platy

I can only recall one actually bad vocalist. There are probably others as well, mostly from really really small bands, but somehow they've not stuck in my mind.
Anyways, Mashiro from Paradeis. He's actually just horrible. :'D He couldn't stay on tune even if his life depended on it. Also, his singing is quite emotionless and he sounds like he's incredibly bored and singing just to pass time. To be honest, he sounds like a 3-year-old with no musical talent whatsoever. Or well, he might have musical talent as much as a 3-year-old should have.
Other one is probably ex-Arc's, now FUTURISM BOYZ CO-. I mean... I love him. I love him to death, but I can see why most people don't agree with me. :'D Especially earlier Arc stuff was rather hilarious than musically genius. He sang so passionately, yet failed completely to hit the right notes. He was always kinda singing somewhere close the real melody, but there was something off about it. When I first listened to Arc's Rakugaki Kyoukasho I didn't exactly know whether I was supposed to laugh or cry. I almost started hating him. :'D
Like, really, give it a go:

hnbSqgbjs7c

SO MUCH DEBAUCHERY IN THIS TOPIC.
How anyone can say Kousei (GHOST), Kirito (PIERROT), Sui (MEGAROMANIA, check out that vibrato, bro), Kouki (D=OUT), Tatsurou (MUCC), Shou (Alice Nine, he has improved tremendously since Givuss!) are bad!?
*head explodes*

Taiga (forCroix)

 
 Idea (BABY I LOVE YOU)

 
Kousei (forCroix)

 
LEVI (BABY I LOVE YOU)

 
Is a great revelation !! thank 薔薇の末裔 

SuG are releasing their new EP in preparation for their upcoming live at Nippon Budokan.



AGAKU / 2017.07.05
 
SE. mark
M1. AGAKU
M2. 赤春
M3. CUT
 


Covers : 


They'll go on tour to support the EP. The dates are as follow:
7月5日(水) 東京 渋谷WWW X
7月7日(金) 静岡 浜松FORCE
7月8日(土) 兵庫 神戸VARIT.
7月14日(金) 石川 金沢vanvan V4
7月21日(金) 埼玉 HEAVEN'S ROCK さいたま新都心VJ-3
7月22日(土) 福島 郡山CLUB#9
7月28日(金) 福岡 福岡DRUM Be-1
7月29日(土) 広島 広島Cave-Be

Overseas fans can now also purchase tickets to their Nippon Budokan show on september 2nd! You can purchase yours HERE ! ★

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

well as a useless baka gaijin I guess I'd better quit listening to vk and following vk bands and buying vk bands' CDs and merch and just giving a shit about vk at all then, if I can't go to lives ever, even though this is 2017 we're living in and everything gets consumed internationally these days through this magical invention called the Internet

I'm happy Mejibray is taking a break. I really agree with the fact that they haven't really put out anything too great for awhile now and it could do their music wonders. Think about the Gazette. Whether you hated or love their Dogma project, it was a HUGE refreshment from what they were putting out prior. That almost 2 year gap between releases helped them tremendously. 
 
 
----- that's all I have to say  opinion wise on the matter. If you want to continue reading after this, I just jumped into the most recent debate for a quick spell. Nothing serious. ----
 
To say that the opinion of a fan who buys their products, but doesn't see their lives is unimportant is wrong though. Whether buying their ticket and seeing them live or buying their stuff, that money IS what keeps the band going.  I don't think the band really would care if 5 people didn't show up to a show, but 5 people bought their DVD, CDs, posters, etc. at the same value as the ticket.  Also, some people aren't able to make it out to a show (small venue, tickes sold out. Work schedule conflicts, etc, etc) or can't even get to be in Japan to see these bands. Their opinion might not matter to you, but it does matter. But I'm sure you've seen EVERY band live before you decided to criticize them or like them, right?
 
 
I agree with this statement, except the studio album part. With the technology available to sound engineers, you can take someone who sounds as nasally and flat as Sakito (ex. Duel e Quartz) and make him sound as godly as Asagi from D. You can take anything from the "CRAPPY songs to cure people from rare indies bands obsession" thread and make it sound like L'arc en CIel or Dir en Grey gold. It has no indicate of the skill.
 
In conclusion, all of your opinions are valid to a degree because that is what keeps the band alive. Buying tickets, buying products, and SPREADING THE WORD about the band whether good or band KEEPS THE BAND ALIVE because it all leads to monetary value for the band to continue.
 
Sorry to go on and on and on. lol.
 

I think they peaked at 420 for sure. Before the singles run that came after it they were quite an adventurous band all things considered. Emotional Karma is a hodgepodge of different styles from Dir en grey larping to straight SADS to what they eventually ended up sounding like later. They had a few dramatic ballads that clocked in north of 6 minutes, two minutes blurbs of SADS made formless and heavier and in general the stylistic makeup of this band is really the sum of the parts of the members interests. MiA's hard-on for shredding contained in very concise nu vk packages with the least predictable vocalist since like prime kyo of 2002. People who've been calling them generic have been blatantly wrong; they might've been generic for the their own form by end of their run, but not once were they a dime-a-dozen vk band. 
 
