, love me do, kill the virgin, mado wo aketara, and even i want you (though i still don't know what to think of that song) Tho i wonder if Rina is gonna play keyboard or drums doing the live version of this song.

Overall i really like this single, I thought Masterpiece would be my fav, but it turnes out I like both equally. They are so different from each other but they both represent 2 sides of Scandal - a rocking band that can be girly and sweet.

Got mine from CD Japan today (it actually came last week, but I wasn't home to sign for it). Was happy to see they *did* include a clear file, as I was hoping they would.

The magazine has some good pics; like others, I can't read the Japanese but I'm happy to have it as a collector's item. I do wish they'd done a DVD version like they have in the past.

As I said before, really no complaints about the songs. They're both good songs, although Masterpiece is more my style. But I don't mind Mabataki; it does remind me of the pop songs on Honey, which I grew to like. I think they've learned how to do pop songs that don't offend my ears (not that that's their goal, ha); they sound a little more substantial than some of their synth-based pop songs of the past.

I swear, though, that they do actually listen to criticism from their fans. These songs do *sound* better than anything on Honey, which was my one complaint about that album, and the waveforms bear that out. They're just mastered better than Honey was. Masterpiece is still brickwalled, but not like Honey was where almost every song was just flatlined at the limit and compressed to hell and back. Masterpiece actually has some dynamics! And it's clearly not as compressed as anything on Honey was. Mabataki is even more dynamic and less compressed, but then it's a quieter song. The quiet songs on Honey were still brickwalled, though; Mabataki isn't.

So I think either they had the same reaction as some of us did to how Honey actually sounded, or they read some of the fan comments and took them to heart.

Honestly, though, I feel like every time I've ever complained about anything about them, they've fixed it. And now they're at the point for me where I just have nothing I could even remotely nitpick. I hope they just stay like this forever.

Like spacecadet, I only picked mine up today (the Amazon JP order arrived last Friday while the CDJ order arrived yesterday).



Listened to it on my CD player and the sound blew me away. Taking into context what spacecadet described above, I wonder if the engineering/mixing as well as the mastering peeps are different to their previous records (at the very least, looking up the net, Hiromichi "Tucky" Takiguchi at Parasight is a JVC guy; I wonder if the "director" is the term they used for the person on producing duties - as the "producer" from the ROOFTOP side appears to be Eisuke Taga according to the liner note) with them being with VICTOR now.

Spoiler:

All Oricon rankings so far:

-＃5 on 3/26
-＃6 on 3/27
-＃12 on 3/28
-＃16 on 3/29
-＃11 on 3/30
-＃15 on 3/31
-＃10 on 4/1

*4/2 - Did not chart between 1-30.

---

kudo_maharizu wrote:I wonder if the "director" is the term they used for the person on producing duties - as the "producer" from the ROOFTOP side appears to be Eisuke Taga according to the liner note

AKA the band's head manager for the past 12 years lol. "Producer" is probably an all-around term used for his job, which is essentially to 'produce/direct' the band in all aspects. He's probably less involved on the music side, though.

Masterpiece/Mabataki weekly position is #7 with 11,426 copies sold

thoseguiltyeyes wrote:AKA the band's head manager for the past 12 years lol. "Producer" is probably an all-around term used for his job, which is essentially to 'produce/direct' the band in all aspects. He's probably less involved on the music side, though.

Exactly. Although we’ve seen Eisuke in videos of the band working in the studio, I’ve never thought of him being in the traditional music producer role. More like a “spent all night looking for mandolin strings in Austin” kinda band manager role.

kudo_maharizu wrote:

Exactly. Although we’ve seen Eisuke in videos of the band working in the studio, I’ve never thought of him being in the traditional music producer role. More like a “spent all night looking for mandolin strings in Austin” kinda band manager role.

Kudos, Kudo, on the Spinal Tap reference.     Very funny.

victor_survive wrote:Copies sold so far: 12,948

Is it good or not?

izzy wrote:

victor_survive wrote:Copies sold so far: 12,948

Is it good or not?

https://www.scandal-heaven.com/t12896p175-23rd-single-take-me-out#742594

"Take Me Out" Oricon weekly singles ranking: ＃11 with 17,942 copies

"Sisters" sold 14,594 copies first week (total 18,058), while "Stamp!" sold 20,752 copies first week (total 25,556)

This single technically isn't selling as well as their most recent ones before it, but it's still a respectable number. Keep in mind that this is their first physical single in almost 3 years after all, so that's probably one of the main contributing factors.

If anything, it's echoing the numbers for their Image single:

https://www.scandal-heaven.com/t10955p200-20th-single-image#685470

"Image" Week 2 @ Oricon Weekly Singles Chart - ＃63 with 1,554 copies! (total: 13,799 copies)

So it's pretty good for the band, especially without the support of Sony Music.
I guess in 2019, digital sales and music streaming services also became more important in Japan.

On the one hand, it's objectively not as good as their peak sales from the past. And I doubt digital streaming and whatever else make up for that.

On the other hand, it's their first single without Sony backing them, and let's face it - they're not a novelty anymore. These are mostly sales to their existing fan base at this point.

Considering that, I think the sales are pretty good. They'll probably net out at about 1/3 of their peak single sales... then if you add in some kind of correction for streaming or digital sales, it's maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of their peak. Given the change in record labels and the fact that they've been around for more than a decade, I think that's pretty reasonable. And if that holds, they should be able to keep things going for a good long while.

Where can I see how many copys they sell?

Sven28 wrote:Where can I see how many copys they sell?

Oricon or Billboard Japan usually, the number that is being discussed is from Oricon. 



Billboard Japan ranked them as 8th place for the first week with 12,480 copies sold, and 35th place for the second week with 1,648 copies sold. 

The total sold till now would be 14,128 based on Billboard Japan which is a little higher than what Oricon calculated, but don't use this number and compare it to previous sales that's listed on Wikipedia or most other sources since a lot of them uses Oricon's data.

I know this Website where can I found how many they sell. I only find on the site which was the highest place.
https://www.oricon.co.jp/prof/450097/products/1312885/1/

Sven28 wrote:I know this Website where can I found how many they sell. I only find on the site which was the highest place.
https://www.oricon.co.jp/prof/450097/products/1312885/1/

You can check them at the weekly single ranking they have.

Slightly out of topic.

While watching on Youtube, their Masterpiece PV recommended me Japanese rockabilly acts like Johnny Pandora. While, their Mabataki PV recommended me clips of UK’s Top of the Pops from the early 80s.

Masterpiece MV on Youtube has reached 1 million views! .dance. last time I watched it, it was at 900,000 views, and it wasn't' that long ago

Mabataki still has a little over half a million to go, understandable so since it came out later than Masterpiece.

Not only did Masterpiece hit a million today it's at 15K more than last night at this time, so as of now the view numbers are accelerating. Besides their channel has picked up around 25,000 subs since Masterpiece went up on YT. Mabataki is building much slower but it still has loads of fans.. let's think of it this way—combining both cuts the single is at 1 1/2 million views, & that's a damn good sign