monkeybanana4

I wouldn't call myself a diehard vocaloid fan, but I do like a fair few songs and this is one of them.
 
 
Also, that art is gorge. Wish I could draw like that.

I got into VK thanks to some friends in middle school who showed me bands like An Cafe (and also thanks to anime shows). But I've lost contact with most of them, and the last time I saw them, they didn't have an interest in VK anymore. In high school, it was something I mainly enjoyed alone other than one girl who was half-Japanese and knew about it, but I'm not sure if she was a huge fan of it either. I guess it was a 'phase' for most people I knew, but as has been mentioned already, it also has played a big role in my life and remains important to me, greatly molding me into the person I am.
 
There's only one other person I know irl who is interested in it, but she doesn't listen to it as much anymore. Thanks to places like Livejournal and MH, I've made some great friends. Some have come and went, but it's always awesome to meet new people who like VK ^^

When I first got into VK, I got into it with a friend but he has since grown out of it. I feel like it was just a phase for him but it was honestly life changing for me as dumb as that sounds. I think he stopped bothering with it 2011/2012? We'll still bop to Lycaon, Deluhi, Lolita23q, etc from time to time if he's in my car, but he's completely oblivious about all new bands that came about within the past 7 years or so.
 
The rest of my friends know I listen to it, but no one is really interested in taking a dive into it themselves. Honestly, 90% of the time they're forced to listen to VK whenever they're in my car so they have no option but to listen to it lmfao. Some of them even have a specific song they like and ask me to play, but there's no real interest there for them to delve into it any further. Maybe I'm lucky? Nobody, not even my family, gives me a hard time about it or makes fun of me or anything. 

LOL way to make me feel old

Thank you @Himeaimichu for linking me to this purchase! I’m actually in love this, now to get a VHS player and equipment to rip it to my laptop and I can share it with you all! 

Necro-ing this thread, lol. Saw some super great choices above  When it comes to Mandopop/Taiwanese music, I mainly listen to mainstream artists, including some oldies, although it sort of blends in with Cantopop, lol. Some have already been mentioned, but I listen to artists like Jay Chou, Fish Leong, Cyndi Wang, JJ Lin (technically from Singapore, but sings in Mandarin), Fahrenheit, S.H.E., Tank, Magic Power, and a bunch of others xD I'll just post some videos, lol ^^;
 
JJ Lin - Tales of Red Cliff - It's somewhat based on the Chinese novel, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and has wonderful incorporation of traditional Chinese instruments. I think I once read somewhere that the person who wrote Jay Chou's lyrics wrote the lyrics for this song.
 
Cyndi Wang - When You - A sad love song with a nice vocalist
 
A-Mei - Full Name - She's known as the "Mandopop Queen" with a lovely, evocative voice
 
Wilber Pan and Rainie Yang - Bu De Bu Ai - It's based off of the Korean song, Please Tell Me Why by Y
 
Fahrenheit - Only I Have Feelings for You featuring Hebe (from S.H.E.) - A cute anime-like MV where all the guys have hopelessly fallen head-over-heels over a girl and each try to woo her heart. The song is written by JJ Lin.
 
Magic Power - Who am I - A band that has two singers who complement each other with a DJ in their group
 
F.I.R. - Crescent Bay - A band that has a female vocalist and a nice incorporation of traditional Chinese instruments (I think xD)
 
Tank - Three Kingdom Love - It incorporates traditional Chinese instrumentals and (I think?) Chinese opera singing techniques.
 
Mayday - 入陣曲 - They have lots of great songs, so I just chose a random one for this, lol. I posted two different videos, but they're the exact same song.
 
S.H.E. - Loving You - The bittersweet love song was featured in a love drama called Down with Love. S.H.E. is a girl group with Hebe Tian who I believe is also a solo artist. I posted two videos of the same song; one is the official music video while the other contains the lyrics and unofficial English translation.
 

