shiroihana

While talent / skill is imperative to at least some degree for a band to be objectively good, overall I find that passion is still more important.  In other words if a band's members have very little technical skill, they can more than make up for that by pouring their heart out and releasing otherwise sick tunes.  I feel this way as someone who listens to a lot of very indie visual kei. I can totally dig horrendous vocalists if the music resonates with me. I'm probably explaining this poorly.

Thanks a lot, glad you liked the covers!

Haven't been doing much VK on my channel in the last few years, but I felt like returning to it recently. Hope you enjoy!
 
 

While talent / skill is imperative to at least some degree for a band to be objectively good, overall I find that passion is still more important.  In other words if a band's members have very little technical skill, they can more than make up for that by pouring their heart out and releasing otherwise sick tunes.  I feel this way as someone who listens to a lot of very indie visual kei. I can totally dig horrendous vocalists if the music resonates with me. I'm probably explaining this poorly.

Both of those covers are cool but I especially like that Gackt cover, you have a fantastic voice and you're really good! Keep working hard and making kickass covers!

i think you mean there are not enough old school visual kei in sound. most turn to neo rock/alternative/metal something that you don't like.
but that's too personal taste/opinion. i miss old deg sound too sometimes so i get it. but i like that "nu metal" stuff too.
 
my personal taste
i don't like pop rock bands like DIV  etc. that are the most succesful today. and alice nine type of bands.
vkei is full of these pop rock bands and are the most succesful.
i meam there are enough pop bands in maistream.we don't need underground and rock bands that are supposed to be unconventional ,to be completely maistream with  pop rock love ballads and cute looks.and that's why psc annoys me.
 
i mean these bands are more commercialized than pop bands. if i wanted pop mentality and sound i would listen to pop not them.

Never. VK 'till the day I die. 

em that's the point it's more about entertainment .
today's visual kei is more about who is the best entertainer and not who is the better musician/artist .
the one who has the most success is the best entertainer. not artist .
i mean entertainers have talend too and are needed but just know what is going on.
 
 
first of all i am a fan of new bands. saying that .
although i am not sure at all because i wasn't there lol.  it seems old school vk looks have different purpose than today's visual kei looks as ideology.
i mean maybe then it was more about looking disobedient or unconventional.
today is more about who is the most good looking or acting with sole emphasis on  profit  and not so much about the shock factor.
and that makes old bands have more artistic value.

what do you thing about it??
 
ok they were always crappy bands that coppy each other with same sound but of course the first bands were going to be be respected more just because they were the first/foundational? no matter how crappy.they started the scene.
people tend to have a feeling of respect of  their roots even if  themselves are better.because without them they wouldn't exist.
also most important some of them were pioneers and avant-garde and radical at that time .something that now is difficult to exist. i dare to say doesn't exist in visual kei now.

"Old-school/90's VK wasn't really much better" With so many people parading around old-school superiority, I'd say I'm in the minority with this opinion. As someone who has been in VK for ~10 years and collects tons of old-school stuff, I can certainly say without a bit of doubt that there were a TON of really shitty bands back then. Anyone who would say otherwise is looking through some pretty rose-tinted glasses. That being said, I certainly do miss some of sub-scenes in VK that no longer exist(soft visual/white-kei/proto-oshare) and don't exactly like all of the "sounds" that bands tend to get grouped into nowadays, but I definitely can't say that one era was better or worse than the other as they all have their ups and downs.

I'm surprised how many people here are a bit like me musically!!
I would've been into post-hardcore, metalcore, some alternative and oldschool rock, definitely some pop, and some different types of metal for sure.  I was really into post-hardcore and metalcore before I found visual kei, and I still love those genres. Visual kei sorta filled the void for me, because musically I like the weird crazy melodic shit that suddenly turns into pure chaos that most people think sucks.

Haha honestly everyone here is pretty hot, makes me feel insecure as fuck.  
 
 This editor is confusing me excuse the spoilers. Just click the imgur link to see me.
 
http://imgur.com/a/Bihn0
 

I don't know if anyone is into/knows Yumeleep here, but I tried Omochi's makeup today ✨ Hope you like it.
 
