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Releases: Albums

Aku No Hana

release date: February 1, 1990
company: Victor/Invitation
formats: cassette (VITL-2), CD (VICL-2)
initial price: ¥3000
goodies: first copies sold came with a set of stickers

digital remaster info: September 19, 2002 (VICL-60984; cover image) for ¥2415 (first copies sold included sticker)

remaster reissue info: September 5, 2007 (VICL-62544 for ¥2520)

Tracklisting

National Media Boys (Imai/Imai)
Maboroshi No Miyako (Sakurai/Imai)
Love Me (Sakurai/Imai)
Pleasure Land (Hoshino/Hoshino)
Misty Blue (Sakurai/Imai)
Dizzy Moon (Yagami/Hoshino)
Sabbat (Sakurai/Hoshino)
The World is Yours (Sakurai/Imai)
Aku No Hana (Sakurai/Imai)
Kiss Me Good-Bye (Sakurai/Imai)

2002 digital remaster first pressing extra tracks:

Aku No Hana (single version)
Under the Moon Light

Credits

Atsushi Sakurai: vocal
Hisashi Imai: guitar
Hidehiko Hoshino: guitar
Yutaka Higuchi: bass
Toll Yagami: drums

additional musicians:
Tsutomu Nakayama: keyboard

produced by Buck-Tick
co-produce: Tsutomu Nakayama
engineer: Will Gosling
assistant engineer: Jun Kanazawa
recorded & mixed at Victor Aoyama Studio
director: Junichi Tanaka
co-ordinator: Junko Yamazaki
artist management: Shake Hands Inc.
manager: Yoshihiko Masuoka
road staff: Shigeo Azami, Hitoshi Ojima
promoter: Naoki Toyoshima
graphic design: Ken Sakaguchi
photographer: Bruno Dayan
stylist: Sayuri Watanabe
hair-make: Midori Kino, Hiroko Omi
co-ordinators: Makoto Furuhashi, Higashi Ishida
supervisor: Osamu Takagi, Kazumitsu Higuchi
special thanks: Pearl, Greco, Fernandes, Works Gallery, Shibaya Family, Japan Percussion Center

[this page was last updated on 2010.07.05 @ 10:21:53 PDT]

Notes

Ranked #1 on the album chart. 440,000 copies sold. This has been Buck-Tick's most successful album to date.

The single released from this album was "Aku No Hana".

This was a highly anticipated album at the time of its release due to Hisashi's arrest for narcotics on April 21, 1989 (in the middle of the tour for Taboo) and subsequent Buck-Tick inactivity.

Buck-Tick were so pleased with the work Will Gosling did while recording Taboo in London that they flew him to Japan to engineer this album as well. (Perhaps a condition of Imai's arrest was that he could not leave Japan?)

This is the second album Buck-Tick recorded at Victor Aoyama Studio.

This is the first album by Buck-Tick where the title is in Japanese. This is also the first album to contain songs where the title is in Japanese ("Maboroshi No Miyako" and "Aku No Hana").

This is the only album to feature a song composed entirely by Hide. This is the last album that contains a song Toll wrote lyrics for.

The title "Aku No Hana" comes from the book of poetry by Frenchman Charles Baudelaire (of whom Atsushi is a great admirer) of the same name ("Les Fleurs du Mal" or in English, "The Flowers of Evil").

The album cover was supposed to be in the style of 1920s Japan.

The cassette packaging is typical of Buck-Tick cassettes at the time: slipcase with the album cover on the front.

"National Media Boys" makes reference to Adolf Hitler in the lyrics.

Buck-Tick re-recorded the tracks "Aku No Hana" and "Love Me" for the album Koroshi No Shirabe ~ This is NOT Greatest Hits.

The promo vinyl is the last album put onto vinyl by the band.

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