Buck-Tick Zone

Original Titles in Japanese

Kimi No Vanilla

Kodo

Kagiri Naku Nezumi

Rakuen (Inori Negai)

Hosoi Sen

Aikawarazu No "Are" No Katamari Ga Nosabaru Hedo No Soko No Fuki Damari

Detarame Yarou

Misshitsu

Daichi Wo Keru Otoko

Itoshi No Rock Star

Uta

Mienai Mono Wo Miyou To Suru Gokai    Subete Gokai Da

Titles Translated

Kimi No Vanilla - "Your Vanilla". This may seem like an odd title but browse the lyrics and then it will make sense because Atsushi is a dirty, dirty boy. At least, that is my interpretation, especially given that the intro has what sounds like a sample of an intimate moment. Others may possibly think of another Vanilla, who was credited with designing at least one fan club newsletter in 1989.

Kodo - "Heartbeat" (I used to translate this as "palipitation", for kodo does mean that as well, but I realized it just sounds awkward and "heartbeat" is more appropriate in English. Afterall, one says palpitation when there is some sort of ailment. Plus, I believe the taiko group Kodo has been pretty consistent with translating it as "heartbeat". "Pulse" may also work.)

Kagiri Naku Nezumi - "Mouse Without Limits"

Rakuen (Inori Negai) - "Paradise (Prayer Hope)"

Hosoi Sen - "The Thin Line". It means to be insecure.

Aikawarazu No 'Are' No Katamari Ga Nosabaru Hedo No Soko No Fuki Tamari" - "As Usual 'That' Does As It Pleases and Vomitus Piles Up There" (bare with me, this is a crazy title which comes from the crazy mind of Hisashi)

Detarame Yarou - "Bullshit Bastard" (The Japanese language doesn't have much in terms of foul language or obscenities, but upon heavy contemplation, I believe this is a fitting translation.)

Misshitsu - "Secret Room"

Kick (Daichi Wo Keru Otoko) - "Kick (The Man Who Kicks the Ground)" (My own personal flair wants to translate daichi as "earth" but I don't want to confuse people and have them think planet Earth rather than ground/dirt earth.)

Itoshi No Rock Star - "The Beloved Rock Star"

Uta - "Song"

Mienai Mono Wo Miyou To Suru Gokai    Subete Gokai Da - "Trying to See Something Which Cannot Be Seen is Wrong--Everything is a Misunderstanding" (notice how I translated gokai two different ways in order to give greater understanding)

Notes

Ranked #1 on the album chart. 240,000 copies sold. This is the last album to chart at #1.

A record 3 singles were released from this album: "Uta", "Kodo", and "Mienai Mono Wo Miyou To Suru Gokai    Subete Gokai Da". This is the most amount of singles Buck-Tick has ever released from a single album. The first and only other album to release 3 singles was Kurutta Taiyo.

The band recorded and mixed this album utilizing more studios than Buck-Tick has ever done before and probably ever will.

This is the first album that Atsushi is credited with playing a musical instrument. However, he had played saxophone during the tour for Darker Than Darkness.

Susanne Bramson is credited as one of the guest musicians (backing vocals and arrangement). She is also one of the guest musicians for Hisashi's side project Schaft, which released an album one year prior. Her part was recorded at Master Rock Studios in London, where Buck-Tick recorded the album Taboo.

Aska Strings is the professional name of violinist Asuka Kaneko. She releases albums under the name Aska Strings. Japanese often pronounce some "su" words without the "u" so the female name is spelled Asuka but just about everyone says Aska. (You may notice the same missing "u" with sentence endings desu/masu.)

Toll said in an interview that he was to record at the same studio they used for the Darker Than Darkness album but when Mitsuhiro Shiga became the drum tuner for this album, they used a different studio. He noted that Mitsu was originally with the punk band The Star Club (started in the 1970s) but I could only find that he played in Crowley in the 1980s. Toll's regular drum tuner Shigeo Azami is also credited on the album. Toll said there was a lot of tuning changes and balancing out the drums per song so that on the worst day it took about 8 hours to get the drums to sound right. He's also particular about getting the songs right so there are songs he played for over 10 hours to reach satisfaction.

This is the first album where Buck-Tick used an existing piece of art for the cover. The origin of the cover was "Jerk Face" by American artist Robert Longo. He has designed the cover for other artist's albums, directed music videos (New Order, Megadeth, R.E.M.), and directed the cyberpunk movie Johnny Mnemonic (1995). Johnny Mnemonic was based on the short story by William Gibson, who also wrote the book Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988), which happens to be the title of a Buck-Tick album a few years later.

Atsushi says that "Loop" was the last song they did. Hisashi claims that Atsushi originally had the word "reincarnation" in the lyrics so he suggested the title of "Loop". Atsushi claims that he wasn't even thinking about reincarnation and maybe Hisashi was looking at his lyrics as a whole and the album as a whole and thought of the reincarnation and loop idea.

The lyrics for "Love Letter" are completely in English. This is only the second Buck-Tick song to do so. The first was "Iconoclasm" from Taboo. Hisashi wanted a faster, kind of rap vocal and thought it would be better in English. He was going more for the sound that the lyrical meaning but he would call up his friend and ask how to say specific words in English. Later he thought maybe he should've done it in Japanese but tried not to overthink it.

"Kodo" is the longest original version of a song that Buck-Tick has ever released on a studio album. There is a song that is longer on a studio album, but it is a self-cover.

