Hide Your Face

hide embarked on a solo career in 1993 due to the downtime in X Japan. Initially wanting to hire several different vocalists because he was unsure of his own voice, he eventually began taking vocal lessons from Toshi's coach and sang the material himself.^[1]

The song "Frozen Bug '93 (Diggers Version)" is a remixed version of "Frozen Bug", a song that hide wrote and performed with Luna Sea members J and Inoran, under the band name M*A*S*S, for the 1993 compilation Dance 2 Noise 004.^[2] Wanting to contrast something unusual with a pop background, hide hired Yukinojo Mori to pen the lyrics to his first two A-side singles. As a kid, hide was fond of Bow Wow's 1982 album Warning from Stardust, where the A-side songs had lyrics in English and the B-side in Japanese. Liking the Japanese lyrics better, hide only realized Mori was their author afterwards.^[1] Together with the music for "Frozen Bug", "Eyes Love You" and "50% & 50%" are the only songs hide released for his solo career that he did not write himself.

The album's cover art features a reproduction of a mask, originally created by H. R. Giger, by Screaming Mad George and Joanne Bloomfield.^[3]

Hide Your Face was re-released on the Japan only format SHM-CD on December 3, 2008.

Hide Your Face reached number 1 on the Oricon Albums Chart.^[4] The 2008 re-release reached number 223.^[4] The album was certified Gold by the RIAJ in March 1994, Platinum in January 1995, and Double Platinum in February 2020 for sales over 500,000.^[5]

The album was named one of the top albums from 1989-1998 in a 2004 issue of the music magazine Band Yarouze.^[6]

Main artist

• hide – vocals, guitar, arranger, producer

Musicians and production

• Kazuhiko Inada – co-producer, synthesizer programming
• Terry Bozzio – drums on tracks 2, 4, 10, 11, 14
• Mitsuko Akai – drums on tracks 8, 13
• Junji Ikehata – drums on track 15
• T. M. Stevens – bass on tracks 2, 4, 10, 11, 14
• Michiaki Suzuki – bass on track 12
• Toshihiro Nara – bass on track 15
• Rich Breen – Rhodes on track 6, recording engineer, mixing engineer
• Neil Larson – organ on track 11
• Jerry Hey, Gary E. Grant, William F. Reichenbach – horn on track 11
• Maxine Waters, Julia Waters, Carmen Twillie – chorus on track 11
• Byron Berline – fiddle on track 15
• Tsuneo Tomono – recording engineer, mixing engineer on tracks 6, 10, 15 (band section), 16
• Kazushige Yamazaki – mastering engineer

Personnel per the album's liner notes.^[7]

Yoshiki composed a piece based on "Psychommunity Exit" as the intro for the 1999 hide tribute album Tribute Spirits.^[8] American bassist T.M. Stevens, who plays on the album, recorded a cover of "Blue Sky Complex" for his 1999 album Radioactive. Nightmare guitarist Hitsuji covered "D.O.D. (Drink Or Die)" for Tribute II -Visual Spirits-, while Dezert covered it for Tribute III -Visual Spirits-. Both albums were released on July 3, 2013.^[9] The Cherry Coke$ also recorded a version of the same song for Tribute VII -Rock Spirits-, released on December 18, 2013.^[10] "D.O.D. (Drink Or Die)" was covered by Flow firstly at Mixed Lemoned Jelly 2016 in Maihama Amphitheater then recorded the studio version for June 6, 2018 Tribute Impulse album.^[11]