Last week, EXILE released their third best album of the year, "EXILE BALLAD BEST." Its first-week sales added up to 944,000 copies to top the weekly charts. This makes them the first group since ZARD in 1999 to release three #1 albums in a single year. Among male artists, they are only the second to achieve the feat, after Boowy did it in 1988. "EXILE BALLAD BEST" has also set this year's record for the highest initial sales. The last album to exceed 900,000 in its first week was Kumi Koda's "BEST ~second session~" in 2006.

The latest "Macross Frontier" soundtrack took #2 with 86,000 copies. ORANGE RANGE's latest ranked 7th, while a new DJ KAORI mix was 9th and Ayaka Hirahara was 10th.

On the singles chart, KAT-TUN's "White X'mas" sold 250,000 copies to claim the group's 8th consecutive #1. GReeeeN, Chiaki Ishikawa, Ikimono Gakari, and Nightmare also had new songs in the Top 5. Gackt was #7 and Dragon Ash was #10.