raphael

I'm sure it's already old news for those that follow the scene, but SM put out a posthumous album for Jonghyun (Poet | Artist), available for digital download yesterday and available for physical purchase today. At first, the idea kind of put a bad taste in my mouth, but the profits are going to are going to his mother, "as well as 'the foundation for the establishment of an organization to help those who are living in difficult circumstances'". It's really good. Like, really fucking good. I'm not sure if it's on the same level as She Is for me, but they're very close. Take a Dive? Ooh. OOOH. I never could get into Kpop, as much as I tried (and tried hard) throughout the years, nothing really stuck with me. I had a huge DBSK/TVXQ phase, but that was about it. I love Zico's work, and I love K-indie, but Kpop is just a different beast that I can't seem to tackle. But Jonghyun was one of the greats, imo. There was a lot to him that stuck out to me, and I think it's very tragic that he's gone. He was very bright, very talented. Anyway, I'd really recommend you check it out if you've ever been into him, or even if you haven't. It's got a lot of good tracks that I can't boast about enough.

I just finished DMCB a few days ago, I was pretty impressed with it. Started watching it after seeing people on Twitter hyping it up to be AOTY. I wouldn't go that far, but it was definitely a refreshing anime and fun to watch--some of the visuals reminded me of Asumiko Nakamura's work, and the animation was modern but also had a nostalgic feeling for me, something similar to Kanashimi no Belladonna. How did you feel once you finished it? For me personally, I'd say it's a far cry from anime of the year (especially considering we're in January), but it had it's shining moments that would make it worthy for a second or third watch. Soundtrack of the year though? Probably. Definitely.

Updated twice since I last posted, pretty satisfied with them both. October through December: January:

I probably like iTunes because I've been conditioned to--I've been stuck with it for almost 10 years now. I'm also a sheep that thinks the UI looks nice. I haven't found any good alternatives for me, but I'm always open to suggestions. I think I'm just too dumb to figure them out, honestly. I only started running into problems when I made my iPhone my main music device after I lost my iPod classic, and when I subscribed to Apple Music Also, RIP Zune.

I switched over to Apple Music a few months ago and just looked at iTunes on my desktop, and holy fuck? Tons of my albums are duplicated for no reason, stuff is deleted, playlists are emptied. Why? Why me. I used to have all the time in the world to fix this, but I just don't anymore. This nightmare is going to take me the rest of my life to sort out. I have no idea why I came here to vent, but I figured you guys would feel my pain.

Just judging by the birthday thing on the website, I feel like the majority of us are all a bit older, yeah? So I don't feel so weird complaining about this here but I've been kind of self-conscious about my age lately, or at least more aware that I've been getting older. I went to one of those weaboo conventions over the weekend and met tons of great people, but I ended up being older than every single one of them, lol. I try not to let it get to me, but when I'm suddenly running into people who are fresh out of high school wanting to be my friend, it's a little weird. Then, strangely, I miss being in high school and I'm struck feeling like I wasted most of my youth moping around and being depressed. Then I get depressed. I turned 24 in March, so I guess I'm not super old or anything but still. The quarter life crisis struggle is very real.

Man, you guys have some pretty cool parents, haha. My dad is really into country music. Really, really into country music. Pretty sure that's the only genre of music he listens to and is willing to listen to. Maybe that's to be expected when you lived in the southern United States your entire life, I guess? Circa 1980-something, I suppose. My mom likes everything. Honestly, everything. She's kind of like me in the sense that she doesn't confine herself to one particular style or genre. She'll sit and listen to my dad's twangy, "I-drink-beer-and-ride-on-tractors" songs often, but I noticed that when she's by herself, she'll mainly listen to R&B, hip-hop, and rap. She likes jazz, some metal. She's all over the board. She'll give anything chance. During my early years of discovering visual kei, when I was about 14 to 16 years old, she was pretty interested in it and would listen and watch PVs with me. She obviously never became a big fan or anything, but she likes GACKT a lot and thinks Yoshiki is pretty. She also knows some of the words to some of Acid Black Cherry's stuff, which hey, in my book, is super cool.

Welcome! Hope you see you around. What bands do you like? I mean, aside from Malice Mizer.

