BAND-MAID 10th Anniversary Best Vol.2

BAND-MAID 10th Anniversary Best Vol.2 came out on 2 August 2023, the same day as Vol.1, on Nippon Crown. Where the first volume collects the single A-sides, these eleven songs are chosen from album tracks and coupling songs. It opens with 'Shake That!!', the closing track of New Beginning, and follows with 'the non-fiction days', which opened Brand New MAID, and 'FREEDOM' from the middle of that same record. None of the three was ever a single, and all three became fixtures live. 'Puzzle' and 'secret My lips' come from Just Bring It; 'Play', "I can't live without you." and 'Rock in me' from WORLD DOMINATION. Near the end, 'Screaming' is the coupling song from the 'start over' single, while 'Blooming' and '輪廻' sit late on CONQUEROR and both carry official music videos. Eleven songs held together by nothing more than not having been A-sides — but laid out in a row they show that the slower, wider songs stayed as close to the centre of this band as the fast ones. Splitting the anniversary across two discs is what lets both faces survive: the singles band and the albums band. Neither on its own would account for the ten years, and the two-volume shape says exactly that.