I thought of making a thread like this for Tai-pop a while back, but I felt that it might of been a bit niche (underestimated that, lol).
Like others, I've only dabbled in the genre since my only gateways were F4 when Meteor Rain/Garden aired ages go and Crowd Lu's Vitas shenanigans (both artists included below).
 
A couple of my Tai-pop/C-pop favorites:
(btw, Crowd Lu is amazing, check out "100 ways for living", one of my fav. albums)
 
 
(God... F4 those sexy bastards. Great music too.)
 
Edit: Wow, I absolutely love Kimberley's voice. Thanks beni!

I listen to quite alot of mainstream mandopop. Some songs I like:
 
Jay Chou(obviously), though I prefer his earlier stuff. Most ppl i know either love or hate how he mumbles his way through a song haha.
 


 
Xiao Yu. An amazing singer-songwriter who's quite underrated imo.
 


 
I like Fish Leong's songs as well. There are alot of Chinese songs titled 彩虹 (Rainbow), but hers is my favorite. Btw this was written for her by Mayday's vocalist.
 


 
Ah-Fu - a really talented singer-songwriter with a unique voice. This may sound heavily edited but she actually sounds quite close to this live (minus the reverb effects).
 


 
For pop-rock I like IO乐团:
 


 
Not gonna spam more links, but I also enjoy Faye Wong, JJ Lin, and a handful of more obscure singers from mainland China and oldies singers. I also like Aaron Yan but he's kinda atrocious live (I literally just saw him last week at the Countdown live).

Repping Mayday

I don't have much friends but i did show my best mate who's really into black and thrash metal some Gazette and Mejibray during highschool. Needless to say, he wasn't much into it. However years later i made him listen to Dir en grey's Gauze and he absolutely loved it! 
But i do feel you, it's quite lonely being a vk fan in real life, any other people i know cringe at the sight of japanese bandomen, and of course wouldn't give the music a chance. 🤧

I feel you that was me throughout highschool thats when i first got into vk. That was around 2011, i would get weird looks and instant rejections, no one was willing to hear me out. The one person that did was impressed by MiA (Mejibray) and his shreding skills but aside from that he couldnt wrap his head wround the makeup and the looks. Since then because of this forum ive made some amazing friends. I made one of my closest friends because of this forum, and ive met a few others at Gazette shows. So dont be sad if you really want vk buddies you already made a good 1st step by joining. Just talk around threads of some of your fav bands, share your opinions and have fun ❤️ 
 
My inbox is always open if you want to chat  

Sadly, LGBT rights in Japan, from my understanding, are pretty much non-existent and discussions of sexuality are not widely talked about like it is in the West. It’s still considered a taboo and general attitudes towards the whole subject are negative on the whole. Not to mention the Japanese culture favors homogenization, or the group mentality, so being different among the “group” is not highly looked upon, and one would most likely be socially ostracized or even bullied (These are not my views on the subject, just something that unfortunately exists ^^;) 
 
As for the topic, as mentioned before, BL fanservice has been and will always be a thing. I don’t think it ever disappeared or went away. I guess if it brings in money/attention from the fans, it’ll be something that bands will do.

Sadly, LGBT rights in Japan, from my understanding, are pretty much non-existent and discussions of sexuality are not widely talked about like it is in the West. It’s still considered a taboo and general attitudes towards the whole subject are negative on the whole. Not to mention the Japanese culture favors homogenization, or the group mentality, so being different among the “group” is not highly looked upon, and one would most likely be socially ostracized or even bullied (These are not my views on the subject, just something that unfortunately exists ^^;) 
 
As for the topic, as mentioned before, BL fanservice has been and will always be a thing. I don’t think it ever disappeared or went away. I guess if it brings in money/attention from the fans, it’ll be something that bands will do.

