Pretsy

Dude the fucking... Why are you doing this to me 
 

If "tribute" means we will get various acts covering MUCC songs, we can also question the possible selection of artists involved in case that happens - small Danger Crue names with some other possible indie vk names? Their fellow bands? "Senpais"?
 
I am intrigued.

Not that it would be strongly connected to VK (question whether this is actually related to visual scene due to their frontman is still debatable) but Kiyoharu's SADS had an album in 2001 (The Rose God Gave Me) which imho may have served as some sort of inspiring direction in regards to combining nu metal/sometimes American alt. metal ideas with various "progenitor" ideas of heavier visual kei music (glam rock-metal/punk).
 
"Because" and "Porno Star" are already familiar to everyone (not exactly nu metal) but this may be the nu metalliest piece Kiyoharu has ever made:
 
 
Limp Bizkit-meets-glam metal-ish stuff (ofc with good ol' dose of spoken word goodness)
 
This may also count, I guess (influence-wise) - awkward rapping bridges and climax are something which one would imagine in a nu metal piece rather than in some glam punk banger.
 
 
But interesting thread hey!

Not that it would be strongly connected to VK (question whether this is actually related to visual scene due to their frontman is still debatable) but Kiyoharu's SADS had an album in 2001 (The Rose God Gave Me) which imho may have served as some sort of inspiring direction in regards to combining nu metal/sometimes American alt. metal ideas with various "progenitor" ideas of heavier visual kei music (glam rock-metal/punk).
 
"Because" and "Porno Star" are already familiar to everyone (not exactly nu metal) but this may be the nu metalliest piece Kiyoharu has ever made:
 
 
Limp Bizkit-meets-glam metal-ish stuff (ofc with good ol' dose of spoken word goodness)
 
This may also count, I guess (influence-wise) - awkward rapping bridges and climax are something which one would imagine in a nu metal piece rather than in some glam punk banger.
 
 
But interesting thread hey!

Not that it would be strongly connected to VK (question whether this is actually related to visual scene due to their frontman is still debatable) but Kiyoharu's SADS had an album in 2001 (The Rose God Gave Me) which imho may have served as some sort of inspiring direction in regards to combining nu metal/sometimes American alt. metal ideas with various "progenitor" ideas of heavier visual kei music (glam rock-metal/punk).
 
"Because" and "Porno Star" are already familiar to everyone (not exactly nu metal) but this may be the nu metalliest piece Kiyoharu has ever made:
 
 
Limp Bizkit-meets-glam metal-ish stuff (ofc with good ol' dose of spoken word goodness)
 
This may also count, I guess (influence-wise) - awkward rapping bridges and climax are something which one would imagine in a nu metal piece rather than in some glam punk banger.
 
 
But interesting thread hey!

Not that it would be strongly connected to VK (question whether this is actually related to visual scene due to their frontman is still debatable) but Kiyoharu's SADS had an album in 2001 (The Rose God Gave Me) which imho may have served as some sort of inspiring direction in regards to combining nu metal/sometimes American alt. metal ideas with various "progenitor" ideas of heavier visual kei music (glam rock-metal/punk).
 
"Because" and "Porno Star" are already familiar to everyone (not exactly nu metal) but this may be the nu metalliest piece Kiyoharu has ever made:
 
 
Limp Bizkit-meets-glam metal-ish stuff (ofc with good ol' dose of spoken word goodness)
 
This may also count, I guess (influence-wise) - awkward rapping bridges and climax are something which one would imagine in a nu metal piece rather than in some glam punk banger.
 
 
But interesting thread hey!

If "tribute" means we will get various acts covering MUCC songs, we can also question the possible selection of artists involved in case that happens - small Danger Crue names with some other possible indie vk names? Their fellow bands? "Senpais"?
 
I am intrigued.

Mata, Otsukisama sounds very Utsusemi-ish (or even from Ammonite, my likely guess) Manegoto sounds a lot like Pura stuff circa 2006-2007 and it has been stated already that Nekoyume is basically a self-cover (by his Neji side-project with guys from Té, around 2002-2003).
 
I wonder if there will be more than just one song off those early 90s sessions really (considering the amount of songs).

