Album:Monster

Monster was intended to be the ninth album by P-Model. Though planned for a release in the summer of 1987, the band faced over a year of difficulty finding a stable record deal, resulting in the vast majority of its planned songs remaining unrecorded long past its release date. The album was silently cancelled in mid-1988, and the events surrounding it ultimately led to the "freezing" of P-Model later that year.

Envisioned as a concept album, Monster would have followed an original story primarily themed around mass hysteria, returning to the band's socially commentative roots. Susumu Hirasawa pushed for Jungian psychology to be a second major theme, which was a source of contention among the remaining band members. Musically, the album was planned to further the usage of synthesizers that began in One Pattern, while introducing a darker and more foreboding sound.

Though the album itself remained unreleased, the live shows surrounding it were popular both critically and commercially, and eventually became the primary focus of the band's efforts. Two VHS releases of the time, Moire Vision and The Physical Atlas of Three Worlds, included live recordings of five of the new songs. Later, the 2002 box set Ashu-on (Sound Subspecies) in the Solar System included a demo (with new elements) and three more live recordings.

Concept
The album would have centred around a being known as the Great Mother (グレイト・マザー), an oriental, "Yamanba-like" parental goddess figure that possesses the ability to create and destroy. It would be the titular "monster"; a creature that threatens the egos of young boys and men. The "monster" manifested itself as different extremely influential era-defining symbols over different generations: Hirasawa listed Mother Earth, an equivalent "Mother Sea" and the Virgin Mary as examples. Hirasawa intended it to encompass the whole spectrum of femininity, "from lolitas to yamanbas". The articulation of that aspect was to be modeled after Jun Togawa: around that time, Hirasawa listened to her discography seriously for the first time while commuting by train, and decided he wanted the sort of femininity expressed in her lyrics to be the kind expressed in Monster. He felt frustrated that he, as a man, only seemed to be able to write songs about femininity instead of songs that genuinely capture femininity. Togawa, in his view, was the only Japanese female musician that embodied his ideals of femininity, which he thought were only theoretical.

Other "monsters" that would be focused on were timely media topics, like splatter films, and social issues like asthma and kids skipping school. This was partially driven by Hirasawa's wider fascination with transient fads, at their peak, being treated by the public as though they were facts of life. Instead of going for a defined theme like previous concept albums, "monster" would have been more of a symbol with no concrete meaning, to be defined by listener interpretation. The keyword was picked to recall old kaiju movies (due to the large amount of fans of that genre in the rock scene).

His elaboration of the theme was inspired by his continuing dabblings in Jungian psychology: Hayao Kawai's The Japanese Psyche: Major Motifs in the Fairy Tales of Japan was a direct influence, and he had also been reading Joseph L. Henderson's Thresholds of Initiation, Kawai's The Buddhist Priest Myōe: A Life of Dreams and Erich Neumann's The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype at the time.

The focus on Jungian psychology was more difficult for the remaining songwriters, Teruo Nakano and Yoshikazu Takahashi, who had minimal exposure to Jung's work beforehand. While Nakano successfully incorporated these motifs into his songwriting, Takahashi was particularly negative about the process, thinking they were essentially getting lectured and trying to make songs out of what they had just learned. By the time Takahashi withdrew from the band, the majority of the songs being drafted had bombastic titles about the heavens and other forms of spirituality, such as "Heaven Hades". Takahashi's successor, Hikaru Kotobuki, expected that he would write material for the album as well, but his suggestions and contributions to the band were routinely ignored by the more senior members.

Production
Monster's production officially began in February 1987. Akiro Kamio Arishima proposed a release outline for P-Model, where they would first release three maxi-singles on vinyl following the Great Mother story and then compile the best songs for the album on CD. The band made a large amount of unfinished tracks, with many under provisional names like "I'm Full Up" (おなかいっぱい). Most of these tracks were programmed at home, thanks to advances in workstation synthesizers. Hirasawa intended to ask Togawa to participate in its creation, but issues within the band meant it didn't work out.