I agree with everything you said, but I think this here is a little bit different, though. 4chan has the whole anonymity thing going for it, so of course it's going to be a volatile cesspool. People can say whatever they want, no matter how outlandish and crass, and have no repercussions. Obviously you don't need to have any sort of personal identity tied to you on MH, but everyone can comb through your post archive. You accumulate a history. Everyone has their own little persona. Ultimately, this is my philosophy. I know what I like, I know what I dislike, and I know what sounds good to me. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, and really, people are stubborn with their opinions, especially when it comes to music. And unfortunately, I'm one of those people that has a hard time talking about music. It's difficult for me to describe what I like or dislike in a song, so sometimes I feel left out on the discussions anyway, but occasionally I can chime in on things I feel like I can concisely and confidently talk about. It's a happy medium. Less drama, fewer toes stepped on. I like it. A lot of what I wanted to say in response OP has already been said, but I will throw out that I love this website, I really do. I think it's great that we can have this town-hall-esque get together where we can talk about this dumb genre of music that seemingly only a handful of people like. But admittedly, yes, sometimes it can get a little frustrating when people are being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian or are only contributing to a discussion to bait and provoke people. But I think it's important to note that internet culture has changed exponentially within the past half-decade as well. It's become a normality to express things in a satirical, flat, curt-and-to-the-point manner, almost to the point of being insulting. Lest we forget that it's hard to convey emotion through text. I could be wrong, but with short-form media (twitter, microblogging [i.e., tumblr]) becoming more popular, well-thought-out and long-form discussion is phasing out, and you're going to see more troll, "just disband lol" comments more frequently. However, this whole conversation, in the context of any form of media, is murky and wading in incredibly grey waters. As people have mentioned above, music is an extremely subjective thing. At the end of the day, this is what it boils down to, I think. Also:

How dare you guys bump this thread and bring all these hot takes to my attention. Really though, I know it's been mentioned, but KAMIJO. I'm not especially picky, I can tolerate and tend to like most vocalists and much of the weird shit they tend to do, but KAMIJO has become so insufferable to me. I used to like Versailles a lot--I'd say they were my favourite band at one point--but once I really started listening to their music objectively instead of ogling the band for their aesthetic, I couldn't suffer through it anymore. Jubilee still has some bangers though. There are some small, unimportant opinions that I have, but KAMIJO is, in my opinion, overrated and the only one that I could confidently say is a bad vocalist.

Hako Yamasaki, as well as many female vocalists that sprung up from her generation; there are so many treasures from that era. Although the entire album is absolutely worth listening to, this is the song that turned me on to her music. If you like deep, soulful voices, and those that are especially melancholic, you might enjoy her songs.

Patrik stop lurking.

Under spoilers for NSFW renaissance paintings. Pretty satisfied with this pairing, I don't think I've changed it in about a year.

Ah, this must be extremely devastating news for him. I really hope he makes a safe, full recovery. It really shows how what you do now will affect you in the future; take care of your body and health, etc. From his twitter, however:

I'd say my first favourite band was probably DIR EN GREY or An Cafe circa 2006, but only because I was completely unaware bands similar to them existed. I was flipping through channels one day and managed to catch The Final and Escapism PVs on IMF (International Music Feed) and instantly fell in love. I obsessed over DEG and An Cafe for a good half year, probably, until I discovered that there was a slew of bands out there and it wasn't confined to just those two, as vastly different as they are. So after a little bit of searching and discovering with the limited resources I had, I'd say that RENTRER EN SOI was my real "first favourite", followed very closely by UnsraW.

Reminds me way too much of Floptsuki's early solo work, cringy angel aesthetic and all, but it's pretty to look at.

I think Kaya is grossly underrated. I don't care for most of his music due to it not being my taste, but his range is out of this world. There are some songs that he's released that really blow me away--the piano version of Last Snow comes to my mind immediately--but there are a handful of others that showcase his talent and it really does bother me that he's not more popular, or at the very least, more recognised. Overrated, definitely KAMIJO. I don't even want to touch that one.

Cassettes in iTunes are the bane of my existence, I swear. Does this shit annoy any of you guys? I thought I had caught them all, but I guess I missed this one. I hate cutting down the artwork, but I hate things not being uniform even more.

Hey, thanks for all the welcome messages guys! And thanks for making me regret not signing up sooner, much appreciated.

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.