Cereal Killer 13

This goes back to the Japanese style of fandom vs Western style of fandom. Which was one of the major barriers when bands started coming over here.
 
I read an interview at the end of 2007 with Warped/Taste of Chaos organizer Kevin Lyman, where he was explaining why he went with the Visual Kei bands for Taste of Chaos 2008. He explained that MUCC/D’espairsRay/The Underneath weren’t even his first choices, initially. He approached several other bands, and said that their management just didn’t understand why they would benefit from being invited on a 50 some stop North America tour with seven other bands.
 
To them, their fans are their fans. Not some other band’s fans. So they didn’t understand why people who wanted to see Avenged Sevenfold would ever consider listening to their band’s music, let alone paying for it. To them, playing a gig with seven other bands is what you do when no one on the bill can fill the venue by themselves.
 
So by brushing off the demographic of “people who could be interested in our music, but they aren’t devoted to us exclusively, so fuck them”, they didn’t exactly win any friends. Instead, they just made things harder for themselves by not connecting with either Western bands or even other Japanese bands. Dir en Grey seems to have been the exception, but even they’ve stopped touring with other bands for these last couple of tours.

As much as we would like that VK worked like western pop in terms of marketing it's never gonna work and it's pretty futile to argue over a what if. That is the reality of Japan's culture and we've seen how reluctant they are to mingle with the west, much less adopt their customs.
As an example, Dobe did it right when engaging with the fans and easily supplying their music to the international fandom and for a while everyone was super vocal about them. Then the second Suica was fired no one was hyping them anymore. Merch or no merch involved,  teens just don't get invested beyond a cute member and/or lyrics that speak about their struggles (hence why they get popular easily among menhera chicks in Japan).
As someone who has co-organized tons of fan projects that require little to no monetary effort, what I've experienced is all those social media fans who talk non-stop about X or Y bandman disappear once you ask them if they want to take 10 minutes to write a message for a fanbook they won't even have to pay for. They generally don't care for any fandom activity beyond hyping looks and that drives away newcomers interested in music.
 
Is there any way for bands to market themselves (while remaining VK) to make people interested enough? I doubt it. Even for popular artists the fans who are a little bit more invested are a lot fewer than the ones who just comment on who was on Taylor's latest videos and leave it at that. Kpop artists do thrive on sales and western ones I'm willing to bet they live off advertisement rather than their music since everyone streams it to the point where music is their platform to jump to some unrelated brand to sponsor them and actually give them cash.
 
I see your points, however I disagree with artist seeming more unattainable. They are FAR more attainable and approachable than any mainstream artist. 
 
I'll agree with you on the elitism part, but not quite regarding sharing rare material.
 
Edit: something else came to mind. Most of the world is pretty casual about listening to music and won't go out of their way to even go to a gig. What makes people care on a deeper level about it? Habit. An early exposure and thus attachment to artists. Some sort of connection and/or the music somehow filling some void (hence why people tend to get harder into bands during their 10's and 20's). I think we can all assume that the more attached we are to an artist (whatever the genre, think about beliebers and directioners) the more fucked up we are somehow. It's been widely debated in other threads the common 'fucked-up-ness' most vk listeners had when encountering it and getting themselves attached to what we all agree is mostly crap we hate to love. That might just be another barrier. The rest of the world just doesn't have that hole in their hearts (mental health) that fits VK perfectly.

In my experience interacting with VK fans outside this forum this isn't really getting them much sales, just horny teens collecting photos who can't discuss the band's releases when you ask them to. That works well for the bands in Japan because those horny teens go to lives and spend a shit-ton on merch. Try offering merch to 'Murican teenage fans and see how many actually want/can buy.

I really enjoyed this thread. Thank you @Zeus.
 
As for DSS to ARCHE, I did somewhat of a case study for it.
 
The band (or maybe just Kaoru) did want to make a more badass version of Uroboros because of how well received Uroboros was. They were really confident and very open when it came to promo for DSS. Remember how Shinya did a QnA on FB? And how they had giveaways every other day like a month or so before DSS dropped and the twitter account was hella active? Once the album dropped and they seen how many units it sold, it definitely hurt their ego and overall morale. 
 
To paint a picture here's what i was able 2 pull from Wiki:
Uroboros JP sales: 43,316 
US Sales/Shipments: 6054
 
VS.
 
