desparejo86

Stereo CK's live-only single "In Secret" 

I'm way too obsessed with Yukika lately, but w/e, he's a cool dude.
 
エトセトラ - 反抗期
Buddy - A jumble
エトセトラ - 遺書 (1st press)
V.A.(CLIMAX ENTERPRISE)Mercury
V.A. (A heretic sound music)Hell Drowing

- 摩天楼オペラ - 地球 【Limited Edition CD+DVD+signed poster】 - HOLLOWGRAM - MALUS 【Regular edition + signed photo】 - DADAROMA - 「dadaism#2」 【+ poster】 - lynch. - HALL TOUR’15「THE DECADE OF GREED」-05.08 SHIBUYA KOKAIDO- 【Limited Edition 3DVDs+poster+A4 postcard】 - 己龍 - 47都道府県単独巡業～千秋楽～「龍跳狐臥」～二〇一五年七月三十一日 日本武道館～ 【DVD】

[Photo at a later time] If anyone wants me to upload any of this, please send me a message. Just mind that "THREE EYES JACK - jack off" is a VHS, and that the "Graceful Playboys" album is something I'd preferably not open, seeing as the plastic in which it is sealed contains signatures.
 
AlteMission - AlteMission
AZALEA - 妄想に死す
BY-SEXUAL - Cracker
CANDY - LOVE EMOTION
D≒SIRE - 異窓からの風景-断章-
Lamina - Samael
未散プロジェクト - 第4話「楽園の誕生」
MIRAGE - Rain
SEX MACHINEGUNS - そこに,あなたが...
S to M - Nostalgy
SISTER'S NO FUTURE - SISTER'S NO FUTURE I -DEMONSTRATION-
STELLA MARIA - 【指紋】 shi-mon
朱 - 桜歌乱舞
THREE EYES JACK - jack off
V.A. - THE END OF THE CENTURY ROCKERS IV
V.A. - Graceful Playboys
V.A. - SHOCK WAVE CD 〜CROSS GATE 2006〜

The Rarezhut Cube has arrived!
 

I wish Yoshiki would disband X Japan (or never had made a "comeback"). 

I wish Gackt would accidentally stand too close to a candle and have half his face melt off

I wish Mana would win the lottery so he could afford to reunite Malice Mizer. I'm sure they would have got back together by now if the money was there.
I wish Stereo CK would cut a new album
I wish Oblivion Dust would cut a new album (fuck Vamps)
I wish Luna Sea would cut a ~decent~ new album
I wish Creature Creature would cut a new album
I wish J would rehire Franz
I wish Die in Cries would do a reunion album, but sadly there's much more money in D'erlanger

Glay fucking sucks. Always have, always will. They're the kale of visual kei.

Did you just namedrop EARTHBOUND???? The greatest videogame with the greatest soundtrack ever?  
 
Let's be friends.
 
And shit, it totally does sound like Earthbound.

I don’t understand Japanese and I didn’t watch the video, so I’ll leave it at that.
That being said your argument is very flawed. While it might be true to some degree, that isn’t the case for the vast majority. Most U.S metal bands that are in their 40's and 50's as you describe are still functioning because of good business decisions. It isn’t because they’re being supported by their spouses, but because they’ve been in the industry so long that they have been able to streamline every aspect of their band. This way they maximize profit and keep expenditure low, everything from touring, recording, merch, endorsements, etc.
Once you’ve been around in the industry long enough and you’re not a complete asshole or idiot, you’ll learn good business acumen, get good connections, get better at your craft and learn valuable skills that can be applied outside of music or across other platforms to function as other streams of revenue.
Not only that, but any smart band pre-internet probably made a good deal of money. This is especially true of bigger acts who pretty much made their fortune back then and secured their financial future. It’s also very likely that those bands and the members in them, have other jobs in the music industry other than being in said band. This can range from everything to mixer, engineer, producer, composer, band manager, song writing for other bands, becoming a studio musician, or even becoming entrepreneurs and starting their own non music related business. All of which supplements or can even be more lucrative than the band they actual play in.
Of course all of that pretty much flies out the window if you start a band in the current day. Particularly with metal, you’ll either always be broke, or close to it. And unless you’ve been working at some decent place for years and are in your late 20's or 30's when all of sudden you decide to start a band, you won’t have that stable dayjob with good benefits to rely on. And $50,000 is a lot for a single musician to make in a year especially in metal. You’d be on the higher metal tier with that, which most bands aren’t. Even mid tier metal bands barely make enough to get by.
 
But yes, japan is sexist, unfortunately.

