Rarities: BiS – nerve | Historic Musings

The third in series of short articles highlighting some of the rarer CDs that I have been able to acquire. This time we will be looking at a release by the group that pretty much started it all, Brand-new Idol Society. Lets take a closer look at 「nerve」, the second single from BiS.

「nerve」 is an interesting release, at least I think so. By the time this single came out 「nerve」 was already a popular song in the groups live set, pretty much guaranteed to sell well by name alone, and did it sell. It went on sale on the 19th of October 2011. The release was limited to only 1000 copies and limited to only 6 Tower Records locations (Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro, Nagoya Kintetsu Pass, Umeda Osaka Marubiru and Akihabara). By the 22nd of October only the Osaka location had copies left. Customers were limited to two copies each. The speed at which these CDs sold is quite amazing and is a testament to the growing popularity of the group after only about one year of existence.

The CD was what is called a one coin single which means that it could be purchased with a ¥500 coin. It contained the title track, 「nerve」, which was re-recorded with the recently added member Yufu Terashima who had replaced Rina Yokoyama (Rinahamu of BQM15Q and CY8ER fame). The second track was 「gugigi」, a tune that would only appear on one other release, びすけて [Bisukete] which was itself a release limited to Village Vanguard stores in late 2012. The last track is 「I’m Coming!!」 which was a song Pour Lui had performed as a solo act before the formation of BiS. This is the only official release of that track by BiS.

Another thing about this release is the design of the art work. Originally it was supposed to mimic the logo of NERV from the popular anime series Neon Genesis Evangalion. Side by side comparison below.

This, of course, did not happen as GAINAX Co., Ltd., producers of the anime wanted to protect their images from unauthorized use. So BiS changed the graphic by blacking out the logo and putting the word 検閲済み [censored] over it.

The track listing on the back was left unchanged even though it closely resembled numbering associated with SEELE, something else from the Evangelion anime.

Here is the full packaging of the CD. This release did not come with a front cover image. All images are from my personal copy except the first below.