B'z
B'z (ビーズ Bīzu) is a Japanese rock duo, consisting of guitarist, composer and producer Takahiro "Tak" Matsumoto (松本 孝弘 Matsumoto Takahiro) and vocalist and lyricist Koshi Inaba (稲葉 浩志 Inaba Kōshi).
B'z is one of the best-selling music artists in the world and the best-selling in their native Japan, having released 46 consecutive No. 1 singles, 25 No. 1 albums and sold more than 100 million records worldwide. In 2003, HMV Japan ranked the band at number 30 on their list of the 100 most important Japanese pop acts. In 2007, B'z became the first band from Asia to have their handprints and signatures put up in the Hollywood's RockWalk.
History
Early works (1988–1990)
Tak Matsumoto, guitarist in Tetsuya Komuro's TM Network, had been extremely busy with various recording sessions and live performances. On 21 May 1988, Matsumoto released his first solo album, Thousand Wave. He saw this as the end of his solo career, and began his search for band members. He later met vocalist Koshi Inaba, who would later found B'z with him. At the time, Japan's music scene was loaded with many new bands being created. With all the digital sounds in mainstream music, the only sounds that they felt could not be expressed and replicated were the guitar and the human voice. As a result, they decided to keep it a two-man unit. On 21 September 1988, B'z made their debut with their first album, B’z, and single, "Dakara Sono Te wo Hanashite (だからその手を離して)". Their music was very much a product of its times, with synthesizers and samplers sharing equal time with Matsumoto's guitar, producing an experimental sound, very different from their well-known hard rock sound of today.
B'z (album)
B'z is the first album for the Japanese rock duo B'z. It was released on September 21, 1988, and reached #47 on the Japanese charts. The album sold 3,790 copies in its first week and eventually sold 338,360 in total.
The band did not tour in support of the album, because its nine songs were all the material they had at the time, and they felt it would not be a proper show with just 40 minutes of material. Unlike the hard-rocking music that most associate with B'z, the album was very much a product of its times, with synthesizers and samplers sharing equal time with Tak's guitar.
One single was released from the album: "Dakara Sono Te Wo Hanashite".
Track listing
BZ
BZ may refer to:
- Badische Zeitung, Freiburg
- Braunschweiger Zeitung, Braunschweig
- B.Z., Berlin
- Berliner Zeitung, also Berlin
- Berner Zeitung, Bern
- Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction
- 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, an odourless military incapacitating agent with NATO code BZ
- benzimidazole, an aromatic compound and parasiticide
- benzodiazepines
- benzoyl group (Bz), C6H5-CO-, a functional group: acyl derived from benzoic acid
Brănișca
Brănișca (Hungarian: Branyicska) is a commune in Hunedoara County, Romania. It is composed of nine villages: Bărăștii Iliei (Baresd), Boz (Bóz), Brănișca, Căbești (Kabesd), Furcșoara (Furksora), Gialacuta (Gyálakuta), Rovina (Bikótelep), Târnava (Tirnáva) and Târnăvița (Tirnavica).
References
B.Z. (newspaper)
B.Z. is a German tabloid newspaper, published in Berlin by Ullstein-Verlag, a subsidiary of Axel Springer AG. As of 2010, it has a circulation of around 200,000.
B.Z. is not to be confused with the Berliner Zeitung, which has been published since 1945 and is often also informally known as B.Z. in the former East Germany, or with the evening tabloid formerly known as BZ am Abend, now the Berliner Kurier.
History of the newspaper
The newspaper was founded under the name Berliner Zeitung on 1 October 1877, and was abbreviated to B.Z. and purchased by Leopold Ullstein the following year. In 1904 it was remodelled as B.Z. am Mittag, and it was emphasized that it was a daily newspaper. During the Second World War it was discontinued, and the parent company Ullstein-Vermögen was expropriated by the Nazis; B.Z. did not reappear until 19 November 1953.
Since being taken over by Ullstein-Verlag in 1960, B.Z. is, like Bild and Die Welt, ultimately owned by the Axel Springer company and adheres to its political remit. In 2006 Axel Springer outsourced the newspaper to a company of its own, B.Z.-Ullstein, in order to increase profitability in the highly competitive Berlin market. The outsourcing entailed a move of the paper's editorial headquarters from Springer-Haus in Kreuzberg to the Kurfürstendamm. A special sports edition of the paper, Sport-B.Z., was introduced for the 2006 FIFA World Cup and distributed from August of that year with a circulation of 50,000, but was discontinued on 22 December 2006.
Honda B engine
The B-series are a family of inline four-cylinder DOHC automotive engines introduced by Honda in 1989. Sold concurrently with the D-series which were primarily SOHC engines designed for more economical applications, the B-series were aimed more as a performance option featuring dual-overhead cams along with the first application of Honda's VTEC system (available in some models). To identify a Honda B-series engine, the letter B is normally followed by two numbers to designate the displacement of the engine, another letter, and in US-spec engines, another number. The Japanese spec-engines are normally designated with a four character alphanumeric designation. The B-series, the B20B variant in particular, is not to be confused with the earlier Honda B20A engine introduced in 1985 and primarily available in the Prelude and Accord-derived vehicles from 1985-1991. While sharing some design elements and both being multivalve Honda four-cylinders, the B-series and B20A differ substantially in architecture, enough to be considered distinct engine families.