For the songs that they wrote, that guitarist played all the guitar parts. Meaning that Hisashi played all the guitars in his songs while Hide was in another studio recording all the guitars for his songs. While they may have heard demo tapes, they didn't get to hear each other's songs in their studio format until recording was completed and they were mixing the album. Toll said he started recording his parts for Hide's songs first. U-ta said that he was recording his parts one song at a time as they became available. Both brothers wondered if all these songs would actually fit on one CD. For Hisashi, Hide, and U-ta likely being at 3 different studios during the recording, it's funny that there is only one technician credited for guitar and bass.

Atsushi said that he was still refining the lyrics in the studio while others were playing games in their down time. He wanted to join them but had to finish the lyrics.

Case colors. When I write "clear purple" or "clear red", I mean that the case is a regular plastic CD case but it's colored purple or red and is transparent enough to see artwork through the case, just like a regular clear plastic case. The 2007 reissue was packaged in a clear red case like the original 1995 issue.

"Rakuen" caused some controversy with the Japanese Islamic community as part of the melody was lifted from the reading of the Koran. The offense was supposedly removed and the album re-released in September in clear red cases (and possibly just plain clear cases). In 1995, I purchased a clear case edition and the offence had not been removed from "Rakuen" because it was just after the album was released. So the quickest way to tell if an album is censored is not if it's in a clear case because it could be either, but rather to check the catalogue number. The censored version from 1995 is VICL-711. The red case may also be the 2007 remaster. To check what year the CD is from, check the bottom of the back of the case. The purple case is a sure bet it's the original, uncensored version. I admit that I do like owning both versions of the song though and I've heard the original so many times that my brain fills in the part when it's missing so I often don't even realize I'm not listening to the original.

Hisashi wanted an album title that had S and N in it. He also wanted to write songs in a new direction.

"Aikawarazu No "Are" No Katamari Ga Nosabaru Hedo No Soko No Fuki Damari" wins for longest Buck-Tick song title. It is also the song which contains lyrics connected to the album title, ("six side is heaven, nine side is go").

Hisashi said that writing "Detarame Yarou" and "Kick (Daichi Wo Keru Otoko)" started with arranging sampled guitar parts and that it's the first time he wrote songs like that.

Atsushi co-wrote the music for "Detarame Yarou". Buck-Tick have only released one other song in which Atsushi wrote the music, "Plastic Syndrome Type II" (1987). (It is in debate on this as to whether Atsushi also wrote the music or not for "Prologue". Regardless, "Prologue" is not a full song, just an intro.)

Hide wrote 8 songs for this album with 4 making it to the album and a 5th song as a b-side. Up until this point, this is the most amount of songs Hide has contributed to an album. Hisashi also had about 4 songs that didn't make it to the album.

Issay (vocalist of Der Zibet) is the guest vocalist on "Itoshi No Rock Star". His and Atsushi's voices are so similar, many fans cannot tell them apart on this song. The reason for this could be that their voices were blended, as I think I read in an interview once.

"Uta" was originally titled "Sakebi", which means "To Shout". However, the band was told by higher powers to change the title so they renamed it "Uta", which simply means "Song".

The beginning of "Uta" contains a sample from the movie Malcolm X (1992), where the main character portrayed by Denzel Washington gives the speech that contains the line "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us!" This phrase was slightly altered in the film from Malcolm X's original speech "Ballot or the Bullet" delivered in 1964. The actual quote is "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; the rock was landed on us."

Mark II is a car model by Toyota. It was the model that the police drove in Japan in the 1980s and possibly into the 1990s. I am not sure if "Loop Mark II" is in reference to the car but it should be worth noting to non-Japanese as all Japanese know this (if you're old enough, that is!).

U-ta said that he played bass with his fingers for the most part, using a pick for only about 2 songs. Toll said that he wanted his drums to be like Ringo Starr in "Itoshi No Rock Star". He also wanted his drums to be louder than the guitar so he went from 24" to 26" bass drums but he played as small as 22" as well. Atsushi said he recorded many takes for each song with variations but some songs he was able to nail in as few as 3 takes.

This is the 2nd album Buck-Tick recorded at Sound Sky Studio. If Sound Atelier is the same as Sound Atelie, then it is also the second time Buck-Tick has recorded an album there as well. (Seventh Heaven was recorded at Sound Atelie and the slight spelling difference could be a typo.)

This is the 4th album to be engineered by Hitoshi Hiruma.

This is the 1st album to be engineered by Kenichi Arai, who would go on to work with the band several more times over the years.

This is Buck-Tick's first themed album, in my opinion. Though what exactly the theme is is hard to say. There is something going on with the following words: six (side)/nine (side), world's end, etc. Atsushi sings about the usual love and death but somehow it feels more poignant. The album feels grand though perhaps not epic. The album starts and ends with related intro/outro songs. There are 16 songs in total, the most the band had ever released on an album up to this point, and the band recorded a video for each, though they previously did this with Aku No Hana as well. The shift in sound that first occurred with Darker Than Darkness seems much more coherent in this body of work. Also, the lyrics suggest an existential crisis and hard time adjusting to rock fame. Atsushi said the book that influenced him the most at this time was "Ikiru Hinto - Jibun No Jinsei wo Aisuru Tame No 12shou" by Hiroyuki Itsuki, published in 1994. ("Hints to Live - How to Love Yourself in 12 Chapters")

Booklet Images

group

Music Video Stills (Six/Nine version)

Loop

Love Letter

Kimi No Vanilla

Kodo

Kagari Naku Nezumi

Rakuen (Inori Negai)

Hosoi Sen

Somewhere Nowhere

Aikawarazu No "Are" No Katamari Ga Nosabaru Hedo No Soko No Fuki Damari

Detarame Yarou

Misshitsu

Kick (Daichi Wo Keru Otoko)

Itoshi No Rock Star

Uta

Mienai Mono Wo Miyou To Suru Gokai    Subete Gokai Da

Loop Mark II