Razzle Dazzle Self Liner Notes

Taken from the October issue of CD Data.

Self Liner Notes by the band members, translated by yours truly.

1. Razzle Dazzle Fragile

"We open the curtain with an instrumental, heavy on the keyboard and synthesizers. It's got a sort of beginning-of-a-movie soundtrack feeling to it, but I also made it as a kind of background music piece, for a bunch of bad-boy artists having a banquet in, perhaps, a basement somewhere." (Imai) Hmm Imai, this wouldn't happen to be you and Yokoyama Kazutoshi in your basement, now would it?

2. Razzle Dazzle

"I wanted a sort of rude, fun song. Something that pokes fun, with no guitar solos or anything. I think this song has a sort of beautiful melody but also a joking, rock-n-roll feeling. But the lyrics are still a little lascivious..." (Imai)

3. Kyouki Deadheat

"Although the framework is orthodox rock-n-roll, we played around a lot in the studio when we were recording it, and in ended up as this kind of...perverted techno thing. Maybe it's the balance of sounds, but it really comes across as sounding...not orthodox." (Hoshino)

4. Dokudanjou Beauty -R.I.P.-

"The mix is different from the single version and the guitars are also different, and sort of trade off with the synthesizers. Also we added the vocal duet with the vocalist of Lazy Guns Brisky. But if I had to say it in one word, I'd say, this one's more techno." (Imai)

5. Hamushi no you ni

"Before we recorded the vocals I thought this was going to be more of a heavy song that really fell down on you, but once the vocals were in there it turned into this light, airy pop tune. But Buck-Tick's signature darkness, melancholy and ephemerality is still all there, I think!" (Higuchi)

6. Yougetsu -Yougetsu no Utage-

"On the single version as the b-side for 'Kuchizuke,' this song had a rockabilly/big band jazz feel, but this album mix and sound is quite different. The rhythm and the backtracking are both different, so it fits much better with the balance of the album." (Hoshino)

7. BOLERO

"At first I though this song should be really American pop-style, you know, orthodox 8-beat, but I just couldn't make it come out like that. We did so many takes, and it ended up like this." (Imai)

"This is a rhythm pattern I've never played before, so it's a little strange!" (Yagami)

8. Django!! -Genwaku no Django-

"Latin style, based around a mambo beat. Personally I love this style, so I had no trouble working in it, but I was surprised Imai wrote a song like this!" (Yagami)

"I was surprised, too! I've never done a song with this sort of feeling before! But I like it!" (Imai)

9. Sakuran Baby

"This song has the most hard, repeating sound of any song on the album. But it really busts out the pop, too." (Higuchi)

"There is no theme to these lyrics...I thought I'd write a nonsense story...I guess you could say it's about 'live until you die!' But that's it." (Sakurai)

10. PIXY

"This was a song I made because I wanted to do a four-part arrangement of something with psychedelic chic." (Hoshino)

"With the lyrics for this song, I was looking for a drifting feeling, with something a little ethnic and something a little comical. Also I tried to use the chorus as much as possible. I want to express a feeling like the little scales on butterfly wings." (Sakurai)

11. Kuchizuke -SERIAL THRILL KISSER-

"We changed most of the synthesizers on this one, too, and gave it a more techno feeling than the single version. With the subtitle, I just thought, if this song is called 'Kiss' and the lyrics are about vampires, there is no other subtitle that could possibly be better." (Imai)

12. Gekka Reijin

"The first time I heard this, I thought, this is what 'PIXY' would be like if instead of being comical, it were completely the opposite and totally sexy...and something about it is very old-fashioned. It has this natural Japanese beauty and elegance. So I wrote lyrics that are monotone, but with hints of color." (Sakurai)

13. Mugen

"When I made it, it was supposed to be some sort of pop. But then it was like, I got my heart rate up, got too excited, and wanted to blow it up into a really big, huge, feel-good song." (Hoshino)

"Since Hide made it this big huge song, I tried to make lyrics that would match the expansive atmosphere, make you feel all that space." (Sakurai)

14. Tango Swanka

"I wrote the lyrics to the rap part I sing on the A-melody, and Acchan wrote the rest. We didn't confer at all when we were writing the lyrics about relating them in terms of meaning, and this was the first time we tried writing lyrics collaboratively from both ends, as it were." (Imai)

"In the end, it didn't match, but it worked well anyway." (Sakurai)

15. Solaris

"The image i had in mind while writing the music was something big, and something surreal. Not something violent or necessarily rock-n-roll exciting, but something that would be right for the last song on the album." (Imai)

"The theme of the lyrics is living, illusions, and the fact that everything ends somewhere. That's what I wrote about." (Sakurai)

PS: Someone out there, please beat the Blogger engineer over the head until he/she fixes this bug that prevents me from changing text colors. If you bring me the bloodied engineer and a fixed bug, I will give you cookies with tour tickets baked into the middle.