Sadly, LGBT rights in Japan, from my understanding, are pretty much non-existent and discussions of sexuality are not widely talked about like it is in the West. It’s still considered a taboo and general attitudes towards the whole subject are negative on the whole. Not to mention the Japanese culture favors homogenization, or the group mentality, so being different among the “group” is not highly looked upon, and one would most likely be socially ostracized or even bullied (These are not my views on the subject, just something that unfortunately exists ^^;) 
 
As for the topic, as mentioned before, BL fanservice has been and will always be a thing. I don’t think it ever disappeared or went away. I guess if it brings in money/attention from the fans, it’ll be something that bands will do.

Sadly, LGBT rights in Japan, from my understanding, are pretty much non-existent and discussions of sexuality are not widely talked about like it is in the West. It’s still considered a taboo and general attitudes towards the whole subject are negative on the whole. Not to mention the Japanese culture favors homogenization, or the group mentality, so being different among the “group” is not highly looked upon, and one would most likely be socially ostracized or even bullied (These are not my views on the subject, just something that unfortunately exists ^^;) 
 
As for the topic, as mentioned before, BL fanservice has been and will always be a thing. I don’t think it ever disappeared or went away. I guess if it brings in money/attention from the fans, it’ll be something that bands will do.

For me ,fan service don't disappear but he's not filming. For exemple A9 have many fans services on theirs lives but this is not filmed and other things are sometimes really ambiguous. And I know the homosexuality at Japan is really a taboo.
 
 

Fanservice isn't going anywhere any time soon. It never really left tbh. 

People being ungrateful for other uploaders + also some that posts releases on other sites while claiming it's their own. Eww.

BugLug will release a new album titled 『不透明な素顔』(Futoumeina sugao) on 2019.08.06.
 
- Limited Edition (4,500 yen +taxes)
- Regular Edition (3,000 yen +taxes)
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haha hello fellow elder!
With the response I'm getting I'm starting to wonder if the vk fandom is a dying breed, or the young innocents are just too embarrassed to be seen with us ^^;

Welcome my dear children! How's vk doing these days? 😎
 
I see you can even listen to your weird japanese metal on Spotify, kids have it way too easy nowadays... 
BACK IN MY DAY I had to hunt single songs in 92kbps on dial-up Limewire and half the time ended up with "I did not have sexual relations with that woman.mp3".
 
Funny story, that's how I got into vk! 13-year-old me was browsing the wide web, probably for some quality Britney Spears, and found a grainy Miyavi's Jibun Kakumei PV instead. With a 20MB download limit per day, I thought CLOSE ENOUGH and the rest is history. 
 
Now I'm back after over 10 years of impersonating a Serious Adult™ and I have Opinions™ to share. 
 
Some bands that I used to listen to (some of which are surprisingly still around!): Miyavi (duh), MUCC, Merry, girugamesh, 9GOATS BLACK OUT, Hora, Kaya, Schwarz Stein (can't believe they got back together, it's like I never left!) and the whole shebang, Aural Vampire, Kagrra,, Yoshiki's classical stuff~
 
And some bands that I've discovered in the past few weeks and absolutely love: Initial'L and consequently Lycaon, DIMLIM, Xaa-Xaa~
 
Also, I'm Anna 💩
 
P.S. I also listen to a lot of kpop, all kinds of electronic and celtic music; don't expect there to be much overlap but you never know! if your music taste is as all over the place as mine, hit me up, we can share obscure recommendations!

My friend, looking at houses: That one looks quite nice.
Me, slouching in a spinny chair: If that house was a guy, it'd be so hot.

Kamijo will release a new single titled「Eye of Providence」 on 2019.07.24.
 
「Eye of Providence」(Cost: 1,800 yen + taxes) [Packaged in hardcover digipack.]
Tracklist
1.Eye of Providence 
2.Ecstasy 
3.Eye of Providence -Instrument- 
4.Ecstasy -Instrument-

A catchy and fun song! Makes me want to go to their live and just dance to it  The members are also super cute in this video ❤️