Always interesting to see a match up outside of the norm! I personally prefer Chanty. They're one of my favourites in VK right now, and they're just my cup of tea, visually and musically compared to cinema staff. That's not to say that cinema staff shouldn't win. Of course I'm not surprised that Chanty is leading this, since the demographic of MH is so VK driven. There's definitely similarities between the two in sound, even though not that obvious, but the influences are there and I can hear the parallels. What with the pop and even mistakable sound of the two. It actually reminds me of how I had mistaken Yeti for J-rock and THE TURTLES JAPAN for Visual Kei. It's fascinating how it can happen for some people and not others. Since I've voted, I'm debating on switching it, because what it boils down to for me is the fact that I may prefer Chanty, but I do agree on cinema staff being the better group, as @Carmelzors and @CAT5 best explained it. 

well i'm embarrassingly ignorant of j-indies but i do listen to a fair bit of poppy vk vocalists so for what it's worth: i can possibly see how some people might think the cinema staff vocalist sounds vk-ish, although personally i wouldn't think so myself.  i think the distinction is quite tricky because as much as people often associate theatricality with vk, you can find similar qualities manifesting in j-indies in another manner: e.g. the intense/"shrill" kind of execution, and on the other extreme of the spectrum, the "aloof", lounge-y, "flat" delivery. it's probably fair to say that the cinema staff doesn't fall into either of these brackets, so maybe that's why they don't sound as ostensibly 'j-indies'?
 
to me there's still a discernible j-indies inflection in his vocals though, quite similar to those you find in pop-rock bands like NEXX, [Alexandros], and Fo'xTails - i dunno if they are j-indies (probably not) although they definitely aren't vk haha. that said, he does remind me a little of UNiTE's Yui - but even his style of vocals is kind of a rarity in vk. actually i feel that most of the bigger pop-vk bands (Guild, Anli Pollicino, BB, Dangan, SID, Megamasso, etc.) don't even sound that vk - in that (i) people who aren't familiar with vk won't be immediately turned off, (ii) there's little common ground between their vocalists.  there are exceptions like the BPR bands; Royz probably comes closest to what i'll associate with a 'vk pop sound' if there was ever one.
 
of course, a lot of these are based on broad-brush stereotypes that don't do any justice to either scene imo. across both scenes, vocals vary to such an extent that even if you take some kind of a weighted average (assuming that was even possible) it's still not representative of the scene as a whole. that's also why it's easy to find correspondences, although i tend not to make too much of them.
 
i also haven't voted because i'm not that familiar with either band (my  interest in chanty only extends as far as hoarding shia chekis.. oops)

@Carmelzors- already touched on a few things that I was going to, but to elaborate on my anecdote in the OP - well, you're correct. The people that said Mizuki sounds VK don't actually listen to VK, in fact a few of them downright despise the scene. However that doesn't mean their assessment is exactly invalid either. In general, J-indie fans are attuned to a different kind of singing than visual kei fans are (note that when i say J-indie fans, i'm not referring to people who listen to those "indie-pop-rock" bands or pop-rock that tries to come off as indie).
 
The fans i'm referring to are used to listening to bands that don't put a huge emphasis on the vocals - where the vocals are kind of secondary to the music, the lyrics, and the overall feeling/aesthetic. Whereas with VK - even tho you have a broad range of vocalists in the scene - more often than not, you can still generally tell when a vocalist is VK, as most of them have this kind of melodramatic/theatric flare to their voices, and as my Japanese friend says - a lot of them sound as if they have accents while they're singing as opposed to just singing "naturally". While that's debatable, you should at least be able to understand that when these hardcore J-indie fans hear a guy like Mizuki sing in the style that he does, it's very easy to lump him the same category or class of vocalists as VK - even if it's not completely accurate, it's still somewhere in the ballpark.
 
I can certainly relate because most of the J-rock I listened to before I got into J-indie was Visual Kei. In fact, I had a really tough time getting into J-indie because it seemed like a lot of the vocalists sounded really apathetic or just had really uncharacteristic voices - whereas with VK, the vocalists usually have a ton of quirks and nuances to their singing. They were just completely different styles. This is all very general of course, but I hope it helps illustrate the overall dichotomy of vocal styles between both scenes and how someone might possibly consider Mizuki as VK-sounding. 
 
