#1144 Album Theory 87 | BELOVED / GLAY (1996)
This is the fourth GLAY album I've introduced so far.
This time, I will introduce their 3rd album, "BELOVED", which was released in November 1996, just 9 months after their previous album, BEATout!.
This was the album I was most tempted to buy.
What is BELOVED?
With the hit of "Glorious" and the Oricon #1 spot for "BEATout!", GLAY firmly left their mark on the country's charts, and "BELOVED", released six months after BEATout!, pierced everyone's hearts, and GLAY fully joined the ranks of top artists.
The subsequently released "a Boy ~Zutto Wasurenai~" was a complete lead single for this album, but it still had enough power to reach #2 on the Oricon charts, and this work was released with such high expectations. It was a commercial success and a masterpiece that recorded
Oricon #1 & Million sales.
The commentary for this album conveys that the band was quite confident in it, as described below.
Armed with the confidence gained from their previous work "BEATout!", this is a fulfilling work with an even greater sense of scale. Starting with "GROOVY TOUR," which mimics the opening of a live concert, they emphasize a raw feel by intentionally scattering session-like sounds in the intros and between tracks. It is finished as an album that produces a sense of dynamism as if watching a single show. You are overwhelmed by the strong impact of each song and the dizzying differences in their impressions, such as the title track "BELOVED," which is filled with kindness and warmth and remains an indispensable song symbolizing the band GLAY; "SHUTTER SPEEDS no Theme," where bassist JIRO's wild energy connects directly to their live performances; and "HIT THE WORLD CHART!," which surprises with a sound reminiscent of classic hard rock and rap-style vocals.
Since I was listening to this album in real-time, I have a lot of emotional attachment to it.
BELOVED: A Full Track-by-Track Review
1. GROOVY TOUR
It's an incredible masterpiece from the very first track.
It's my favorite opening track on any GLAY album.
I think it's an incredibly cool song that captures the feeling of the album's world expanding, and I fell in love with it instantly.
The intro, which starts with a digital "Ladies & Gentlemen" and then builds up, is cool, and the chorus that starts suddenly is great.
Beat My Heart, pounding in my chest, a one-night-only One Night Show Time. Groovy Night, I was dreaming, tonight's Go Ahead!
It's a short chorus, but it's a very memorable and cool phrase.
I remember it being in a commercial for a car or something, and when I first heard it, I thought with a mysterious sense of superiority for a first-year junior high student, "GLAY has now completely reached the top of the scene..." lol. The A-melody and B-melody are also good; they really convey the band's great atmosphere, and you can tell that D.I.E is a troublemaker lol. Like that, it was the
best song that made me have no doubt that this album is a masterpiece.
2. Lovers change fighters, cool
And this second track is also a bit eccentric, which I like. After the grand previous track "GROOVY TOUR" ends, an aggressive guitar riff starts without a moment's rest, and that riff is great right from the start.
Anyway, the lyrics are comical, or rather, relatable, and they weren't the kind of lyrics written by visual-kei bands of the past. These are lyrics that YOSHIKI probably couldn't write.
Fallin' Love, is it the weakness of being in love? Is it the law of men and women that whoever says they like the other first loses?
Does the title mean “The lover turns into an enemy, quietly”?
It has a playful vibe, so it's easy to sing at karaoke, and I remember my friends singing it back in high school. It's a nice song with that kind of feel.
3. BELOVED
REVIEWor BEST10—I've talked about it there, so this is my third time introducing it, but this song was seriously a really huge song for our generation.
We were lucky to be able to hear this song during the impressionable time of the summer of our first year of junior high.
It really is an incredibly good song and an incredibly cool song, so many kids started picking up instruments, aspiring to be like TERU, TAKURO, HISASHI, JIRO, and TOSHI NAGAI. As I've said many times, this was the first song I learned on bass.
From TAKURO's arpeggio to the outro, everything from start to finish is mellow and wonderful, but now, about 30 years later, this song feels even more “What a great song...”than it did when I heard it in the first year of junior high.
Especially this second chorus, it really makes me want to cry.
Always, in the midst of casual daily life,
the grove of love we nurtured, accepting both smiles and tears.
The voices of nostalgic friends fading away,
I hold them in my heart and send my thoughts.
Some meetings... some partings... the repeating days continue on.
Songs you heard back then transcend time, don't they...
I'll probably remember that summer of my first year of junior high, when I spent all my time playing soccer, until I die.
4. SHUTTER SPEEDS no Theme
It's JIRO's theme song, and the first song JIRO ever wrote.
In both junior high and high school, there were always one or two JIRO freaks in every grade, usually playing a Fernandes or Bacchus JIRO model, so JIRO was a bassist that bassists aspired to be (if it were between JIRO or J, I was a “J fan”).
It's a song that starts with JIRO and ends with JIRO, where JIRO enters with the bass at the beginning, sings the A-melody, shouts “WHO GET!” in the chorus, and performs a bass solo after the chorus. It's incredibly popular with fans and a song that gets the crowd going like crazy at live shows.
