spockitty

National Italian News speaking VERY positively about Kpop stans and their involvement in the BLM protests. ❤️
 
(This is like Italian BBC1, not some secondary tv channel)
 
 

アルケミ (ARCHEMI) has tweeted their new artist photo, including their new guitarist 玲 (Ryo).
 
 
In addition to this, they announced they will be selling a new 2-track release titled 真言書 (Shingonsho) from 2020/07/08 at lives and through mail-order. The CD will come in a special packaging with a signed photo (you can also see the tracklist on this flyer).
 
Tracklist:
01. 不動智 (Fudouchi)
02. 如是我聞 (Nyozegamon)
 
The band will hold their 5th anniversary gig at OSAKA MUSE on 2020/10/28.

Drumroll please!!! Dammitland is releasing something after a year of activity~ In an interesting turn of events, they even posted about it in English.
 
 
However I refuse to call a 3-song release a "mini album". 
 
13.06.2020 RANSE
1. 姦雄パイオレンス (Kanyu violence)
2. バックライトショウ (Backlight Show)
3. 黙れ外野 (Damare gaiya)
 

Hi, I live in Tokyo and offer many services❗
 
• Buy merch/cheki/cd's from live houses
 
• Buy merch/cheki/cd's from bands' online stores
 
• Buy tickets for lives, other events, museums etc.
 
• Buy from Mercari, Amazon Japan, online music stores, online clothing stores etc.
 
• Buy from physical stores in Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku
 
• Buy Japanese snacks, candy, beauty products, anime stuff etc.
 
✝️✨Paradox Shop✨✝️
 
Please use the chat option for any questions and special requests.
Shipping fee won't be charged until your order(s) have been shipped.

Drumroll please!!! Dammitland is releasing something after a year of activity~ In an interesting turn of events, they even posted about it in English.
 
 
However I refuse to call a 3-song release a "mini album". 
 
13.06.2020 RANSE
1. 姦雄パイオレンス (Kanyu violence)
2. バックライトショウ (Backlight Show)
3. 黙れ外野 (Damare gaiya)
 

Idk how did I miss that, but they're on Spotify: 
 
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3cZsmKmNnGUErAv5O66Mrw?si=N_AjPG7ZQeSd-ggh-bPONQ

I decided to go back to Skyrim (as in 500h played wasn't enough hah) and I'm surprised how easy modding has become.  One-click install, one-click mod cleaning wth, kids these days have it easy~~

I decided to go back to Skyrim (as in 500h played wasn't enough hah) and I'm surprised how easy modding has become.  One-click install, one-click mod cleaning wth, kids these days have it easy~~

I've been playing lots of Animal Crossing recently and finding iron nuggets always make me super happy. Catching new fishes and bugs also make my day as well.

The latest single from Nicolas with a signed group photo.

A lot of people can't tell apart Japanese from Chinese or Korean but I'll never forget that one time someone asked me to "read the Japanese" on their hoodie and it was actually Hebrew

My favorite part about the relaxation of the anti-corona measures over here is that it's apparently instantly become acceptable again for people to just open mouth cough without covering their face while out on the streets or something

love em or hate em their one shot choreography has always been a piece of art 
 
 

I went back to work today, which opened for the first time in the past month. In one 4 hour shift, one girl paid for a 30$ sweater with nothing but quarters, one lady made everyone wait 5 minutes in line while she phoned her sister to ask if she wanted an item, Karen asked to speak to the manager, I had to redo a 40+ item transaction 'cause the buyer didn't mention that they had status and one lady nearly cut one of our girls by smashing a glass vase by her feet. If buying VK shiet didn't make me broke, I swear...

the sigh of relief I had when I realized this didn't say "AIDS"

AKi (シド(SID)) new digital single "Collapsing" will be released at 2020/05/20
 

 

アルルカン (Arlequin) new album "The laughing man" will be released at 2020/08
 
"ビロード"  has been released digitally today (2020/05/16)
 
 

They are really trying to save money
 

Hi. I’m Koichi Niiyama. I’m an artist involved in creative activities and stage performances.
Some of you might have heard of me or seen my work. I really hope that everybody finds enjoyment in my output, both past and future.
 
