THE LIST SO FAR (MOST FAVOURITE - LEAST FAVOURITE): ibb.co/album/NtgFBN Come join our lovely Discord: discord.gg/cY4y9UZTTF

I think my favorite thing about early Band-Maid is the use of dual vocals, always a joy to hear, I wish there was more of that in current songs. Not complaining at all, just a personal observation.

I, for one, openly support and enjoy your discovery of all Band-Maid songs. I have heard everything from Band-Maid, so far, and the "Favorite" list is updated and changes on every listen. Keep up the good work!

There's an acoustic version of this which will always bring a smile to your face.

Always loved "Knockin On Your Heart"! So far: 1. Be Ok 2. Key 3 Knockin on Your Heart 4. Bye My Tears 5. Evergreen It's already getting difficult lol!

Keep doing this - I'm enjoying it very much. And please never change the intro. It's fantastic. 🤘✌

I love the format and the process!!! I do not understand why anyone would not enjoy this. Keep it going, look forward to the next one. Thanks.

Band-Maid's older, somewhat overlooked songs are going to be rediscovered for years to come. This will bring a continuous flow of new fans into their fold. Some of these tunes are heavy, hard punk rock adding a new depth of artistry to the Maids many fans didn't know they had. Of course, for Maidiacs, they always knew about these bitchin tunes long ago and still listen to them all the time. Thx, Ross!

I think it's great your doin' this. Just insane. Then again... Be Ok Key Bye My Tears Knockin on Your Heart Evergreen 🤣 🕊

Great reaction as usual. Totally agree. It's like- If everything is a priority then nothing is a priority.

Personally, I’ve been looking forward to you doing an ultimate ranking series since your first reaction to Freedom 😂…but I was already a subscriber and seen some of the other series and knew how they worked. Can’t wait until the struggle that will be JBI 😂

One of my favorite po!tron songs , miku n psyche dual/duet, harmonies, boo panic i said it!

FYI Ross, they did not write these early songs, but they did have a hand in the arrangements, so the Band Maid DNA is still in there. I really like this one, it makes me smile.

For this one, Pigeon was a Woodpecker, Po! ❤️🐦🕊️

Agree with your reasoning: 1. Bye My Tears 2a. Be OK 2b. Key 4. EverGreen 5. Knockin on your heart Someone mentioned somwhere (on someone else's review of this album) that they suspect that the songs they got were designed for Miku's voice (obvs not knowing Saiki was going to join) and hence why difficult to differentiate and possibly a bit brighter (more pop to punk ratio?) than anything else they've done since.

Maid in Japan is my favourite album, followed by Conqueror and then the harder ones. Maybe because I grew up in the beat era.

I appreciate you doing this, because I own most of the early CD's I haven't listened to every track. Thanks.

As someone who discovered them a year and a half ago and saw them live twice last year I feel like a failure of a fan for never hearing this song before.

Every person is allowed to have personal preference. You go dude, rank away and I'll keep watching.

Theres a very good acoustic this from Engadget show

I have all their stuff and the early things are very well done but I'm extremely glad Band Maid got away from the suits and compose their own songs now. Kanami is a genius and the rest of the group really knows how to fill out the ideas. Love this band and it's the best rock band on the planet.

K-Ross, keep it up. This ranking reaction segment is always fun. PnD, like everyone else has the right to his opinions. It would be too damned hard for me to do something like this, anything Band-Maid is great with me.

Miku used to share lead vocals on a lot of the early stuff. It's her band.

It's all good, nothing wrong with wanting to hear every song by the Maids. If you wanna rank them, that's all good too. If it makes it more interesting for you and you spend maybe little extra time "knowing" the song better, that's cool too. I happen to like this song alot and the album as well. 🤘

"Knockin' On My Heart" is a song you put on the playlist in your car for a road trip. Do it on the open road, however, or you might get a speeding ticket. While the Maids didn't write the music, their musical talent carried the song to pop-punk nirvana.

ATTACK! ATTACK! ... You'll never see a photo collage for "The Dragon Whines" either :p . If you love everything a band does you are not a real fan. I already got clobbered in a comment section for that one too. We all ... at least those of us who have been around for a while, love the old BAND MAID music. I have seen attributions to Kentaro Akutsu who is responsible for some of the best early songs and nearly wrote all of Maid in Japan singlehandedly, but have also seen this song attributed to Masahiko Fukui. I have difficulty believing Akutsu had a big hand in this. When you get to "Shake That" at the end of the second album you will be FORCED to love pop/punk in the end :p ;) .

Their voices seemed more similar before their surgeries. They did get good songwriting before they started doing their own stuff, but the foreign DNA always stands out.