1. Morrie (Dead End, Creature Creature)
2. Morrie (Dead End, Creature Creature)
3. Morrie (Dead End, Creature Creature)
4. Morrie (Dead End, Creature Creature)
5. Morrie (Dead End, Creature Creature)
 
It's all about Morrie, guys.
 

Yoshiki is too busy being a D-list celebrity and going to super bowl parties with shaquille o'neal. I don't see this album happening even next year.

Thank you so much for all the detail you put in! Much appreciated! I'll get my hands on all that stuff straight away, love the sound of Ghosts & Art of Parties! 
 
Feel like I've been missing out completely! Thanks again

Huge Duran Duran fan as well, hi! 
 
I think the consensus is that Japan's "Quiet Life" album is the album that had a huge impact on Duran Duran (you can Google this debate and seeing it played out on countless message boards if you like). Songwriting-wise, Japan and Duran Duran have little in common because Japan's songwriting style was experimental/outlandish to say the least, while DD went on to strive for the perfect pop song. But sonically, in terms of their playing style and sound, they were heavily influenced. The look too, of course! 
 
Check out the Quiet Life single and album, as well as incredible stuff like Ghosts (UK #5), Life in Tokyo, Still Life in Mobile Homes, and Art of Parties (4:33 was probably the moment a normal Japanese kid died and Sugzio was born, haha).
 

SHUT THE ENTIRETY OF MY FRONT DOOR
 
Sorry. That is just amazing information to me as a huge Duran Duran fan. I love what I hear and must admit I've never heard them before. Could you recommend a good album to start from of theirs? The more Duran the better

Cool thread. YMO is excellent (as is almost anything Sakamoto's done).
 
In the same vein, here's Japan. Duran Duran directly admitting to stealing their outlandish sound and repackaging it as something more commercial, and then in the midlate-eighties, a whole generation of Japanese youths who were adolescents when Japan broke up made up the classic visual kei era. Notable "offenders": Sugizo (Owns Masami's Japan-era guitar, had Mick on his solo records, etc), Morrie and Kiyoharu were obv influenced by Sylvian's vocals, Die in Cries was a shameless Japan copy band in look and sound.
 
Japan started as a shit glam band out of place in the punk scene, but at some point they discovered Roxy Music, Brian Eno, synthesizers and world music. Just as they were finally hitting the charts they broke up due to the vocalist stealing the bassist's Japanese girlfriend, but their influence on the 80s music scene and later the VK movement was already cemented.
 

Did you just namedrop EARTHBOUND???? The greatest videogame with the greatest soundtrack ever?  
 
Let's be friends.
 
And shit, it totally does sound like Earthbound.

Cool thread. YMO is excellent (as is almost anything Sakamoto's done).
 
In the same vein, here's Japan. Duran Duran directly admitting to stealing their outlandish sound and repackaging it as something more commercial, and then in the midlate-eighties, a whole generation of Japanese youths who were adolescents when Japan broke up made up the classic visual kei era. Notable "offenders": Sugizo (Owns Masami's Japan-era guitar, had Mick on his solo records, etc), Morrie and Kiyoharu were obv influenced by Sylvian's vocals, Die in Cries was a shameless Japan copy band in look and sound.
 
Japan started as a shit glam band out of place in the punk scene, but at some point they discovered Roxy Music, Brian Eno, synthesizers and world music. Just as they were finally hitting the charts they broke up due to the vocalist stealing the bassist's Japanese girlfriend, but their influence on the 80s music scene and later the VK movement was already cemented.
 

Cool thread. YMO is excellent (as is almost anything Sakamoto's done).
 
In the same vein, here's Japan. Duran Duran directly admitting to stealing their outlandish sound and repackaging it as something more commercial, and then in the midlate-eighties, a whole generation of Japanese youths who were adolescents when Japan broke up made up the classic visual kei era. Notable "offenders": Sugizo (Owns Masami's Japan-era guitar, had Mick on his solo records, etc), Morrie and Kiyoharu were obv influenced by Sylvian's vocals, Die in Cries was a shameless Japan copy band in look and sound.
 
Japan started as a shit glam band out of place in the punk scene, but at some point they discovered Roxy Music, Brian Eno, synthesizers and world music. Just as they were finally hitting the charts they broke up due to the vocalist stealing the bassist's Japanese girlfriend, but their influence on the 80s music scene and later the VK movement was already cemented.
 

Most audiophiles and enthusiasts alike are usually interested in discovering acts and/or releases that may have predicted future fads and genres many years or even decades before.
 
Whereas the staff might think this could belong to the global music discussion, I thought that we'd try to bring up Japanese choices (as well).
 
