| Hide Your Face | |
| Type: | Album |
| Artist: | hide |
| Cover: | Hide_-_Hide_Your_Face.jpg |
| Released: | February 23, 1994 |
| Recorded: | 1993 |
| Genre: | Alternative rock, hard rock |
| Length: | 68:18 |
| Label: | MCA Victor |
| Producer: | hide |
| Next Title: | Psyence |
| Next Year: | 1996 |
Hide Your Face is the debut album by Japanese musician hide, released on February 23, 1994. It reached number 1 on the Oricon Albums Chart and was certified Double Platinum by the RIAJ for sales over 500,000 copies. It was named one of the top albums from 1989-1998 in a 2004 issue of the music magazine Band Yarouze.
hide embarked on a solo career in 1993 due to the downtime in X Japan. Initially wanting to hire several different vocalists because he was unsure of his own voice, he eventually began taking vocal lessons from Toshi's coach and sang the material himself.[1]
The song "Frozen Bug '93 (Diggers Version)" is a remixed version of "Frozen Bug", a song that hide wrote and performed with Luna Sea members J and Inoran, under the band name M*A*S*S, for the 1993 compilation Dance 2 Noise 004.[2] Wanting to contrast something unusual with a pop background, hide hired Yukinojo Mori to pen the lyrics to his first two A-side singles. As a kid, hide was fond of Bow Wow's 1982 album Warning from Stardust, where the A-side songs had lyrics in English and the B-side in Japanese. Liking the Japanese lyrics better, hide only realized Mori was their author afterwards.[1] Together with the music for "Frozen Bug", "Eyes Love You" and "50% & 50%" are the only songs hide released for his solo career that he did not write himself.
The album's cover art features a reproduction of a mask, originally created by H. R. Giger, by Screaming Mad George and Joanne Bloomfield.[3]
Hide Your Face was re-released on the Japan only format SHM-CD on December 3, 2008.
Hide Your Face reached number 1 on the Oricon Albums Chart.[4] The 2008 re-release reached number 223.[4] The album was certified Gold by the RIAJ in March 1994, Platinum in January 1995, and Double Platinum in February 2020 for sales over 500,000.[5]
The album was named one of the top albums from 1989-1998 in a 2004 issue of the music magazine Band Yarouze.[6]
Main artist
Musicians and production
Personnel per the album's liner notes.[7]
Yoshiki composed a piece based on "Psychommunity Exit" as the intro for the 1999 hide tribute album Tribute Spirits.[8] American bassist T.M. Stevens, who plays on the album, recorded a cover of "Blue Sky Complex" for his 1999 album Radioactive. Nightmare guitarist Hitsuji covered "D.O.D. (Drink Or Die)" for Tribute II -Visual Spirits-, while Dezert covered it for Tribute III -Visual Spirits-. Both albums were released on July 3, 2013.[9] The Cherry Coke$ also recorded a version of the same song for Tribute VII -Rock Spirits-, released on December 18, 2013.[10] "D.O.D. (Drink Or Die)" was covered by Flow firstly at Mixed Lemoned Jelly 2016 in Maihama Amphitheater then recorded the studio version for June 6, 2018 Tribute Impulse album.[11]