I was in the second camp that has come around, but still think you are nuts. I thought it would be an unnecessarily frustrating exercise but I see now how you structure it and I'm curious to see how it plays out. There is a video of a studio show of the Maids doing this song with acoustic guitars and Akane on the Cajon. In this song Miku just holds her guitar (she is past trying to pretend) though, if memory serves, she does play on the other track from this show.

I've heard every Band-Maid song multiple times, but there are many that I keep forgetting about. This is one of those.

I enjoy this ❤ I am creating my own list of band maid songs 😅 Some are a 10 or 9 but others are just a 5, but I didn't find any worse yet 😅 That's really good in comparison to other bands I like. Don't forget that Band Maid is doing many different styles and we individually are listening to them differently. So a 5 for me can be a 10 for someone else. Isn't that great? PEACE 🕊️ But if you don't like "beauty and the beast" (a punk/pop song) then I am getting angry 😅😅😅

My ranking so far - Bye My Tears Be Okay Key Evergreen Knockin" On Your Heart

I agree that all Band-Maid songs are not equal, however I do disagree with you...all Band-Maid songs are special.

100% with you regarding "if everything is special, nothing is special". Sorry you're being subjected to the internet's toxic positivity. I think this is easily their catchiest song. I find it very charming, and I think it's more interesting than a song this catchy has any right to be. For that reason I'm putting it above "Be OK" which is more my style but doesn't hit me very hard. And of course, waaaay above Evergreen. ;) 1. Bye My Tears 2. Key 3. Knockin' On Your Heart 4. Be OK 5. Evergreen

Here for the ride and diggen it. I do like Ever Green over this one

I like this one so BOOOOOO! Yep. Their own stuff stands out like a sore thumb compared to much of the early stuff. That they simply don't play anything from this first release now says it all really. There are a few genuine bangers from the second album onwards, like Freezer, Order, Shake That, Non-fiction Days etc that weren't written by them exclusively though. Once they found the direction they wanted to go in after Thrill landed, it helped in that respect I think. And listening to B-M in any way one desires is always time well spent.

*K-Ross BAND-MAID Playlist* 🎀 *Maid in Japan* 01/8/2014 ├ 📂 -Be OK- ├ 📂 -Ever Green- ├ 📂 -Key- ├ 📂 -Bye My Tears- ├ 📂 -Knockin' on Your Heart- ├ 📂 Big Dad ├ 📂 Yoake mae (夜明け前) ├ 📂 Forward ├ 📂 Ai to Jōnetsu no Matador (愛と情熱のマタドール) └ 📂 Summer Drive 🎀 *New Beginning* 11/18/2015 🎀 *Brand New Maid* 05/18/2016 🎀 *YOLO* 11/15/2016 🎀 *Just Bring It* 01/11/2017 🎀 *Daydreaming / Choose me* 06/18/2017 🎀 *World Domination* 02/14/2018 🎀 *start over* 06/25/2018 🎀 *Bubble* 01/16/2019 🎀 *Glory* 01/16/2019 🎀 *BAND-MAIKO* 04/03/2019 🎀 *Conqueror* 12/04/2019 🎀 *Different* 12/02/2020 🎀 *Unseen World* 01/13/2021 🎀 *about Us* 2/3/2021 🎀 *Sense* 10/27/2021 🎀 *BAND-MAID ONLINE ACOUSTIC* 12/25/2021 🎀 *Unleash!!!!!* 9/21/2022 🎀 *Memorable* 2/21/2023 🎀 *Shambles* 8/3/2023 🎀 *Bestie* 5/1/2024

Its pop rather than rock but i don't think its terrible its a happy poppy song. For a quick ride in the car to the local shops it's fine.

In the older songs, Miku could mimic Saiki's voice. Saiki started to stand out with more power, but blew out her vocals/developed polyps. Miku also injured her vocals and was forced to be silent at one okyuji as well.

MISA MISA MISA!!!!! 3rd for me our lists now starts to diverge

Pop Punk's not my jam either, but I can say that MiJ showed me how it could be done well. I did a ranking of B-M songs once a while back. It was painful, but made me really listen closely, which was worth the agony. It brought forward the elements of Band-Maid that I love, which also happen to be elements that I was not finding in other rock bands. And frankly, still can't find.

🎉

One thing about Band-Maid not writing their own music in their early days is remember this. Band-Maid could have purposely just recorded these songs with resentment for Kanami consistently getting let down, and saying "yeah right...whatever.". Well Band-Maid upholding their Japanese culture, acted as true professionals and gave it their all every single song because they believed in themselves and knew they would get their break, through hard work and dedication. I'm assuming this is what happened, but I bet I'm not far off. Band-Maid is a musicians band and personally I love ALL their older music because Band-Maid still put their stamp on it.

Don't worry the next one will be better

for everybodies sanity i think you should do two songs per week

lol, I can’t believe you got grief for this. Some people are so thin skinned they’re transparent. I only hate you because I’m participating and it hurts me to write it down.

