Tag Archives: Videos

News

With only a few weeks until the launch of the 52nd B’z single, promotions for “Seimei/Still Alive” are now underway. Foremost, Music Station aired our first glimpse at the music video to “Still Alive” that will be included in the CD & DVD packages of the release. According to the segment, the band’s concept for the video was “Beginnings”. We’ve preserved the brief clip below:

Next, the commercial for the single hit television Saturday evening with even more footage:

News

In a surprise announcement, it has been revealed in its first airing that a brand-new, previously-unheard B’z song entitled “Still Alive” will soon be serving as the theme to the new TBS medical drama A LIFE ~Itoshiki Hito~. The drama stars well-known actor and singer Takuya Kimura of SMAP fame. In commemoration of the announcement, B’z also released a message about its creation:

We started working after having received an offer for the theme song. We also took the chance to talk with the drama’s production team. After some trial and error, we were able to produce a track we were content with. We’d be glad if this song contributed to the atmosphere of the drama. —B’z

This is the second time B’z have contributed to a Kimura-starring drama. In 2000, one of the band’s best-known singles in “Konya Tsuki no Mieru Oka ni” accompanied Beautiful Life which went on to sweep the Television Drama Academy Awards for the year and net B’z a win for Best Theme Song.

Whether the song will be released as a digital exclusive single in the near future or issued as a physical release has not yet been announced. In the meantime, check out “Still Alive” as it aired during the first episode today!

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.

News

We at OFF THE LOCK wish everyone a happy new year! Per usual, B’z have released a message for their fanclub members to celebrate the beginning of a new year. It appears that this year we’ll be able to look forward to a new B’z album! But first, Tak and Koshi will be embarking on their solo collaboration projects. On September 21st, 2017, B’z will celebrate their 29th anniversary since their formation in 1988, and enter their 30th year as a band. For sure, preparations for the 30th anniversary Pleasure 2018 tour are already underway and will be announced around that time.

Check out the subtitled video below for more details!

Feature

Those of us at OFF THE LOCK have long intended to produce additional content that explores facets of the B’z catalogue in ways we have not before. And, with that in mind, we now bring you our very own countdown of the Top 50 B’z Guitar Solos! The order found here is the result of speculation and discussions from throughout the international B’z community over the years. We hope that it will, if nothing else, provide an overview of the vast variety of guitar work and how integral Tak’s solos are to the B’z sound.

In addition to excerpts of each song for the purposes of this countdown, we have also provided information on each guitar used to play each song with the information at our disposal. We cannot guarantee complete accuracy for many reasons, including the fact that Tak often employs several different guitars on each track, but hope it may prove informative nonetheless!

If you hear a song you aren’t quite familiar with or you’re reminded of one you’ve long wanted to own, consider picking up a physical copy of its album or single from CDJapan or YesAsia!

News

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Early morning newspapers as well as NTV news show “Oha!4” (see video above) have revealed that B’z will provide the theme song to the 20th Detective Conan movie 「The Darkest Nightmare」, which is scheduled to hit theatres on April 16th, 2016. The medium tempo rock ballad is titled 「Sekai wa Anata no Iro ni Naru」(The world will become your color) and B’z is quoted as saying “This movie focuses a lot on the darker parts of Conan’s story and thus we made the theme song with a different feeling.”. Series creator Gosho Aoyama further commented: “The movie is pitch-black and it depends on you what color your feelings are after you’ve seen the movie”.

Furthermore, Tak Matsumoto will play the guitar part of the Detective Conan main theme in the movie. This marks the first time an artist gets to play the guitar part of the main theme.

A CD release for「Sekai wa Anata no Iro ni Naru」has yet to be announced. A full trailer featuring the movie’s theme song has also been revealed today. You can check it out below.