The guys mentioned above who play JIRO's bass parts were always playing the bass for this SHUTTER SPEEDS song.
That's how beloved this song is.
5. Fairy Story
I think this song was released when I was in my first year of junior high, but for some reason, it was a song that was played like crazy at the ski resorts I often went to lol.
Admittedly, when you hear it's a fairy song, it has a wintery vibe, but it was a mystery why this song was playing.
That's the memory I have most of, but it's a beautiful song.
It's a mysterious song, and it's understandable why HISASHI would say this:
“I think everyone has that one song that's on an album, but they never play it live, and it's never released as a single, but it's their favorite. For me, this is that song.”
6. Canary
Following SHUTTER~, this song was also composed by JIRO (lyrics by TAKURO).
A friend who lent me this album loved this song like crazy, and"Canary is the best one"so I listened to it with high expectations, and it was indeed a good song in a standard way.
Regardless, it's a gentle song from start to finish, and I could really feel JIRO's sense for composition.
I haven't read the lyrics that deeply, but the lyrics for this song are amazing.
We went to the battlefield without guns, without any means of survival, without anything.
TAKURO's talent during this period was god-like...
7. HIT THE WORLD CHART!
I had forgotten it a bit, thinking, "What kind of song was it?"but once I heard it, I remembered lol.
Like the aforementioned Lover's, it hasvery playful lyricsbut I also believe that being able to write these lyrics is the reason GLAY was accepted by the masses, so this is fine as it is.
However, I barely remember this song, so I'll move on lol.
8. a Boy ~I'll Never Forget~
This song isGomanism SengenfamiliarYoshinori Kobayashiloves this song, and I remember him saying something in the margins of Gomanism Sengen back in the day, like at a GLAY concert he attended,"GLAY played my favorite song, a Boy!"Following BELOVED, it's a
mellow song drifting with sorrow,and it's a gentle song, whether you call it a rock ballad or something else.
This song was released one week before the release of the album "BELOVED," so it was a complete advance single, and I think they probably released it thinking it didn't necessarily have to sell that well, but even so, it reachednumber 2 on Oricon,that's the kind of momentum GLAY had at the time.
It's just a really great song.
Like BELOVED, I'm listening to it about 30 years after its release and realizing its quality all over again.
By the way, the c/w trackneuromancerwas cult-popular in our local soccer club lol.
9. Haru wo Aisuru Hito
Excluding the singles,the best song on this albumis definitely this one.
When I first heard it, it was such a good song that I was shocked; it was simply a perfect song with no room for complaint.
How should I put it, it was an impression similar to the feeling I had when I heardSAY YESorInnocent World,a feeling of"This is a perfect song..."
Sunshine, the distant earth, the road that continues to tomorrow
Moonlight, I looked up at the shooting stars that are born and then vanish
Just like the breath of flower buds in the coming spring
I want you I want you I want you
To live is to love, and to be loved
This repeated phrase isgod-like and wonderful,but the lyrics for summer in the second verse, autumn in the third, and winter in the fourth are all precious. It's insane that he could write a song like this when he was only 25 or so!
TAKURO is incredible!
Seriously, everyone loved this song.
And for an album track, it was extremely well-known, and perhaps that's why it was later promoted to a c/w track on theKuchibirusingle.
And what's amazing about this song is thatit has its own Wikipedia pagelol.
10. Curtain Call
Apparently, YOSHIKI praised this song highly. It is, in any case, a very
heart-touching ballad and it seems TAKURO wrote this when he was around 20, haha. TAKURO is incredible!
And this album has an exquisite track order. I cannot help but feel that this sequence of 12 songs is the most optimal arrangement, and this song is wonderful in this position as well. Personally, I feel that the first part ends with "Haru wo Aisuru Hito," and I perceive
this song as a "curtain call" or an encore of sorts.
11. Miyako Wasure
It seems they were torn between this and "Glorious" for the single release, but I feel they made the right choice with "Glorious" for that commercial. I don't think the goodness of this song would have come across in a commercial...
In any case, the members apparently opposed it because they didn't like the enka-like title, but it seems TAKURO pushed it through, haha.
Also, I remembered this song being requested and performed as part of a "right to have GLAY sing one song after a concert" prize, but it turns out it was a school broadcast! My memory was wrong!
Regardless, it is a song with a very high level of perfection and quality. It is not a song for a 25-year-old rock band to sing, but rather a rock ballad that feels like it is at the
level of a veteran band around 40 years old. I take my hat off to their talent during this period once again!
12. RHAPSODY
This is a song known for its impressive guitar riff. The album ends with the most rock and roll song on the record. It is also very good that it
ends with rock. As I wrote before, I really like how they have the characters for "men and women" read as "those guys"
, haha.
I really like how it ends with a bang like that. It makes me realize once again that this is a monster album.
Summary
It is an album that holds many memories for me. It is one of the GLAY albums I listened to the most, competing for the top spot.
Now, let's move on to 1998, when I was in my third year of junior high, and introduce PURE SOUL.