YOLO

YOLO is a four-track maxi single released by Nippon Crown on 16 November 2016. It sits between the albums Brand New MAID and Just Bring It, and served as the advance single for the latter. The title song is built on crisp cutting and a chorus that piles in on itself, and it received an official music video. The name abbreviates 'You Only Live Once', taking a phrase that was widely current at the time and putting it straight on the marquee. It is a good example of the moment when the roughness of the earliest records had been tidied away and the division of labour between riff and vocal had become clear. 'Unfair game' and 'matchless GUM' push speed and density further than the A-side. Neither reads as the filler that often surrounds a pre-album single; both hold their own. The fourth track is an instrumental, which makes the intent explicit: to lift the playing out and let it be heard on its own terms. The title song went on to Just Bring It the following January, and was chosen again for 10th Anniversary Best Vol.1 in 2023 — of the early singles, the one whose afterlife has been the largest.