Tag Archives: B’z (English Album)

Feature

Given the rising popularity of lyric videos in today’s internet music culture, we decided to try our hand at creating one featuring a B’z song as official promotion for the recent North American releases. The song we decided to work with was the English tune “Love Bomb“, itself being a new rendition of the 2005 Japanese single “Ai no Bakudan“.

(Update for 2017—This edition of the song was previously released in 2012 as part of the band’s debut English album but was recently delisted from international iTunes stores with the coming of the new year. A similar delisting followed after five years of availability for the band’s 2007 International EP. It bears noting that “Into Free -Dangan-” remains available worldwide as a single.)

As a bonus: You can also now download a collection of eight custom wallpapers inspired by this project right here. Each wallpaper was created for a resolution of 1920×1080 but should scale nicely to any widescreen resolution.

Feature

With this being the 25th anniversary year for B’z, we have decided to run a series of retrospectives throughout the year celebrating the band’s achievements and accomplishments. Essentially, we will be providing extensive write-ups on certain B’z albums, singles, tours, and related subjects on a regular basis for the entire year. All articles pertaining to this feature will also be simultaneously archived in the B’z Wiki for posterity.

Today, we’re looking back into the very near past for an in-depth look at the recent English album B’z, with as much information as you could possibly want on the recent English songs!

Should you prefer to read this article in Wiki form, you can do so right here!

B’z (English Album)

B’z is the self-titled debut English album by B’z, released worldwide via iTunes on July 25, 2012. The five-track album contains new English reversions of a selection of popular B’z singles released between 1998 and 2006. The newly-written English lyrics were a collaboration between Koshi and longtime drummer of the band, Shane Gaalaas. Along with Cory Churko, Shane was entrusted with mixing of the album due to the band’s trust in his familiarity with the B’z sound and vision.

“Love Bomb”, an English version of 2005 B’z single “Ai no Bakudan”, served as the opening track to the album as well as the theme to a summer campaign for Pepsi NEX in Japan. Months before, the closing track “Into Free -Dangan-” was made the global theme to the Capcom video game Dragon’s Dogma and was released as a digital single on April 3, 2012.

The release was supported by B’z LIVE-GYM 2012 -Into Free-, a seven date tour of both coasts of the United States and Canada in the fall of 2012. All songs were performed on the tour, with “Splash”, “Juice”, and “Into Free -Dangan-” having debuted in the setlist to the previous year’s tour, B’z LIVE-GYM 2011 -long time no see-.
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News

B’z at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo

Tak and Koshi kicked off their EXTRA leg of their LIVE-GYM 2012 -Into Free- tour at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo last night. The band opened with Love Bomb just like during their North American tour. In addition to the songs played during the North American tour, they also performed HEAT and Itoshii Hito yo Good Night…

The B’z version of HEAT seems to come off much brighter and — given Koshi’s stronger voice — seems a lot more melodic. It’s a shame that B’z did not play their own version of HEAT during the North American tour. It seems that it’s fan service for their Japanese fans.

Check out the full set list below. The songs highlighted in bold are the ones that have been added to the set list compared to the set list of the North American tour. The next show will be at the Nippon Gaishi Hall tomorrow.
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News

B’z was wrapping up their US tour B’z LIVE-GYM 2012 -Into Free- last night at the Gibson Amphitheatre with 6,000 fans in attendance and over 190,000 people watching the online stream served by GyaO and Ustream. In order to not let down Japanese fans, the band has decided to extend their tour with an additional leg in Japan called B’z LIVE-GYM 2012 -Into Free- EXTRA.

The term “EXTRA” was for the first time used during B’z LIVE-GYM 1999 Brotherhood EXTRA as members expressed their desire to extend the tour and play more album songs. Trivia aside, B’z kick off their EXTRA leg of the tour on October 17th at the Nippon Budokan. Tickets will be available for purchase at http://ticket-every.jp/bz2012/. Section A tickets will cost you 8,000 Yen and S section (close to the stage) tickets will cost you 9,000 Yen. You will enter a drawing for the tickets and if you’re one of the chosen ones, you can buy your ticket. A photo is also required in order to confirm your ID.

Aside from these additional Japan dates, it has also been announced that Japanese Pay-TV channel WOWOW will broadcast a special 25th Anniversary documentary on the band’s 2012 US Tour on December 9th at 9PM. Further details on the broadcast are expected to be made available at 12:00 PM Japan time on the show’s site http://www.wowow.co.jp/music/bz/. We’ll update you as soon as we know more!

B’z LIVE-GYM 2012 -Into Free- EXTRA

10/17 Nippon Budokan
10/19 Nippon Gaishi Hall
10/21 Miyagi Sekisuiheim Super Arena
10/25 Osaka Jo Hall

News

Just a quick reminder, folks! B’z will be wrapping up their North American tour B’z LIVE-GYM 2012 -Into Free- this Sunday, October 7th, at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. The show will be broadcasted live on the internet .  This follows the precedent set by B’z last year in which the finale was also streamed and to much success. As was also the case last year, you’ll be watching on Ustream. In addition, the show can also be viewed via your smartphone, though it is recommended this is done through Wi-Fi for stability purposes.

The show will begin at 7:30 PM local Pacific time on the day of the event. If you would like to see how this time relates to you, click here.

The livestream channels

Watching on your Computer?
This is it: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bz-la-live-2012

Watching on your Smartphone?
This is it: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bz-la-live-2012-mob

See you there!

News

We are counting the days until B’z fourth North American tour B’z LIVE-GYM 2012 -Into Free- kicks off on September 17th at the Warfield in San Francisco. For those in attendance, we have prepared an overview of the merchandise that will be available for purchase at every venue. In addition to the official merchandise, you will be able to purchase charity items where 100% of the proceeds will fund rebuilding homes in Japan that have been destroyed by last year’s earthquake and tsunami disaster.

Official tour merchandise is also said to be available at B’z The Store at a later date. Unfortunately, you will need a Japanese address to be able to order at B’z The Store. Prices are currently available in Japanese Yen only. We’ll let you know once prices are available in US Dollar.

Update(9/21): Prices now available in USD and CAD.

Official merchandise

Charity items