Art of Life is an album released by X Japan on August 28, 1993. It consists entirely of the 29 minute long title track, and was written and composed by Yoshiki Hayashi. The heavily orchestrated piece (recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra) is partly based on Schubert's unfinished Symphony No. 8 and comprises several passages of varying speed and instrumentation, including numerous verses, with no set chorus, several harmonized guitar solos, and eight minutes performed solely on piano. Upon the album's release, it debuted at number-one and became the 28th best-selling album of 1993 with over 513,000 units sold.
It was rarely played live, an early performance taking place on July 30, 1992 at Nippon Budokan and two more on December 30 and 31, 1993, at the Tokyo Dome. These were later released on the Art of Life Live album and the Art of Life respectively. It was also performed at the band's reunion concert on March 28, 2008 at the Tokyo Dome, but was cut short when Yoshiki collapsed midway through the song, just before the piano solo. The rest of the song was played at the same venue two days later.
No comments:
Post a Comment