BAND-MAID 10th Anniversary Best Vol.1

BAND-MAID 10th Anniversary Best Vol.1 was released by Nippon Crown on 2 August 2023 to mark ten years since the band formed. It is one half of a pair — Vol.2 shares the date — and this volume gathers fourteen songs built around the single A-sides. It opens with 'Thrill', the first track on the 2015 major-label debut New Beginning and the song that first carried the band to a wide audience. 'REAL EXISTENCE', 'alone', 'YOLO' and "Don't you tell ME" follow, walking in order through New Beginning, Brand New MAID and Just Bring It, so the sequence lets you hear the early period settle the question of how the maid conceit and the ferocity of the playing were going to fit together. In the middle, 'Daydreaming' and 'Choose me' come from the 2017 double A-side, while 'DOMINATION' and 'DICE' represent the WORLD DOMINATION period, where the riffs get heavier and the choruses open out a stage wider. The later stretch runs through the 2018 and 2019 singles — 'start over', 'glory', 'Bubble', 'endless Story' — and closes on 'Different' from 2020. What the record amounts to is the five Nippon Crown years re-laid in order, seen from the singles. Changes that an album's own sequencing tends to disguise become plain once the A-sides are lined up on their own.