 

Haha honestly everyone here is pretty hot, makes me feel insecure as fuck.  
 
 This editor is confusing me excuse the spoilers. Just click the imgur link to see me.
 
http://imgur.com/a/Bihn0
 

I've finally cut my hair, goddamit x'D

Before: 

and after:  

Jui is one of my favorite VK vocalists. He got so much better in each band he was in. In De-vine he sounded nothing like he did in Raisonne, and in Luinspear I noticed the most change, and then came Vidoll which was sorta like a more polished Luinspear . I see the change of his voice and I'm glad vocalists release music while they're still in their early provisional period.  Listening to an artist's first band and then the band they're most well known for side by side is sort of like looking at a before and after picture of someone's attempting to make some sort of transition or transformation.  In his early years Jui still sung with passion, and you could tell he was really determined to become something special. Jui could never in a million years sing a song like kimi wo nosete in any of his first few bands. I was using him as an example to highlight improvement, but I'm betting you knew that anyways. I'm just expanding more on the subject of Jui.  

Yeah I'm not sure if this is the right spot to write this but I'm just going to write it anyway because I think it's a real issue that is worth talking about (since I haven't seen anyone ever talk about it). Perhaps it should be moved to one of the music sections since it is music related, but I wasn't sure how the rant would end. What do you think of indie visual kei bands? Or indie bands in general? I'm talking about really new young bands that may not have that much talent or skill, but still play their damn hearts out and pour their soul into the music. I'm talking about bands that belong to unpopular labels if at all, often comprised of a bunch of kids 18 or 19. I'm talking about people who really just got into the business. Think Jui from Vidoll during De-vine for example.
 
I've noticed for years now that there are music elitists /  snobs / parasites / whatever you want to call them in the VK community, and in musical communities in general. They're WAY too harsh when they criticize music, nearing delusion but are rarely called out on it.  The other day I listened to an indie band's final release, and it was full of passion and emotion, and the vocalist improved before that band disbanded (they were really bad at the beginning lol). The band I'm talking about is called ReivieЯ and the song is called Dears. Basically they had a final release that was really good in my opinion, and it was very emotional, then I went to read reviews of the album and everyone was talking absolute shite. People were saying that the release was bad and that the vocalist sucked or didn't improve (which is bullshit), and I was just thinking to myself something along the lines of "Wow. This release (Dears in particular) was full of so much emotion and I can really feel the music and enjoy this. I want to see you detractors put out something even half as good as this. Why do people just talk shit and ignore every good aspect of the release to say negative shit instead?".  The vocalist has since joined a band called Fixer and has improved  immeasurably since RevieЯ's first release but anyway I knew for a while now that music critics are often overly harsh to the point of just being plain delusional. They ignore every good aspect of a song just to shit on it because vocals might be a little off at one part, or for any other petty trivial reason.
 
I've noticed that these people tend to dislike nearly everything that isn't produced by extremely talented and highly trained artists. I thought that music was supposed to be an artform, a canvas to express emotion and feeling and share it with others. I didn't know that music was supposed to be monopolized by only extremely skilled musicians with very difficult to achieve levels of skill, innovation and talent. I was always surprised by this attitude. The irony is that here in America, a lot of the popular music that the majority of people listen to is music that requires little to no no talent aside for in some instances so-so vocal training. It is not hard to sing a really basic pop song, it just requires a little bit of basic vocal training. You don't really have to use many vocal techniques to sing basic pop songs. Singing in a good power metal band and actually sounding good requires far more technique, time, training, ambition, dedication and effort, yet people eat mainstream pop / hip hop up like it's the best music on the planet. With visual kei I have had the exact opposite experience. 
 
In the end I don't really know what this rant achieves, but this is coming from someone who has loved indies visual kei bands for a decade now. I think that the attitude that a lot of people have towards musicians, especially singers discourages them from releasing their covers to the public, because criticizing towards us is usually very harsh and unconstructive. 
 

I’ve been lurking for quite a while but finally decided to make an account. I just hope that I’ll actually get around to posting, I’m pretty shy.
 
