A band that had spent three years in the studio making its fifth album watched that album hit number one on the Japanese chart in its first week, then fall away faster than any major release they had ever made. That band was X Japan, the Japanese rock group that had spent the early 90s turning speed metal and symphonic bombast into arena-sized drama. On November 4, 1996, their new record Dahlia arrived on Atlantic Records with ten tracks — and it was already the sound of a group pulling itself apart.
Three years at One on One
The making of Dahlia had been absurdly long. Recording began in July 1993 and did not finish until July 1996, a full three years in which X Japan worked entirely at One on One Recording Studios in North Hollywood, California. The studio was no ordinary rented room: Yoshiki, the band's drummer, pianist and producer, had bought the building in 1992 and later renamed it Extasy Recording Studios. Owning the place meant no clock was ticking, and that freedom became a trap. While the band was inside, the rest of the Japanese rock scene moved on, and X Japan themselves began shedding the visual-kei look that had defined their early years in favor of something more casual.
The record that finally emerged was mostly ballads. Only a few tracks kept the heavy, fast attack that had made X Japan famous, and the title song was one of Yoshiki's last attempts to fuse speed metal with orchestral sweep. Seven of the album's ten songs had already been released as singles, which meant fans had been hearing Dahlia in pieces for years. The biggest of those pieces was "Tears," a ballad Yoshiki wrote about the death of his father; it had come out in 1993 and become the best-selling single the band ever had. By the time the album appeared, it felt less like a new statement than a long-delayed collection. The album also held a rare instrumental piece, "Wriggle," the only official contribution bassist Heath made to the group's catalog. He wrote the original version, and guitarist Pata later added guitar and some arrangement.
Singles and chart dominance
The singles told a story of commercial dominance. "Rusty Nail" hit number one on the Oricon chart in 1994. "Dahlia" did the same in early 1996. "Scars," released two weeks after the album, was the first X Japan single written not by Yoshiki but by the guitarist hide, and it showed a different side of the band: industrial rock, colder and more mechanical than anything they had done before. Hide had been pushing toward that sound, and Yoshiki later called one of his album tracks, "Drain," strange and ahead of its time.
In its first week, Dahlia sold 429,280 copies and went straight to number one. A platinum certification followed, and by the end of the accounting year the album had moved 500,710 copies, making it the 50th best-selling album of the year in Japan. Those numbers looked strong, but they hid a problem. Dahlia stayed on the chart for only 15 weeks, the shortest run of any major X Japan studio album.
The Dahlia Tour and the split
The touring behind the album made the strain impossible to ignore. The Dahlia Tour began in November 1995, but many concerts after March were cancelled because Yoshiki had injured his neck. The tour ended with two New Year's shows at Tokyo Dome, the kind of spectacle X Japan had built their reputation on. Yet the group that played those shows had already changed. The visual-kei costumes were gone, the recording had taken years, and the singer Toshi was drifting toward the exit. On September 22, 1997, less than a year after Dahlia's release, X Japan announced they were breaking up because Toshi was leaving.
Dahlia ended up as the last studio album X Japan made before that split, and the last one to feature hide, who died two years after the album came out. The record's afterlife has been strange and persistent. Songs from it — "Rusty Nail," "Tears," "Forever Love," "Drain" — stayed in the band's live set after they reunited in 2007. An album that sounded like an ending turned out to be a catalog the band could not leave behind.
Thirty years on, Dahlia remains a paradox: a number-one album made by a band that was already dissolving. It took three years to record and captured X Japan at the exact moment their ambition outgrew their ability to stay together.