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The 'extras' in Single CDs

kinjo

後輩
15 Mar 2002
742
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Hi
I am turning out to be a great fan of Glay's 'Way of Difference'(WOD).
me thinks the lyrics and rhythm are just brilliant.
I have a question regarding the singles released by such artists.

Most singles have 2/3 songs accompanying them. For example, K.Keisuke's 'Naminori Johnny' has 3/4, and WOD also has 1 more song 'sotugyou made, ato sukoshi' (apart from the instrumental)

Now, when these singles are sold, everyone knows them by the name of the title song (eg. everyone buying WOD would be buying it only for WOD)

So what happens to the other songs in the single? Dont they get ignored or washed away though they may be good, since the primary focus is only on the single, not on the other songs.

For example, i thot the 2nd song in WOD is pretty cool as well, albiet slow.

So, isnt there a chance of a potential superhit song being suppressed and fizzing out just 'coz it has come out with a 'bigger' single?

Now, dont tell me it is predecided that the other songs cant become hits on their own!
 
Many singles come out as maxi-singles or double a-side singles. Many b-side songs get a promo-video and they usually end up as an album track as well.

Japanese b-sides are often higher in quality then their counterparts in the west. Japanese artists simply put more effort in delivering a full quality product.
 
Greetings!

My experience with the coupling songs on singles is that in most cases they are included on the next album the band releases... I was picking up Mr. Children singles, and noticed that many of the coupling songs did end up on the album.

Also, most groups seem to keep any coupling songs which don't make it to albums in a sort of vault for use later. L'arc~en~ciel, for example, recently released three "best of" CDs... two covered their major tracks, and the third was a "best of coupling songs" which compiled all of their coupling songs which didn't make it to an album.

Of course, there are some which could slip through the cracks... for example, Mr. Children put a pretty cool coupling song on their "Kimi ga suki" single entitled "Sayonara 2001" (the single was released New Year's Day 2002). This song was not included on the album featuring "Kimi ga suki", though... probably they figured the song was so specific to that time period that it wouldn't be relevant in the future. Too bad, as it still was a pretty cool song...

Hope this helps...

🙂
 
There's also Luna Sea who never put their B-Sides on their regular albums. Instead they released them on seperate compilations.
 
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