I’ve been listening to VKei for over a decade (eleven years, to be technical), but my tastes as of late seemed to have jumped into a time machine; I used to be very diligent about keeping up with new or modern bands, but over the last couple years or so, I’ve been backtracking into more ~*old school*~ artists and I have a hard time keeping up with everything going on now. Which isn’t necessarily bad, I love what I listen to, but I’m hoping to find new stuff and expand my horizons yay etc. I found out about DADAROMA and MORRIGAN, bands I'm loving, from lurking around here, so I'm hopeful. 
 
Off the top of my head, some stuff I dig: Malice Mizer (because of course), AMADEUS, CANARY, Eliphas Levi, RENTRER EN SOI, NOi’X, Sleep My Dear, L’eprica, sibilebashir, Grieva, Madeth Gray'll, MIRAGE, UnsraW (RIP my sons), Gallo, MORE, sukekiyo, etc.
 
Outside of that, I like a lot of Japanese indie (new and old), v a p o r w a v e, metalcore and djent, hip-hop, jrock in general… it’s a mixed bag. 
 
But yeah! I look forward to seeing you guys around and actually interacting. 

Jui is one of my favorite VK vocalists. He got so much better in each band he was in. In De-vine he sounded nothing like he did in Raisonne, and in Luinspear I noticed the most change, and then came Vidoll which was sorta like a more polished Luinspear . I see the change of his voice and I'm glad vocalists release music while they're still in their early provisional period.  Listening to an artist's first band and then the band they're most well known for side by side is sort of like looking at a before and after picture of someone's attempting to make some sort of transition or transformation.  In his early years Jui still sung with passion, and you could tell he was really determined to become something special. Jui could never in a million years sing a song like kimi wo nosete in any of his first few bands. I was using him as an example to highlight improvement, but I'm betting you knew that anyways. I'm just expanding more on the subject of Jui.  

Yeah I'm not sure if this is the right spot to write this but I'm just going to write it anyway because I think it's a real issue that is worth talking about (since I haven't seen anyone ever talk about it). Perhaps it should be moved to one of the music sections since it is music related, but I wasn't sure how the rant would end. What do you think of indie visual kei bands? Or indie bands in general? I'm talking about really new young bands that may not have that much talent or skill, but still play their damn hearts out and pour their soul into the music. I'm talking about bands that belong to unpopular labels if at all, often comprised of a bunch of kids 18 or 19. I'm talking about people who really just got into the business. Think Jui from Vidoll during De-vine for example.
 
I've noticed for years now that there are music elitists /  snobs / parasites / whatever you want to call them in the VK community, and in musical communities in general. They're WAY too harsh when they criticize music, nearing delusion but are rarely called out on it.  The other day I listened to an indie band's final release, and it was full of passion and emotion, and the vocalist improved before that band disbanded (they were really bad at the beginning lol). The band I'm talking about is called ReivieЯ and the song is called Dears. Basically they had a final release that was really good in my opinion, and it was very emotional, then I went to read reviews of the album and everyone was talking absolute shite. People were saying that the release was bad and that the vocalist sucked or didn't improve (which is bullshit), and I was just thinking to myself something along the lines of "Wow. This release (Dears in particular) was full of so much emotion and I can really feel the music and enjoy this. I want to see you detractors put out something even half as good as this. Why do people just talk shit and ignore every good aspect of the release to say negative shit instead?".  The vocalist has since joined a band called Fixer and has improved  immeasurably since RevieЯ's first release but anyway I knew for a while now that music critics are often overly harsh to the point of just being plain delusional. They ignore every good aspect of a song just to shit on it because vocals might be a little off at one part, or for any other petty trivial reason.
 
I've noticed that these people tend to dislike nearly everything that isn't produced by extremely talented and highly trained artists. I thought that music was supposed to be an artform, a canvas to express emotion and feeling and share it with others. I didn't know that music was supposed to be monopolized by only extremely skilled musicians with very difficult to achieve levels of skill, innovation and talent. I was always surprised by this attitude. The irony is that here in America, a lot of the popular music that the majority of people listen to is music that requires little to no no talent aside for in some instances so-so vocal training. It is not hard to sing a really basic pop song, it just requires a little bit of basic vocal training. You don't really have to use many vocal techniques to sing basic pop songs. Singing in a good power metal band and actually sounding good requires far more technique, time, training, ambition, dedication and effort, yet people eat mainstream pop / hip hop up like it's the best music on the planet. With visual kei I have had the exact opposite experience. 
 
