"Ever Free" is the tenth single by Japanese musician hide, the third to bear the hide with Spread Beaver name, released on May 27, 1998. It debuted at number one on the

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in ...

chart, replacing his previous single "

Pink Spider is the ninth single by Japanese musician hide, the second to bear the hide with Spread Beaver name, released on May 13, 1998, eleven days after his death. It debuted at number 1 on the Oricon Singles Chart and was the 11th best-selling single o ...

", and was the 23rd best-selling single of the year and certified double platinum by the RIAJ. On May 2, 2007, the single was re-released. On December 8, 2010, it was re-released again as part of the third releases in "The Devolution Project", which was a release of hide's original eleven singles on

picture disc Picture discs are gramophone (phonograph) records that show images on their playing surface, rather than being of plain black or colored vinyl. Collectors traditionally reserve the term picture disc for records with graphics that extend at lea ...

vinyl.

Reception

"Ever Free" debuted at number one on the Japanese

weekly charts, replacing his previous single "

", with sales of over 516,000 in the initial week. By the end of the year it sold 842,440 copies and was the 23rd best-selling single of the year, being certified double Platinum by the RIAJ.

Track listing

All songs written by hide. *The hidden untitled third track begins with 5 minutes and 13 seconds of silence, representing May 13, the date "Pink Spider" was released, before playing a piece of that song.

Personnel

* hide –

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

, bass *Joe – drums *Eric Westfall –

mixing engineer A mixing engineer (or simply mix engineer) is responsible for combining ("mixing") different sonic elements of an auditory piece into a complete rendition (also known as "final mix" or "mixdown"), whether in music, film, or any other content of a ...

, recording engineer (at Sunset Sound) * S. Husky Höskulds – assistant engineer (Sunset Sound Factory) *Daiei Matsumoto – recording engineer (at Hitokuchizaka-Studio) *Kazuhiko Inada – recording engineer *Hiroshi Nemoto – assistant engineer (Hitokuchizaka-Studio) *Kevin Dean – assistant engineer (Sunset Sound) :Personnel per ''

Ja, Zoo ''Ja, Zoo'' is the third album by Japanese musician hide, released on November 21, 1998. It is also his last studio album as he died on May 2 while recording it, and the only one released under the name hide with Spread Beaver. It is his best-se ...

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes. Origin Liner notes are desc ...

Cover versions

The song was covered by Transtic Nerve on the 1999 hide

tribute album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records c ...

Tribute Spirits ''Tribute Spirits'' is a tribute album released on May 1, 1999 in memory of Japanese rock musician hide. It collects cover versions of his songs by various artists, among them most members of hide's former band X Japan. It reached number one on ...

''. It was also covered live by

DJ Ozma , known professionally as DJ Ozma (stylized DJ OZMA) and legally as , is a Japanese pop singer and musical artist. He is also known as Show Ayanocozey of the rock band Kishidan and Naomi Camelia Yazima of the drag queen pop group Yazima Beauty ...

at the hide memorial summit on May 3, 2008. An instrumental version of the song was included in the soundtrack of the movie ''Attitude'', which was scored by hide's former X bandmate Taij. The track was covered by

defspiral Defspiral (stylized as defspiral, and briefly existing under the name Wilma-Sidr) is a Japanese visual kei rock band composed of most of the former members of the Underneath. When the Underneath disbanded in 2010,Yuki Koyanagi is a Japanese pop singer. She released her first single, "Anata no kisu o kazoemashô – You Were Mine" on September 15, 1999. This song was a huge hit in Japan and made the 17-year-old a sensation overnight. Her second album, ''Expansion'', so ...

recorded a version for ''Tribute VI -Female Spirits-'', released on December 18, 2013. It was covered by

Takanori Nishikawa is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, voice artist, radio personality, and businessman. He performs under the stage name T.M.Revolution (TMR), which stands for , stemming from the famous '80s pop electronic band TM ...

for the June 6, 2018 ''Tribute Impulse'' album. Danganronpa creator

Kazutaka Kodaka is a Japanese video game designer, writer and mangaka. His work is known for recurring themes of contrasting hope/despair, luck/talent, truth/lies; mixing tragedy with dark humor, numerous plot-twists etc. He was an employee of Spike Chunsoft ( ...

; a long time hide fan was given permission to use this song for the Danganronpa 3 anime.

References

External links

* {{authority control Hide (musician) songs Oricon Weekly number-one singles Songs released posthumously 1998 singles Songs written by hide (musician) 1998 songs