Buck-Tick Zone

Notes

Ranked #2 on the album chart. 320,000 copies sold. (Wikipedia Japan lists the same data in the discography section but on the individual album page lists it as selling 330,000 copies.)

This was the first Buck-Tick album to have multiple singles. In fact, a record of 3 singles were released. ("Speed", "MAD", and Jupiter"). This is the most amount of singles Buck-Tick has ever released from a single album. Music videos were made for each single, including a video single that was released for "MAD" which also contained a music video for the B-side. Subsequently, 3 singles were also released from Six/Nine.

This album was recorded at a Victor studio, most likely Aoyama as the band has recorded there many times. If so, then this is the third album Buck-Tick recorded at Victor Aoyama Studio.

This album features 11 songs, which is more than usual as up to now, Buck-Tick had been releasing only 10 songs per album (with the exception of the indies Hurry Up Mode and the 1990 re-release which contains 11 songs).

This is the first Buck-Tick album to have songs whose titles were written in katakana instead of English: "Speed" and "Angel Fish".

The first copies of the CD were limited edition with a clear case and album cover was comprised of 6 transparencies. 5 transparencies had the image of one member and the 6th transparency was a design that looks like the letter X. (The webmaster's copy had the members in the front and the X transparency in the back. I have kept it that way.)

The 2007 reissue was packaged like the original 1991 limited edition release.

This is the first album where Buck-Tick did not have a song with the same title as the album.

The songs in this album use less English in the lyrics than previous efforts. Of note, the titles for the songs "Speed" and "Angel Fish" are written in katakana though they could have been written in English. Also, there were interviewers who asked Atsushi why did he sing "onna no ko, otoko no ko" in the song "Speed" when he very well could have sang "girls, boys". (To put these simple words in English is much more the style of Japanese pop music.) Atsushi responded that it would not have fit the melody.

Atsushi sings in a noticeably lower register throughout most of the album than in previous albums. After this release, he does not return to the high-pitched singing of the early days.

"Sakura" is the first song in which Atsushi deals with his mother's illness and death. Sakura being the first kanji in his last name Sakurai. In no way does the song "Sakura" take melodic inspiration from the traditional song about cherry blossoms, although at the time Hisashi would play a bit of the traditional song live.

Buck-Tick re-recorded the tracks "MAD", "Speed", and "Jupiter" for the album Koroshi No Shirabe ~ This is NOT Greatest Hits.

Transparencies

Atsushi

Hisashi

Hide

U-ta

Toll

design