My work might not be for everyone, but that doesn’t put me off. Even if all my works were taken away from me or my activities were disrupted, I’d just keep going. I know I can overcome anything.
 
I can swim across immense oceans. I can fly high in the sky. I can light up any darkness. I can bloom beautifully in any desert.
 
I can face formidable enemies fearlessly.
 
I vow to keep creating art until my strength runs out because I myself am my finest work. I am a piece that never stops evolving, and my story has just begun. Nothing makes life worth living more than spreading happiness through avant-garde works produced with the help of my greatest friends.
 
This is my first message to you. I’ve tried to keep it brief. Thank you for reading.
 
See you at my anniversary performance in June.
 
With love, Koichi Niiyama Dec 22, 2017

Copypasta lookin ass

btw, ONSTAGE is basically the COLORS of k-indie music, and you should totally subscribe to the channel.
 
 

Nothing that I put in bold is recent. Visual kei has been boy band metal for as long as visual kei has existed, just the appeal and the market has changed in and around it. Remember that visual kei takes lots of cues and inspiration from glam metal, which was boy band metal from the 80s. Formulaic visual kei has also been around almost as long as the scene has; it is just the formula has changed as well to adapt to changing markets. Take any decade of music and you can see this in action. 

I made it through the roughest part of the scene so far (end of 00s to early 10s) where the momentum within the scene seemingly contracted and the fifteen minutes of fame had passed, and that was the most prime moment for the ceiling to fall and the scene to die. It didn't. Thus, I'm not too worried about the "fate of visual kei". Visual kei is resilient and it will adapt into whatever form that it needs to to survive. Us being here 12 years is proof of that. I would be more concerned if your ~flavor~ of visual kei survives the next decade. It won't, but perhaps what rises out of the ashes will still appeal to you? I'm an old head who prefers songs from the 90s and early 00s, but I can find music in every time period that I like! If you still like visual kei in ten years, you'll have new favorites. I guarantee it.

But of course, this isn't about the future of visual kei; it's about ghost writing. I'm sure the scene has a few ghost writers, more than one could optimistically hope for and less than one would pessimistically believe. I also have the unpopular opinion that the scene would be taken more seriously as a whole if more bands hired ghost writers. Not to plug my own work here, but my Copy/Paste series is all about finding musical similarities that pop up again and again and it's way too easy to take a currently active band and find a riff they took from a popular band 5 to 6 years ago. A lot of new bands today look to bands of the past for inspiration and it bleeds through to their music, but it's not doing enough to push the scene forward. The homogenization of the scene is doing a lot more to affect the sound of visual kei than everyone tapping the same ghost writer for new material. This kind of homogenization can also be seen in disparate industries like AAA video games and block buster movies, where studios would rather stick with something safe and deliver guaranteed profits rather than try something new, potentially fail, and lose money. I think we are seeing the same thing here, don't you agree?

What you bring up at the end of this paragraph is one hell of a revelation, so I'll have to quote it again:
 

I certainly cannot think of a classic from the last decade off the top of my head as easily as I can one from the decade before that, but a lot of that has to do with time. Time, no matter how small, is required for an album to transcend to classic status. Classics are defined by the effect that they have on music that hasn't been made yet, so unless you have magical future seeing powers it's hard to know what will stand the test of time for sure. Classics also have a personal angle to it; something can be a classic to you and not to the scene at large. It can also go in reverse. Albums can be considered classics by consensus, even though very few people may listen to said album on a regular basis (example: Art of Life by X JAPAN is a ~classic~, but when is the last time anyone sat down to listen to all 30 minutes of it?). A lot of albums were also given "classic" status years ago that definitely didn't stand the test of time. illational by THE EIGHT is my favorite example of this, and if your first response is "who is that?" then my point has been proven.