In the end I don't really know what this rant achieves, but this is coming from someone who has loved indies visual kei bands for a decade now. I think that the attitude that a lot of people have towards musicians, especially singers discourages them from releasing their covers to the public, because criticizing towards us is usually very harsh and unconstructive. 
 

I'm with you on this. I am much more lenient towards younger bands, which is also why I'm cutting Aiolin a lot of slack merely for trying a different sound than the "mainstream vk sound".
 
Don't you stan trashy yet lovable VRZEL?
 
This. I love this forum, but.. this.
 
This is a great thread, I agree with most of the thoughts shared here, keep it going.

Most of the time it's the way people voice their opinions, than said opinions themselves. Not only in music, but basically in every other field there's this problem, where someone can't say they simply don't like something, no matter if they choose to get into details why or not. They just have to be as offensive as possible about it in every possible place and mention it all the time. Like, we get it. You don't like stuff.
 
Other side of the problem is also bad. I mean, blindly praising stuff as the best in the universe, seeing absolutely no flaws in it and being offended when someone politely points them out. It's like people just can't meet in the middle. Why does it matter to them so much if random person on the internet likes/dislikes stuff they hate/love to the point of making fools out of themselves. >_>
 
On topic of indie bands, being too hateful on them makes no sense to me. Waste of time and energy on something that will either become big or disband within a year.

I think it really comes down to what you expect when listening to music. Which aspects are most important for you to enjoy it. Is it originality? Talent? Sound and recording quality? Does the song comply with your personal genre preferences? And how do you rate these aspects? Your rating could be absolute. Comparing the song to everything you ever listened to in a vacuum. You don't care who made it and under which preconditions because all that matters is how much you enjoy it. Or maybe it is relative. You care about potential and compare to other releases from the same band or bands at the same point of their career because you enjoy seeing musicians grow. Both stances make perfect sense.
The first category of people might still listen to indies bands because they can be fresh and surprising and edgy but see no point in them if theres a larger band doing the same style but better and in high definiton. The judgement would be harsh accordingly.  The second category of people might even appreciate a little crappiness and overlook the plagiarism and basic recording quality and only get bored when there's no development anymore.
It's not petty, it's just a matter of perspective.

OP, notice the difference between the troll comments and personal opinion. I noticed many of these people just want to troll, because it's currently cool, or they dislike the fanbase of a certain band. Also, many fans just can't stand any form of criticism about their favorites, which isn't a good thing, either. Unless it's a troll, then simply ignore it, because they will say anything to keep provoking you.
 
I actually think that obsessive fangirls and people being rude to each other during the concerts is a bigger problem than some comments on the internet. We all can have our opinions, but we shouldn't do hateful and annoying shit to each other in the real life, since the group of fans is getting smaller and smaller.

Giving thought to why you like or don't like certain bands or music and then putting that opinion on the table--that's all well and good, and an essential part of any healthy music community. Most of the time though, I feel it's not so much the fact that there is someone out there who dislikes music that you love (these people exist no matter how popular/well-regarded a band is - and I think that's something everyone will have to accept); but rather, it's the way in which their opinions are expressed.
 
Anyone who has been on MH longer than 3 days would have realized that '"criticizing" a band here (for some people at least) means articulating your opinion in a way that's as offensive/tactless as the rules possibly allow for, even if the same point can be made as effectively without insulting anyone. And that's not counting posts that aren't even proper opinions (e.g. going into a thread of a band you simply don't care for and saying 'just disband now', or going into a disbandment thread and gloating over it). 
 
So I kinda understand where OP is coming from. For the most part MH has been a valuable resource and a great community, although at times I wish people would actually spend more time on the bands they enjoy and leave the others alone if they have nothing valuable to say rather than  just looking to provoke.
 
There's always the "let's just turn the other cheek" attitude, but while that's always appreciated (and necessary for staying sane on the internet), surely the responsibility for a mature/critical community doesn't lie squarely with these people if there are others bent on being intentionally inflammatory all the time.