Happy birthday!

[wrist cutter]

...hide sama!

[img]http://64.26.57.193/banners/hidedahlia.jpg[/img]

hide, the most legendary figure of jrock, celebrates his birthday today... or at least he would if were still alive. Let's not forget :)

Some samples of my favorite songs if anyone's interested:

[url=http://64.26.57.193/hide/junkstory.rm]Junk Story[/url]
[url=http://64.26.57.193/hide/rocketdive.rm]ROCKET DIVE[/url]
[url=http://64.26.57.193/hide/everfree.rm]ever free[/url]
[url=http://64.26.57.193/hide/pinkspider.rm]PINK SPIDER[/url]
[url=http://64.26.57.193/hide/tellme.rm]TELL ME[/url]
[url=http://64.26.57.193/hide/misery.rm]MISERY[/url]
[url=http://64.26.57.193/hide/genkaiharetsu.rm]genkai haretsu[/url]
[url=http://64.26.57.193/hide/dice.rm]DICE[/url]
[url=http://64.26.57.193/hide/damage.rm]DAMAGE[/url]
[url=http://64.26.57.193/hide/hurrygoround.rm]Hurry Go Round[/url]

---Thanks to all zero of you who took a little time to just maybe listen to a song or look up a little information on hide, and respond with a few thoughts.

[Semjaza]

Well, I am checking them out now. Would have earlier if I didn't go to bed so late.

I'm not usually into j-rock, but it's worth a shot. Anyway Happy Birthday to him, it must have been quite a loss for that music community.

[wrist cutter]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Semjaza Azazel [/i]
[B]Well, I am checking them out now. Would have earlier if I didn't go to bed so late.

I'm not usually into j-rock, but it's worth a shot. Anyway Happy Birthday to him, it must have been quite a loss for that music community. [/B][/QUOTE]

I didn't want to come off as a total a[i][/i]ss in my last post, but it frustrated me when absolutely nobody responded... especially to something that not only I, but a lot of people, really feel is an important thing. I realize most people here have absolutely no interest or experience in jrock, but maybe this can be what does it for them... in fact, the only way I've managed to make "converts" out of people is to have them listen to hide.

Even if you don't like what you hear, that's one thing, everyone has their opinions obviously... but, for example, Transtic Nerve is not hide's biggest fan... he really likes a few songs (especially PINK SPIDER, which most everyone likes..) but there are quite a few he's indifferent to. Despite that he realizes the contribution that hide made to the scene, and is always willing to try more hide.

I hate to make this comparison, but hide's death probably relates almost to that of Kurt Cobain's, but that I don't think is a very fair comparison for either of them. But that's just so you can get an idea of how huge of an impact hide really had...

[Semjaza]

My general assumption with most jrock is that it will sound somewhat like stuff bands from the US played several years ago. I know this isn't true for all of the music (probably not even most), but I can't really help it at this point.

I have grown to like The Pillows a lot, and this reminds me of them to a small extent. I honestly like all of these songs... Strangely, I like Pink Spider the least heh. It seems like his voice is slightly different in the first few songs you listed than it is in the others... Higher pitched almost. Not that that's bad, but it's not what I expected.

In terms of the music and writing, how much is hide responsible for? Does he write the lyrics and music for example, or does it go farther than that?

Out of all these, genkai haretsu is my favorite. I'll be trying to get some of these in mp3s later tonight.

And trust me, I understand your frustration with people and music in that sense.

[wrist cutter]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Semjaza Azazel [/i]
[B]My general assumption with most jrock is that it will sound somewhat like stuff bands from the US played several years ago. I know this isn't true for all of the music (probably not even most), but I can't really help it at this point.
[/B][/QUOTE]

Actually, it is pretty true for most of it. One of the major complaints I usually get when people listen to jrock is that they think it sounds from the '80s, and really I can't and don't want to argue that. It's a very different sound from what is coming out of America now and I think that's why people either listen to one or another, rarely do they listen to both. And I'm sure you know this already, but it's not as though Japan is "behind" at all, I think they just find they enjoy the "older" styled music more, even though Marylin Manson and Slipknot and similar groups are very popular over there.

hide has a lot of strange voices. If you listen to songs like "D.O.D. (DRINK OR DIE)" or "LEMONed I Scream", his voice is very nasal and high. But in "PINK SPIDER", it's much lower and more suited for rock... and then in the heavier stuff like "BACTERIA" or "DAMAGE" he puts that static filter on his voice... so he sort of adjusts his voice for the style of song he's doing.

hide has written the music to all of his songs, but there are two (his first releases) that have lyrics written by yukinojo mori. Most fans are displeased with the lyrics in these two songs, as they're kind of cheesy and much more "pop" than the usual that we get from hide (mostly because yukinojo mori writes lyrics to pop songs most of the time). But after that he began writing all his lyrics.

