Different

Different is a three-track single released by Nippon Crown on 2 December 2020. It arrived immediately before the album Unseen World the following January, and it was the band's last single for the label. The title song is built on a bouncing rhythm and short, clipped guitar. It is brief by BAND-MAID standards and organised around a hook made to bear repetition. An official music video followed, and on 10th Anniversary Best Vol.1 in 2023 the song was placed last — the position that closes out the Nippon Crown years. "Don't be long" is the coupling, and moves at a steadier gait than the A-side. The third track, 'Different (89sec Ver.)', trims the title song to eighty-nine seconds. Including a formally shortened edit on the CD itself is unusual: a running time cut for tie-ins and social distribution is here treated as part of the release. Three tracks come to about eight minutes. That brevity stands in deliberate contrast to Unseen World, the thirteen-song album that followed, and leaves this record carrying the lightness the single format is for.