4 Plugs digipak

Oh digipaks, how I love thee. Oh 4 Plugs, how I love thee as well. 4 Plugs is a unique beast in Mad's discography; neither the melodic punk of Park and albums before it, nor the digital hardcore which was beginning to show on Digidogheadlock, it represents Mad beginning towards a musical direction which they ended up not sticking with, and created one unique and heavy bass-dominated hardcore melodic rap punk record. (Okay, Digidogheadlock is a little close, but not by too much.)

It may have been the heavy dominance of Takeshi's bass, both performance-wise and in the mix, that caused guitarist ISHIG∀KI to end up leaving Mad in October of 1996 to play in Ends, the new project from Soft Ballet vocalist Ryoichi Endo. An unfortunate turn of events, but it still got a really great album out of 4 Plugs.

In any case, this entry is really more about this special digipak edition. Tak Mad made a post about stickers enclosed in the digipak edition, which notified me of this edition's existence and sent me looking for it, but my copy did not have any of those stickers, unfortunately. Thankfully, it did have an obi, which not a lot of other digipak copies on Yahoo Auctions had. There was one small cost, that the spine of the digipak itself was a bit faded, but at least the obi covers that right up.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Possess In Loop

2. Crack

3. Kami-Uta

4. Rust Off System

5. Walk!

6. Normal Life

7. Another Plug

8. S.H.Ō.D.O.K.U.

9. A･S･M･I･A･S･B

10. PGM On

11. Don't Suss Me Out

12. Destruction At The Door

13. O･U･T

Walk! single

My issues are OVER! For the moment at least... When I was originally planning to do this article, my computer's keyboard's motherboard had pretty much shit the bed: ruthless spurts of endless E's which made writing a few of those last few articles an absolute chore, the R key was beginning to fail on me, and ALL of the number keys (except 5 and 6) were basically gone, no matter how hard I jammed down on them.

To top it off, apparently the specific keyboard model that MY laptop used was the only model of that type of laptop that was stupidly expensive, so replacing the keyboard was something of an impossibility. I managed to find a good replacement laptop online that I'll transfer my files to, but at the moment it's a matter of waiting for the thing to come in. So for now, I'll be using library computers to get these entries done. But enough about my drama, on with the program!

I'm finally back, and to start this new wave of Mad Music Corner posts, I'll pick up where I originally left off: the snap-pack CD single for Walk! from Mad's album 4 Plugs. Well, the "Japan Mix" of Walk! to be more specific. What is the "Japan Mix", you may ask? It's the same song, but with the verses redone in Japanese instead of English, and ISHIG∀KI threw in a small guitar solo. It's not intrusive at all, it just makes you wonder why it couldn't have been on the 4 Plugs version.

Also included on this disc: a re-recorded version of Humanity from their debut album of the same name that sounds very nice. (When I added this to Rare Mad, I placed it after the Gichi/Marionette/Dirty Trick EP, since they were all Humanity re-recordings.) Invitation's censored reissue of Humanity came out a couple months after this single, and I haven't checked my copy of that disc, but I doubt this re-recording is on there at all.

I should also note that this was the last release that came in an 8cm/3in snap-pack longbox case. Every single that followed came in more conventional maxi jewel cases, even ones that did have smaller CDs in them. (The single for Kami-Uta came in a conventional maxi case, but the CD was one that would have fit in a snap-pack. Later mini-CDs came in adorable downsized maxi cases.)

And of course, the tracklisting is as follows:

1. Walk! (Japan Mix)

2. Humanity (re-recorded)

NOTE: This is the last post I will be able to do for a while set against that neat white table backdrop with good lighting. I'm currently several states away from that particular table freezer and lighting setup, and I originally had done an alternate photo shoot for this single on the new location until I realized I could still access these original pictures. Get used to the new location by checking out the alternate shoot here, here, here and here.