On all of his songs, hide does all the guitarwork, and on most of his songs he plays the bass part too. He also arranges and produces all of his songs. As you can see, he also does a lot with the band Spread Beaver. He joined up with these guys at the end of his career, and released a few singles like "ROCKET DIVE", "ever free" and "PINK SPIDER" in which he did all bass, guitars, vocals etc... but since he died before an entire album with Spread Beaver could be released, two songs on the album do not feature guitars or bass by hide, only his voice.

This year, a few more songs were made: "MISCAST", "IN MOTION" and "Junk Story". hide wrote the music and lyrics for these songs back when he was alive, and his vocals were used from demo tapes, but the music is all done by Spread Beaver including guitars I believe.

"genkai haretsu" is a really great song, that and "DICE" have been my most listened to this week.

Oh, one other thing, if you can find some translated lyrics somewhere, hide writes really good ones if you ask me. Granted, some of his songs are a bit silly, but his serious ones have good lyrics. Which is rare for me because usually I don't even pay attention to what is being said...

[Semjaza]

Is there a reason why the titles are randomly all lower or all upper case? heh

The first song was not what I expected, because likey you said, hide's voice was rather nasal and I didn't feel it meshed with the tone of the song. The last few are far better in my mind... I like this "rock" voice a lot more.

I was hoping there would be translations somewhere, because I'd like to at least know what the songs are about. I listen to few other foreign language bands, but Rammstein is the main one... And although I do not understand most of the songs, I know the general idea. It helps I think.

What exactly happened to hide...?

[wrist cutter]

About the titles, all Japanese artists are like this and just about everyone is confused why. Song titles, album titles, even names have certain capitalizations. Like hide is always undercase, LUNA SEA is always capitalized, and all the members' names of LUNA SEA like SUGIZO and RYUICHI are always capitalized... when dealing with Japanese titles like "genkai haretsu", lowercase is always used because there is no capitals in Japanese... well there kind of is but it's difficult to explain ^_^;

Well, the first song "Junk Story" was one that was found after he died. And so I.N.A. of Spread Beaver who was good friends with hide and his co-producer arranged the song, and how he arranged it may not be what hide had envisioned. So that's my explanation for that. But in songs like "Beauty & Stupid", the nasal voice is clearly intentional.

For translations, I suggest [url=http://www.geocities.com/japanesechannel_lyrics/translate.html]this site[/url]. They have a few hide and hide with Spread Beaver (under separate rows) translations. And as a note, the two songs that hide did not write the lyrics to were EYES LOVE YOU and 50% & 50%.

hide killed himself. At the time, he was extremely drunk (hide really loved to drink, it obviously inspired his song "D.O.D") at the time. Supposedly, in his next concert, there was a "death" scene where he was to be hanged. I'm not sure if that is true or just a rumor. Well, while he was extremely drunk, hide hanged himself with a towel around his neck and the doorknob to his bathroom. There was no suicide note and nobody really knows why he did it, since he was really at the peak of popularity in his career. If you read the lyrics to "PINK SPIDER", however, there is a lot that suggests hide was considering suicide... maybe it was the alchohol that convinced him to. Nobody will ever know. For a good interpretation of PINK SPIDER, go [url=http://members.tripod.com/~Iguana_matsumoto/pink.html]here[/url]. But I think the lyrics are translated better at the other site I put up.

A good quick biography on hide, as well as more information on what exactly happened to him, can be found [url=http://64.26.57.193/hide/info.html]here[/url]. It was written by good friend and fellow ex-coworker kotori for our old site jikannohizumi.net. The only thing that it doesn't do very well is emphasize hide's time in X JAPAN - because X JAPAN is the most legendary rock band in Japan ever and are millions of times more popular than hide was as a solo artist.

[Semjaza]

Great, thanks for the links and info :). I'll try and check out all I can before I leave for the weekend.

Where is everybody else? Surely I'm not the only one interested...

[Shinobi]

Wow, Pink Spider is really good! It's late so i have not here any others but this i really good! I have never been intrested in this, but i will check out the others! Although i dunno what he is saying the actual music is good. Thanks WC.

[vegeta rocker]

For the record I didn't respond sooner because i lost my com for awhile. I had to skip school to do a play and then there was the weekend.
I think my personal favorite is pink spider.