@Carmelzors - it's funny because when I made this thread, I was much more focused on the bands' parallels and completely neglected the size of their respective discographies, so that's definitely a good point you made.
 
Personally, I have to go with cinema staff. When it comes to pop-rock bands with indie sensibilities, or just really poppy-sounding indie-rock - whatever you want to call it, I feel like cinema staff have this arena completely locked down, and I've personally not heard a band do it better. For me, they pretty much set the blueprint.. Even after going major, they've never released anything less than solid. They're STILL cranking out great tunes and haven't gone completely pop, despite a few scares here and there. Objectively speaking, they're definitely the more technical band here as well.
 
Chanty are really freaking good, though. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're one of my favorite active VK bands (even though I haven't thought too much about this). I do feel like they attempt to do more with their sound than cinema staff does as @doomboxnoted, but because of that, I also feel like it makes them less unique in a sense. Like, I could hear a cinema staff and instantly know it's a cinema staff song - they stand out amongst both their peers and the younger bands they've influenced (which kinda confers with @Carmelzors' point about their legacy). Whereas chanty just isn't as immediately recognizable and don't necessarily stand out from their peers in any spectacular fashion.
 
But anyways, it's cool to get everyone's different opinions on this. It's also interesting to see how this battle is playing out and what it says about mh's taste in general. I definitely didn't realize there were so many Chanty fans around.  

A few bullets:
 
- "pop vocal style" is very ambiguous concept. I still fail to see how it would prove your point inside our J-indie spectrum.
 
- I excluded acts before 00s because VK vocals are not just about pure gackting, squawking or warbling anymore. Albeit us witnessing throwback acts every now and then, we notice that today's bandwagon has also opted for more indie-friendly, albeit funnily pitched (still indie-friendly) vocalwork among newer acts. Or are you implying that acts akin to DIV, Unite, Chanty,  Blu-Billion and other indie pop/rock influenced acts are dedicated lynch-ian crooning posterboys as well?  So I still cannot understand why you would presume those who cast those comparisons to be *OBJECTIVELY* wrong and "unaware of VK" (= implying?).
 
- TK and Junichi Konno have a lot to do with this because indie vocalcraft is not the art of one trick ponies either as of in this decade really.
 
 So let's rest the case:
 
Cinema Staff may not be inherently "vk-lite" as in influences but comparisons to vk are not far off if we touch certain (coincidental) nuances them and certain VK acts of today's exposure have in common. Don't expect anyone "listening to VK" to be immediately "MH-savvy" (MH is not the lone oasis of VK fandom tbqh).
 
("QED")

There's this guy who also got behind this notion of "sounding vk" in cinema staff's case around those FB's J-indie circles and AFAIK he had Unite (well, that vk act) in his mind when describing them - which is surprisingly apt when we think of comparisons (uplifting, soft but still sorta medium-ranged vocalcraft etc.). VK vocals have no fixed medium (we are not living 00s anymore) at this point so it's really difficult to argue about  "objectivity" or "they definitely don't listen to vk" (the hell we know?!).
 
I mean, sometimes people even guess rather out-of-nowhere  VK influences of J-indie figureheads to this day, e.g. TK (avid Luna Sea fan) or Junichi Konno from Karasu (Mucc and Merry somewhat influenced his work on several albums).
 
 

A bit tricky pairing there despite the logical origins - both playing midwest emo-ish stuff and whatnot
 
But even so, Cinema Staff has lots of stuff to boast about (not to mention their legacy thanks to CS-lite bands nowadays) while Chanty does not unfortunately provide the most sufficient image of their palette with their yet otherwise minuscule, incomplete repertoire.
 
So based on this unfortunate sizing and legacy bias alone,  I will go with Cinema Staff.
 
also completely unrelated reason:
 
I sometimes pretend inside my head that La'cryma Christi would have been doing this shit (honestly, I could imagine this guitarwork in their songcraft too)
 
Instead of bland pop rock and glam schlock they resorted to later on after 2000 album but yeah, it's also about personal leanings really.