Yet another channelling of Elvis Costello.....

Listening to the song, it's just ok. But I love the videos, Miku and Saiki trading vocals and a good chunk of the song is both of them singing together, which we don't get as much of these days.

Ugh, it’s getting hard again for me. This took a few listens for me to decide. The top of the list is pretty clear, but now I have a bottom group of three that could have gone any way. This song just comes in last so far because I think the switch up towards the end is just the weakest part of the songs I’ve heard so far. That said, it’s bouncy and catchy fun. Like evergreen it feels straight out of a slice of life anime to me. I’ve written it down, god have mercy on my soul. 1. Key 2. Be OK 3. Evergreen 4. Bye My Tears 5. Knockin’ on your Heart

Quoting Syndrome? Now we know who the villain is. 😂

I've got no problem with you ranking these! I just think you're going to die in the attempt. There's a lot of Miku in this one! Both singing together with Saiki and trading lines, and when they're singing together, Miku's mixed more forward than she is in some later songs where she's unjustly buried. I can tell them apart pretty easily... after listening to the band for years. But their voices do blend together unnaturally well, and they can sound a lot like each other.

K-Ross, it's perfectly okay for you to not like a Band Maid song, no worries. But if you dislike too many of them, the Pigeonati will hunt you down! 🕊🕊🕊 . . . . 🤣

I like that you're attempting to rank their songs but I could never do all of them. I would need to have around 8-12 number ones! Whoever said all Band-Maid songs are equal is either lying or crazy. I mean I LOVE Band-Maid but obviously some songs are better than others, they just have so many great ones and so few average ones (and really no bad ones). Unfortunately I agree that this one is at the bottom of the current list.

You could wake Kanami Tono up from a 3 beer blackout and she could still write a better song than this. You could give BandMaid a song from Cowboy Cheers snd Choruses and they would make it into a banger. This is a cute little song. I'm glad it exists and that you included this in your program. Keep up the respectful and much needed work!!!

Problem for BAND-MAID songs are that, you may not like or get into the song on first listen, you come like the song after several listens😅 Actually, this “Knocking’ on you heart” was one of those songs that sneaked up my ranking somewhat later on😉

Question: are you doing the 2018 reissue? Because might as well. In between Maid in Japan and New Beginning is the Ai to Jonetsu no Matador Single. It has 3 songs - 2 of which is in the 2018 reissue and of course Thrill which was in the album New Beginning.

I know the 5-year comment was a joke, but it's not as far off as you might think. It's a minimum 2-year and 4-month project at one per week if you only include original versions. If you are planning to rank Band-Maiko covers and acoustic versions, it's going to push 3 years. Just thought I'd let you know in case you haven't really thought about a timeline. The guy who wrote this wrote 4 of the 8 tracks of the original version of this album. I think those 4 songs are the bottom 4 in the entire catalog. I don't think he ever wrote any more for the band, and I'm glad he didn't.

I don't get the crticism of what you're doing, after all we're going to see you react to every single band maid song. I don't envy what you're doing though, I tried for my own amusement but it made me sad when I had to drop a song down the rankings everytime I found a 'better' one so I gave up. I'm just looking forward to seeing you go through the same struggle as I did as you know you will.

Regarding acknowledging Fanatics. (in any venue, be it Sports/Music/Art, etc.,) Honestly, I wouldn't even devote as much time and trouble that you do, to give them a platform to take away from your videos. The world would be a deadly dull place and/or super scary if everyone had the same tastes, opinions and viewpoints. Being respectfully contrary is one thing, but a foaming brainwashed fanatic for good or bad, is to be shunned in civilized society, lest they infect the rest of us, lol. [insert: "Leave Britney alone!!!!" meme here] 😒🤣

Even before hearing the song and seeing your ranking, let me say, I love the fact that you're doing this. 2 reasons. 1 - it's Band Maid. 2 - It's fun! No worries about PinD not liking this song, but I do. It's a fun song. And yes, they weren't writing their own songs at this time, but Kanami was writing a LOT of songs in these early days. Sadly, they were all rejected by the company. But with the support of her bandmates, especially Saiki, she kept writing. The first song they wrote and arranged all by themselves was Alone. Solid banger. The rest is history. Thanks again for doing this, it's a lot of fun!

I have no problem with what you are trying to do. Childish to object to how or why someone orders their appreciation of stuff. PS, there is another reactor who is doing essentially the same thing right now with all of Band Maids songs, going in order of release. It's not the ranking that is interesting. It is his lucid, thoughtful comments that are. Same as for you.

I'm just biding my time until you get to the songs they wrote themselves. I think you are in for a really hard time. It is well known that after that point, the best song is the one that was just listened to.