Early works

Tak Matsumoto, who was a professional guitarist, had been extremely busy with various recording sessions and live performances. On May 21, 1988, Tak released his first solo album, Thousand Wave. He saw this as a finishing of a chapter as a solo guitarist, and began his search for band members. He met vocalist Koshi Inaba, the two bonded and started a band. 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 September 21, 1988, B'z, with their first album, B’z, and single, Dakara Sono Te o Hanashite (??????????), made their debut. At that time, their music was very much a product of its times, with synthesizers and samplers sharing equal time with Tak's guitar, producing an experimental sound, very different from their well-known Hard Rock sound.

Instead of immediately performing live after a debut, as many Japanese bands were doing, B’z chose to have a clear vision of how they wanted to perform and decided to wait until they had enough material to play for at least 90 minutes. So, they concentrated on recording and to raise the quality of their music. Their efforts resulted in a second album, Off the Lock, released on May 21, 1989. With this second album came their first series of live performances known better to their fans as LIVE-GYM. LIVE-GYM #00 started in Nagoya, and then continued to Osaka, and finished in Tokyo. Tickers were sold out on the day they became available, which is surprising, considering that these were the first shows ever of this new band. On October 21, their first mini album, Bad Communication was released. This title track was a blend of rock and dance music, and still is a classic in their LIVE-GYMs. Their first nationwide tour, B'z LIVE-GYM #001, finished with 16 shows around the country.

On February 21, 1990, the third album Break Through was released. At the same time, they started a tour with 22 shows nationwide. Their single Taiyou no Komachi Angel, was released on June 13 and went No. 1 on the national chart Oricon. Since this single, each of their singles has debuted at #1 on the Oricon charts. Wicked Beat, their second mini album was then released on June 21. Without much rest, they started recording their 4th album, Risky, which was released on November 7, and went platinum. The RISKY tour, totaling 49 performances, also started this month. Their first Video, Film Risky, was recorded in New York and London within 4 weeks, and was released on December 16. With a barrage of releases, 1990 came to be the busiest year for B'z.