B'z: История Японской Рок-Группы

Japanese rock duo
their self titled debut album
In 2003, HMV Japan ranked them at number 30 on their list of the 100 most important Japanese pop acts. In 2007, B'z became the first music act from Asia to have their handprints and signatures put up on Hollywood's RockWalk. In 2008, they were awarded a Guinness World Record for "Best selling album act in Japan", which also notes them to be the best selling act in Japan overall.

In the late 1980s, Tak Matsumoto had been extremely busy as a guitarist with various recording sessions and live performances, including for Tetsuya Komuro's TM Network and Mari Hamada. Eventually, through his management, he listened to the demo tape of vocalist Koshi Inaba in 1988, who would later form B'z with him. Their first nationwide tour, "B'z Live Gym #001 'Off the Lock'", covered 16 shows around Japan. On February 21, 1990, their third album, Break Through, was released. On June 6, the "Survive" tour successfully ended. In mid 1998, B'z entered a period of both rest and recording. During that period, on September 20, their second best of album, B'z The Best "Treasure" was released, selling almost 4.5 million copies by the end of the year. The non full track ringtone downloads (Chaku Uta) of "Ichibu to Zenbu" began on July 13, 2009, and the full track ringtone downloads (Chaku Uta Full) of the song began on August 26, 2009. Because of its strong download sales in August and September on Recochoku, the song won the "Monthly Recochoku Award, Best Song Award Grand Prix" for Chaku Uta and Chaku Uta Full each for two consecutive months. On October 13, 2009, KDDI also announced that "Ichibu to Zenbu" was awarded the "Utatomo Award" of September 2009 for the sales on "Utatomo" via au's LISMO. The second release was the single "My Lonely Town", released on October 14, 2009. Both singles are featured in the band's next studio album, Magic, released on November 18, 2009. On December 10, 2009, it was announced that their single "Ichibu to Zenbu/Dive" won the "Hot 100 of the Year" award at the Billboard Japan Music Awards.

After the "B'z Live Gym 2010 'Ain't No Magic'" tour, Inaba and Matsumoto worked on solo activities and did not release any single as a duo in 2010. Matsumoto released the album Take Your Pick with Larry Carlton on June 2, 2010, which later won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Album at the 53rd Grammy Awards on February 13, 2011. Inaba's fourth solo studio album, Hadou, was also released on August 18, 2010, debuting at number one on the Oricon album charts. In 2011, they came back as B'z with their forty eighth single, "Sayonara Kizu Darake no Hibi yo", which was written for and used as a commercial song for Pepsi NEX. They released their eighteenth studio album, C'mon, on July 27, 2011, which also featured their forty ninth single, "Don't Wanna Lie", which was used as the ending theme in Detective Conan: Quarter of Silence. In the summer of 2011, B'z embarked on their third North American tour, "B'z Live Gym 2011 Long Time No See ", which featured shows in Vancouver, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. On May 4, 2012, they released two singles: "Into Free Dangan ", an English re recording of "Samayoeru Aoi Dangan", which was used as the theme song for the video game Dragon's Dogma, and their fiftieth single, "Go for It, Baby (Kioku no Sanmyaku)". "Into Free" was later revealed as the lead single for their new English EP, titled B'z, which featured English re recordings of "Ai no Bakudan", "Splash", "Juice", and "Ultra Soul". In 2013, the group was the third highest earning artist by total sales revenue in Japan with ¥5.379 billion. In 2015, they released their nineteenth studio album, Epic Day, as well the singles "Uchōten" and "Red". In August 2017, the band released B'z Complete Single Box Set, and although being a high priced limited edition, it managed to chart in the Top 10. B'z released their fifty third single, "Seimei/Still Alive", in June, which was their forty ninth single to top the Oricon charts. Their twentieth studio album, Dinosaur, was released in November 2017, which was their twenty eighth album to top the Oricon Albums Chart. To commemorate their 30th anniversary in 2018, they held a large exhibition between April and June at the Yūrakuchō Infos building in Tokyo's Chiyoda ward, their music documentary B'z 30th Year Exhibition "Scenes" 1988–2018 was screened in theatres nationwide, all 20 studio albums released up to that point were mastered for release as LPs, a commemorative book, B'z The Chronicle, was released, and a new "Pleasure" tour, "B'z Live Gym Pleasure 2018 Hinotori ", was held. In July, they released the video B'z Live Gym 2017–2018 "Live Dinosaur", which topped both DVD and Blu ray charts, selling over 90 thousand copies in the first week. Their new track, "Tsuwamono, Hashiru", was used for TV commercials for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, which was held in Japan. On April 10, 2019, the band announced their long awaited follow up to Dinosaur, New Love. The album was released on May 29, 2019, and featured new backing band members who made their debut on that year's "B'z Live Gym 2019 Whole Lotta New Love " tour, as well as a guest appearance by Aerosmith's Joe Perry. During the 2020 pandemic, B'z made their entire Live Gym catalog available to watch on YouTube for free, including their most recent one, "Whole Lotta New Love". B'z covered "Sexual Violet No. 1" by Masahiro Kuwana for 2021's Take Me to Kazemachi!, a tribute album to the song's lyricist, Takashi Matsumoto. On May 21, 2021, the majority of the B'z catalog was made available on online music services such as Spotify and Apple Music worldwide, including, for the first time, the United States. Previously, only the band's 2007 and 2012 self titled EPs were available on Apple Music in the US, but currently only the latter is available. A new song was also released, titled "Kimi to Nara". Later, on December 8, they released their first mini album in 25 years, Friends III. On August 10, 2022, B'z released their twenty second album, Highway X.

The band's music is composed by guitarist Tak Matsumoto, while the lyrics are written by vocalist Koshi Inaba. The band has experimented with its style, "going from dance rock to hard rock to blues to J pop and back," according to AllMusic. They have also been described as an "ultra commercial blend of hard rock, blues, and synthesizer pop." Despite frequent changes in musical style during their first 13 years, they didn't lose any support. Compared to two other big Japanese rock bands, Mr. Children and Glay, the sound of the former can be described as "soft", while the latter is "fast and rocking", which is more comparable to B'z. On Magic, for example, they have combined "happy go lucky moods and hard rock aesthetics", but instead of sounding like Western glam metal, it's more similar to a visual kei sound, indicating their influence on that movement and bands like L'Arc en Ciel. Greenberg, in a review of "Ichibu to Zenbu/Dive", argued that most of their work has a "somewhat disjointed structure", "creative vocal descents and cascades", and "riff heavy guitars". Marty Friedman compared them to Aerosmith, but stated to prefer B'z because of Inaba's type of voice and high vocal technique, and Matsumoto's personality while playing the guitar solo. Matsumoto's guitar skills have been praised as the "top guitar master in Asia", with "fretboard histrionics" and a "great sense of riff". In 2015, in a survey by Oricon about peoples' favorite song to relieve stress, their song "Ultra Soul" was ranked second.