I wouldn't worry too much about not having classics from this time period now, because bands are still proving themselves. Come back in five years and I am sure that generating a list will be way easier. You could have asked me this question in 2012 and I would have been completely unable to answer your question. Now, I'm only partially unable
 
To run through these questions rather quickly:
 
I never thought about this, but there could be a few good ones. Bands that pump out release after release and the styles of the release are all over the place. If the band sounds like 3 or 4 people with different musical affinities are writing the music, that's because it probably is. Liner credits can also be a dead giveaway, especially if the band doesn't have any, but bands are also known to lie on those so they aren't always reliable. 
  It's not a perfect definition, but bands that obviously care more about looks than music are definitely idol kei. Visuals are important, but visuals are just a medium to sell music and concepts. If your Photoshop is on point but your music sounds like it was recorded in the gutter, you are "idol kei" in my eyes. If you have a ton of money for intricate outfits, but complain about fans not spending enough money, you're probably "idol kei". If a band has one core member and other members that can be exchanged interchangeably, that would be considered "idol kei" to me.
  Same day as visual kei was born.
  I think the argument over whether ghost writers produce "good music" is all subjective. That's why it is in quotes. Logically speaking, someone hired to write and produce mass amounts of music is supposed to be good at their job by definition. Do I approve of ghost writers? Only when they do a good job and I don't think about it. Music is inherently collaborative; I'd rather have band members work with veterans and bounce ideas off of others to come to the best solution rather than DIY the whole process and come out with a diamond in the rough, or potentially something even more disastrous.
  There are other things about the scene that hurt its well being more directly than having ghost writers. I'm sure most genres have artists that use ghost writers.
  I'm still listening to visual kei because it provides me with sounds no other scene does. The sounds I like and the bands that follow change, but I'm still attracted to the overall sound. I actually don't care much about visuals at all tbh.
 

People seem to care a lot about bitrate. When I first joined this server the bitrate of releases was a central concern for people. I both did and didn't understand it. I can understand the concern for high quality audio if you prize high quality audio for novelty reasons. However in my mind, high quality sound is actually less convenient because of size, and if you're like me and you're obsessed with music, this can easily equate to many gigs of music, which ain't nice when your listening device is restricted by total GB.
 
In my mind, bitrate is an extremely trivial matter to be worked up about, as it hardly makes a difference in terms of sound quality depending on the bitrates compared. As someone who owns a Hifiman-400 set, along with an ODAC 02, I feel I have both empirical evidence as well as data to back this up. 128 KBPS doesn't sound very different from lossless unless you have a really good ear. I could hear slight differences if I pay close enough attention, but for casual listening the difference feels negligible. 
 
Even with a powerful setup, an untrained ear will rarely be able to effectively make out the differences between 192 KBPS and 320 KBPS or lossless audio, which has been confirmed by studies. Furthermore, if you're listening to your music with a pair of apple earbuds rather than high end equipment, noticing this difference would be even more challenging. It's called the placebo effect, and it's very real.
 
Personally, I feel that CD rips are generally high enough quality to suffice, unless they're being ripped below 128kbps. It's Youtube rips and sometimes transcodes that ruin a music file for me. Generally speaking, the production quality makes a significantly greater difference in sound quality.
 
Do you value bitrate? If so, why? Are you an audiophile who believes that the quality difference is significant? Do you just care about quality regardless of whether or not you can make out the difference? Do you think I'm wrong about anything I've stated above? Or do you agree that people make too big a deal out of bitrate? I have no idea if I'm going to get criticized for this thread or what but I just wanted to share some thoughts.

Meto is younger than Mia. i'm pretty sure he was born in 1993 making him 25.
 
 
I can tell you for the bands I follow:
 
XAA-XAA
Kazuki 29
Haru 29
Reiya 34
An idk for sure but he's the youngest. My guess is 27 or 28.
 
Amai Bouryoku
Saki 32
Kei 22
Aya and Yoshi are older than Saki but idk by how much. 
 
JILUKA
Sena 25 (he accidentally dropped a hint about his age as I was talking to him)
The others are allegedly around the same age give or take a year but I think Zyean might be a bit older.
 
DIMLIM
Ryuya 23
Retsu 21 or 22
Taishi 27 or 28
Sho 26 (that's what I heard from the Japanese fans but no one knows for sure)
Hiroshi idk but probably around the same age as Sho and Taishi.

I've decided to give online dating another go and not a single person on the app I'm using has 'visual kei' as an interest. Fuck this XD