What kind of artists/albums do you monochromiums consider to be "ahead of their time" - as in defining/creating a specific sound or style which would be implemented by many others only years/decades later? You don't need to be accurate about "whether X influenced Y or not" - feel free to assume/presume/theorize, but with detailed/constructive arguments!
 
Ps. feel free to mention western choices if you feel like it - but the main purpose here is to see whether Japan has managed to produce a fair gamut of albums/acts that live up to the title of this thread.
 
e.g.
 

Yellow Magic Orchestra - s/t (1978)

1. Morrie (Dead End, Creature Creature)
2. Morrie (Dead End, Creature Creature)
3. Morrie (Dead End, Creature Creature)
4. Morrie (Dead End, Creature Creature)
5. Morrie (Dead End, Creature Creature)
 
It's all about Morrie, guys.
 

This was SO hard, but I wanted to try it.
So here are my 9 albums. In no particular order...
 

1. D'espairsRay - [coll:set]
2. My Chemical Romance - I brought you my bullets, you brought me your love
3. L'Arc~en~Ciel - Tierra
4. DIR EN GREY - UROBOROS
5. The Used - In Love and Death
6. MUCC - T.R.E.N.D.Y. -Paradise from 1997-
7. Lacuna Coil - Karmacode
8. Apocalyptica - Apocalyptica
9. Placebo - Sleeping With Ghosts

Signing a deal would also mean signing a contract agreeing to actually turn in an album by a set deadline. Yoshiki hasn't done that in twenty years.
 
 
It's not about just the UK show. A lot of fans are being hostile towards Yoshiki because, regardless of Pata's condition, they've known for months, well before Pata took ill in January, that the album wasn't coming out. The album doesn't even have a title, which means it doesn't have artwork, Yoshiki was still mixing it a few weeks ago, and above all they don't even have a record deal. It was never coming out in March.    No one is saying Pata didn't take ill. But even the official announcement says that he's on the mend, just isn't ready to fly yet per doctors orders. This begs the question, had Pata been able to play the gig, were they really going to do this X Day event and alleged world tour (that they coincidentally hadn't got around to even booking yet) promoting the album without the album being ready? Come on.
 
If Pata is actually seriously ill, why is the show already rescheduled? If he died or was left impaired from his illness, wouldn't they need to cancel the gig again and disband? They're full of shit, and pushed it back a year because they have no album finished and no tour booked. It's the same old song and dance from Yoshiki going back 20 years.

I started to listen VK 10 years ago with bands like DIR EN GREY, D'espairsRay, D, lynch, RENTRER EN SOI, the GazettE, Kagerou, Plastic Tree, 12012, SUICIDE ALI, Phantasmagoria. Then, I fell in love with UNDERCODE PRODUCTION and I used to listen all of those bands and ex-bands of different members. I discovered old-school like this. I always wanted to listen more. I searched all bands that could exists.
 
Then, there were 2010's and a lot of electro-pop-rock bands with colorful clothes, happy songs with a lot of effects and filters and stupid smiles. I think Visual Kei died at this moment.
Nowadays, they are still a lot of bands like those but, in the same time, there a new trend : metalcore / djent. There are too many bands who do the same thing.
 
When a new band formed, it's electro-pop-rock or metalcore/djent.
 
Growing up, my tastes have changed too. Actually, I'm searching sincere music with a truly atmosphere. I love when musicians are skilled, yeah, but I love when they can create a sincere atmopshere. Originality is a good thing too. I like when musicians are able to create a world playing their music.
 
This is something I can't find in Visual kei these days. So... I'm searching else were and I loose my big interest to this scene.
 
However, I continue to follow some bands like Matenrou Opera, Kiryu, Ains' bands, DADAROMA, THE BLACK SWAN, Mediena or all of aie's project, kazu's project, Ryo's projects, etc.
 
Visual Kei is dead. I mean this movement composed of sincere musicians, who love what they do and who are passionate about their music.
On the other hand, Visual Kei is a business and it's not dead. The industry is well done. labels know what people want to listen and what people want to see. They are really good with their marketing policy. they can create a lot of (bad) bands who sounds exactly the same, promote them, and make them successful. Actually, Visual Kei creates bands with random inartistic musicians. it's not a problem. They are good looking and there is a sound producer who compose the music. On stage, they use back vocals, playback etc. but it's not really important because they are kawai and they are fun...
 
Nowadays, Visual Kei is like a fast food. It's pretty enjoyable... good when you're listening to it. But...after few listenings, we are still "hungry". Because existing bands don't score as much former big bands with sincerity, originality etc.
 
And to illustrate my opinion, here is a really interresting interview : http://aramatheydidnt.livejournal.com/642314.html