The group had a complete roadmap of every element of production up to the release date, with the days they would need to use a studio set down. "Coyote" was recorded on their single day in one (with Kamio's assistance), but Hirasawa received a phone call saying "We were waiting for that recording". He was told that Alfa would not pay for studio time, something he had not been informed of beforehand. P-Model was slightly indignant at that, and continued to work on material regardless, but progress on the album eventually stalled.

Tensions
No longer able to make significant progress on Monster itself, P-Model focused more on their concerts in a move of desperation. While they had already switched to a more rigorous gig schedule under Mitsuo Nagano's direction, the lack of album productivity enabled them to pay much more attention to the elaborateness of their performances. The concerts became a way to buy time for the band, most likely hoping for Alfa to change their stance; ultimately, they had no choice but to cut off their contract with the label. In the meantime, Hirasawa approached many nontraditional record companies, including subsidiaries of companies that did not focus on music, but ultimately couldn't secure anything. He was very invested in the songs, and did not want to enter a contract with a company that would treat them sloppily.

In March 1987, Yasuhiro Araki left the band due to circumstances in his personal life. He was replaced by a returning Sadatoshi Tainaka, who was eager to rejoin the band. Due to Araki's departure, Hirasawa's failure to secure a label, and a general lack of satisfaction with the songs being written, Takahashi decided to give up on the project and left the band in September of the same year. Hirasawa called upon Kotobuki, a former roadie, to take his place as the band's keyboardist. Although this lineup shakeup brought stability to intraband relations, and the two new members brought even more success to their live performances, the group's motivation kept on sinking as a whole.

For many reasons, Hirasawa remained distant from the rest of the group. He had long felt that the original lineup of P-Model had a level of closeness that subsequent incarnations had never achieved, with Hirasawa not seeing most of the members eye-to-eye. The younger members starting out as fans meant that their aim was to make music like their favorite material by the band, instead of the original concept where the band was the means through which the members communicated their individual ideas. For Hirasawa, who constantly worked to meet the greatest common divisor of all members' wants, this lead to P-Model becoming a difficult and rigid framework to work inside of. Undisclosed monetary factors also weighed on him. He took on all administrative decisions by himself, and was not communicative with the rest of the band (leading to misunderstandings "all over", according to Tainaka). Hirasawa gradually started to resign himself to the idea that the band was coming to an end; by mid-1988, he had personally abandoned both Monster and P-Model itself, a conclusion which the other members reached on their own in the following months. In 28 December of that year, P-Model was formally dissolved, simultaneously putting an end to all production surrounding Monster.

Considered songs
Since no running order configurations for the album have ever been released (or outright confirmed to have existed), the following is an alphabetical list. All tracks written by Susumu Hirasawa, except where noted. Further information on each track can be found on their respective pages.
 * "Call Up Here" (Teruo Nakano)
 * "Coyote" (コヨーテ)
 * "Cruel Sea" (Nakano)
 * "Gen" (げん)
 * Monster (モンスター)
 * "Monster a Go Go"
 * "Monsters a Go Go" (Nakano)
 * "No Workshop" (仕事場はタブー)
 * "Orgel" (オルゴール)
 * 3 songs without final titles (Yoshikazu Takahashi)
 * unidentified song whose melody was reused for the intro of "Stormy Sea"

"Call Up Here" predates the album, being a setlist staple on P-Model shows from the beginning of the Nakano era. The earliest known appearances of "Coyote", "Monsters a Go Go" and "No Workshop" are on Shoot the Monster (20 June 1987 at Yomiuri Hall, Yurakucho); "Monster a Go Go" on Saitama Prefecture Theory II (埼玉県動説 II) (12 September 1987 at Saitama Arts Foundation Small Hall); "Cruel Sea" on The Strike of Gretel? (グレーテルの一撃？) (27 September 1987 at Yokohama City Education Center). While "No Workshop" was an uncommon presence live, all other songs were setlist regulars. For the Ashu-on boxset, Hirasawa overdubbed an instrumental demo of "Monster a Go Go" made in 1987 with lead vocals recorded in 2002. "Gen" and "Orgel" only existed as instrumental demos and were never performed live. Takahashi's songs also lacked lyrics, and are rumored to have been performed at The Strike of Gretel?, his last concert with the band.