| 50% & 50% | |
| Cover: | 50 & 50 cover.jpg |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | hide |
| Album: | Hide Your Face |
| Released: | August 5, 1993 |
| Genre: | Alternative rock, hard rock |
| Label: | MCA Victor |
| Prev Title: | Eyes Love You |
| Prev Year: | 1993 |
| Next Title: | Dice |
| Next Year: | 1994 |
"50% & 50%" is the second single by Japanese musician hide, released on August 5, 1993. It reached number 6 on the Oricon chart.[1] His first single "Eyes Love You" was released on the same day. Both singles' covers are identical except; "50% & 50%" is red, whereas "Eyes Love You" is green. They form a 3D picture when they are placed side by side. It was certified gold upon release by RIAJ.[2]
The single was re-released on December 12, 2007, with a new cover.[3] On April 28, 2010, it was re-released again as part of the first releases in "The Devolution Project", which was a release of hide's original eleven singles on picture disc vinyl.[4]
hide embarked on a solo career in 1993 due to the downtime in X Japan. Initially wanting to hire several different vocalists because he was unsure of his own voice, he eventually began taking vocal lessons from Toshi's coach and sang the material himself.[5]
Wanting to contrast something unusual with a pop background, hide hired Yukinojo Mori to pen the lyrics to his first two A-sides. As a kid, hide was fond of Bow Wow's 1982 album Warning from Stardust, where the A-side songs had lyrics in English and the B-side in Japanese. Liking the Japanese lyrics better, hide only realized Mori was their author afterwards. "50% & 50%" was written after the A-side and B-side on "Eyes Love You"[5]
An acoustic rendition of the song, referred to as "50% & 50% (Crystal Lake Version)", appears on hide's first studio album Hide Your Face.
In a promotional video for "Doubt", hide is backed by his future Spread Beaver bandmate I.N.A. and Jennifer Finch and Demetra "Dee" Plakas of American all-girl grunge band L7.[6]
hide's latter band Zilch recorded an English version of "Doubt" for their 1998 album 3.2.1.. The song was then covered by Buck-Tick on the 1999 hide tribute album Tribute Spirits,[7] they have performed the cover live at their concerts. It was also covered live by the Underneath at the hide memorial summit on May 4, 2008.[8] defspiral, which is composed of four of the five former members of the Underneath, covered it for their hide tribute maxi single "Reply -Tribute to hide-" in 2011.[9] The title track was covered by Mix Speaker's,Inc. on the Tribute II -Visual Spirits- tribute album, while "Doubt" was covered by Machine (duo of Spread Beaver's Kiyoshi and Penicillin's Hakuei) on it and by D=Out on Tribute III -Visual Spirits-, both albums were released on July 3, 2013.[10] For Tribute VII -Rock Spirits-, released on December 18, 2013, "Doubt" was covered by The Novembers.[11] "Doubt" was covered by Hisashi and Yow-Row (Gari) for the June 6, 2018 Tribute Impulse album.[12]