 

They used to be my favorite band, but I've been gradually losing interest in them during the last... 2-3 years? The start was good, then they became to sound the same, and also weren't present online as much as they used to, stopped releasing funny making of videos, etc. For a foreign fan it's a huge difference, because it's not just the music that's important when you can't experience anything else about the band. I also think that there are better bands in the vk scene, but I just liked them anyway... until they started losing unity in their image (each member began to look way too different than each other, and it was a mistake, in my opinion), and ran out of new ideas for the music.

It's the shortsightedness of the non-Japanese VK fan where they think if their close knit internet community is aware, then all of Japan must be. That's not the case. The average Japanese person has no clue most of the bands we discuss even exist. 

Okay, I've been reading a lot of people here saying they were one of the most successful and popular bands out of this latest generation and my question is: were they?
 
I've always felt they are far more successful among the western fanbase than in Japan, which honestly means absolutely nothing to determine their status in the scene. They don't seem to sell that well, the biggest place they held an oneman was Zepp Tokyo (in 2014; other than that they seem to have reached a plateau at Akasaka BLITZ, meaning they've been stagnated for years now) and it doesn't look like they're leaving much of an impact within the scene (if any at all).

giji giji nekuromansa.
giji giji ya ya here.
mocha-choca-lata ya ya.
creole lady marmalade. 

Hey all.
Here's a new acoustic track I've been working on for a while. 
It's about momentary paradise, being in your happy place for a short while.
 
 

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!
 
 

I never thought of it that way before, but I'm totally fine with the idea of visual kei remaining a primarily Asian thing.

I mean don't get me wrong, I have thought about it before. But Patrik's outburst really got me thinking about what visual kei is and why none of us can settle on a coherent definition. That's where the magic lies for me. I grew up as less than in a Eurocentric world, and was programmed to think of white as default. Everyone in my country is. History was white people history. World history was "this is how Britain almost won this last game of Civilization, but then America came from behind with a bullshit victory". Asian culture always felt more distant and is still marketed as more niche and ~exotic~. For me, there's a layer of separation between how I perceive the two cultures. I will always feel more familiarity with Britain or Scandinavia than Laos or Cambodia, even though I have never been to any of those places. In theory, I would be okay with visual kei becoming a world wide thing. In practice, outside of Asian circles it crosses the layer of separation in my mind and becomes something too familiar to be visual kei, and so it just doesn't work for me.

Also I'm high as fuck whats up?
 

I loathe the constipated vampire aristocrat gimmick so everyone from gackt to klaha to post-lareine kamijo  and their ilk I can't stand for one bit. Klaha especially was only gauged to do good stuff with Gardenia because of the song writing, for which I presume he was not responsible. His previous band is terrible bush league nu wave and they even ripped off Billie Jean for christ sake. 
 
 

Trinity is my winner. I love Sasha more but theyre not gonna let an art queen win. 

Iirc there was a pretty horrendous south american visual kei compilation that was uploaded on this board way back. They were kind of nu-kei-ish I recall, and also I think one of the bands had a member who posted here ( he might have in fact been the uploader. )
 
I do like how everything written here has been reduced to "white elitism." The only way shitty local rock bands can cope with flopping like they do is by telling themselves that everyone is a hater and that they're doing a public service by existing. 

when people confuse elitism with actually having taste, oops

yes because mh is full of whites. nothing but whites. this forum's color should be white instead of black.
 
Fucking idiot, living up to both his name and the band's name (Bataar, more like Pataar, amirite).
 

all the #drama going around w/ this tag made me think, there's a lot of people who'd be cool w/ at least the idea of visual kei from outside Japan, but those five scandanavian bands aren't really it & the other bands don't get much attention.

So, i'm not the most knowledgeable about this or anything but i thought i'd throw together a quick list of some bands i've heard of, and write them a quick tagline. they're super #basic, but i had like...... 100 letters to work with.

hope this doesn't seem like self-promo, but here's that list, in twitter convo form, if any of y'all are interested in checking it out.
Spoiler alert, i think some of the bands from Indonesia are my favs.
 

Seriously, this mejibray hiatus has made the VK sphere the most exciting it's been in years. 
 
That or I just like to watch the world burn 

Alexis does my head in. Can she fuck off already?? 
Butthurt crybaby. 
 
Wish Ru had sent both of them home

THANK GAWD.
 
Yeah, things are getting way too obvious now.  Jaymes was lost the entire time she was there and she got booted first before any further damage was done. Aja melted down and that was it. Eureka hurt her knee and later apologized to Sasha, and that turned out to be her swan song. Nina vowed to be less negative, and yet she had to lipsync. Peppermint was wanting a win, she got a win. Shrek Alexis and Farrah feuded a bit, then they lipsynced to settle the score. Yeah, things are getting pretty predictable this season and I don't like it. :/ it just spoils the thing before it even happens and that makes it less fun. I want to be surprised by shit that happens, but that hasn't been happening lately (except Eureka's sudden dismissal of course).
 
Anyway, that comedy challenge was...painful. It was painful to watch. The only queens that were funny were Shea, Nina, Peppermint, and Sasha was ok.
 
Gawd I miss Bob and Bianca. </3

Farrah is finally gone, amen.
 
Anyone else feeling like this season's editing is making things a little too obvious? I could tell from 10min into the episode that Pepperment was gonna win and that Alexis and Farrah were bound to lipsync.