"Accidentally" extended my Japan trip so I could attend the last two Shinkiba shows as well, so I'll do my best to report from the last half of the tour starting from Nagoya. Can't promise quality reviews but some kind of anecdotes at least will be provided.

I almost got batshit crazy here when I thought I *saw* Bob Sapp as a bouncer there but that black bouncer doesn't have enough bulk
 
...
 

BOI

Dude, you forgot the most unexpected VK christmas cover ever (and from your favorite band too):
 
(the first song)
 
The original
 
Also the song every Merry fan hates for some reason (yes, it's *A BIT* out of place on Under-world but it is cute nonetheless)
 
 

Dude, you forgot the most unexpected VK christmas cover ever (and from your favorite band too):
 
(the first song)
 
The original
 
Also the song every Merry fan hates for some reason (yes, it's *A BIT* out of place on Under-world but it is cute nonetheless)
 
 

Dude, you forgot the most unexpected VK christmas cover ever (and from your favorite band too):
 
(the first song)
 
The original
 
Also the song every Merry fan hates for some reason (yes, it's *A BIT* out of place on Under-world but it is cute nonetheless)
 
 

Dude, you forgot the most unexpected VK christmas cover ever (and from your favorite band too):
 
(the first song)
 
The original
 
Also the song every Merry fan hates for some reason (yes, it's *A BIT* out of place on Under-world but it is cute nonetheless)
 
 

I remember enjoying Jessica hardcore when it came out during November (yup, still saying it - my first VK song) and sorta cringing when I heard "Cocoon" by Pierrot a bit later on (I think it was a november single too) - meh.
 
Also, how can one dismiss these obvious new romantic Glay fanboys?
 
 
(1996/11)
 
also
 
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm4104707
Penicillin! Lovely song too.
 
edit: herpes likes gokusai? The more I know today...

Remember back when liking Oshare could get you banned from certain groups? Those were some good times.
 
No but, seriously, I think that most people who were vocal about their "hatred" of oshare more did it as a gimmick than anything else, oshare fans, who were often young girls, were easy bait for bored "edgy" teenagers who thought that trolling others favorite bands were a fun thing to do. 
 
I admit I prefer proto-oshare like Shazna to the more modern bands, but some bands like 愛狂います。 had great guitar-work early on and to be honest I never dabbled in the more obscure ones due to lack of time and too many other bands that more immediately appealed to my sensibilities.

Why do people look over their first mini though? Not that it's stellar but some surprising koteosa songcraft from them:
 
 

From most avid music theorists and listeners I mostly heard peeves about unorthodox structures (verse - bridge - verse - bridge - chorus, even though this is not unique in J-music), not-so-palatable vocal approaches (either baritone vocals set in unusual contexts or *warbling*) and completely different approaches toward melodic accompaniments (see: Marty Friedman's talk about differences between American and japanese music). Otherwise it has been mostly all about the language, heh.
 
edit:
 
Check the ending part he is playing and try to justify that as "pop music" to your music hobbyist friends. They won't dig it.

Pro tip:
 
Give up on "sappy hopeless romantic" idea you have inside your head.  You should not let anything hinder you in case you are really dead serious about it - and by doing so you ought believe there is a "right" moment somewhere - considering your situation it could be VERY close. Who knows? (I don't know that but you know it better yourself, right man?)
 
I ain't the guru or the man of all good knocks but I had to comment on your situation since your current thinking sorta reflected the situation I have been stuck in for ages - " will she treat me like a foreigner? Am I too "alien" to her? Can there even be chemistry between us as in mutual sense?" questioning has turned me into miserable, skeptic fuck but let's not get too personal and dramatic with these details:
 
Just get this "Gaijin" thing out of your system. The more you think about it, the more  you are braking your own progress there. To be frank, thinking akin to "how should I go since they are white/black/Japanese/asian/slavic/african/trans/etc. etc." is completely irrelevant if you do honestly sense there is some real stuff going on between you and "the one" you may cherish etc.
 
Current year, guys - it's not a meme. Current year.
 
Inb4 another guy making a skit out of my performance. Yes, this is sad but "please clap".