DSS JP Sales: 37,586
US Sales/Shipments: 3,900 
 
(if im wrong here or these numbers are inaccurate, please let me know) 
 
The bands attitude shifted  after that and I remember there was a lot of talk about them hating each other and possibly disbanding, due to the interviews that dropped post the release of the album. It also didn't help that the performances were and arguably still are pretty bad due to how they recorded DSS. Clearly the band didn't learn their lesson because they proceeded to take the same approach when it came to the Unraveling, which imo aged badly minus a few songs. 
 
The band did go back to basics when it came to ARCHE and that same energy they went into DSS with was non-existent. Yes, they did learn how to work together again but they played it safe sound wise. It has hints of their oldie stuff mixed with DSS, thus making it one of their most lukewarm albums to date and imo it doesn't hold up well years later. 
 
 
The Insulated World, is a step in the right direction. It has elements from ARCHE and DSS that blend well with each other and has enough freshness thrown in that separates its self from them.
 
Its also has some of the bands worst written songs to date...Zetsuentai and Devote My Life belong in a dumpster fire.
 
As much as I love the album, its no where near as creative as DSS or Uroboros. DSS is where the band peaked and now they're in the same boat as Lynch. and the GazettE. They've found their medium and they're gonna stay there, while occasionally doing something that really stands out. The World of Mercy should be a clear indicator of that. And THAT IS FINE. 
 
Promotion wise, I don't think they care much for it at this point. ARCHE had like 2 singles but they were REALLY spaced out. The insulated world had like 2 other really spaced out singles as well. Though, a lot of that could be because of DECAYS and Sukekiyo. They also stopped dropping physical releases for the US as well and I think that's out of spite for the low sales DSS did over here. 

Before people mentioned it here I had totally forgotten that not even that long ago they were using pretty much none of the social media platforms used in other countries. 
 
The Japanese are just not interested in investing time in figuring out how the market here works and then investing money in those foreign markets if it doesn’t work out practically by itself like when manga and anime did the heavy lifting for them, and that’s it. I doubt most of these labels have any business savvy other than the yakuza school of street entrepeneurship that was beaten into them. They’re about as clueless as to how things work here as most of us are about how it works there. You can’t really blame them for that when things are lucrative enough domestically, and everything else is a great unknown with big risk and mediocre reward at best.
 

Hot take:
 
The initial seed for a lot of people is seeing cute boys in crazy makeup. We need to start spamming Twitter threads with slow motion gifs of [insert guitarist here] sticking his tongue out while looking to the side.

The lack of translations is insane.  I can read/understand Japanese but even I sometimes just don't feel like dealing with having to look up a word(s) I might not know.  In the past translations for stuff was easier found but now, either you better know enough Japanese yourself or know someone who can translate for you even if it's a rough translation. Heaven help you if you are fan of bands that don't have a fandom with some translators. 

The lack of translations is insane.  I can read/understand Japanese but even I sometimes just don't feel like dealing with having to look up a word(s) I might not know.  In the past translations for stuff was easier found but now, either you better know enough Japanese yourself or know someone who can translate for you even if it's a rough translation. Heaven help you if you are fan of bands that don't have a fandom with some translators. 

That sucks as translating stuff can be time consuming depending on what it is. I wonder why fans for some bands wouldn't care?
 
As for getting non vkei metal fans into the bands I see where you are coming from.  I was a "normal" metal fan stumbled onto some vkei acts by coincidence (read an article on Miyavi in a graffiti magazine I used to read). It wasn't introduced to me by another fan or a weird Japan sort of way. I'm pretty open minded though. I will say that now I listen to way more non vkei Japanese bands. If you think vkei fandoms are quiet, move on to Jrock outside of vkei....cue crickets 😣 

I translate for my fandom and no one reads nor cares and tbh it's too much time and effort I've invested over three years with 0 results for the band.
 
VK culture seems to be a huge turnoff for metal fans. I tried to lure a girl who kinda knew about MM and gazette bus is focused in western metal into modern VK and she got hooked on Dadaroma, Diaura and JLK. Lasted a few months and last night threw a tantrum after watching a few lives and claimed she was quitting altogether and when I tried to reason with her her reasons were "yelling encore is so tacky and I just can't with it" and "fandoms expect me to comment nice things on the members accounts and participate in fanprojects". Upon further reasoning as to why join street teams  if she didn't want to engage in fan activities the response was "I wanted drinking buddies". Every other male into metal I've tried to get into VK backs away as soon as they see the aesthetic, right after drawing every comparison possible with any Western act. There's just too much stigma currently around Japan's pop culture for normies to want to step in and a good portion of metalheads are apparently just too closed minded and stay within their own sub-sub-sub genre of metal (I've gotten complaints about bands blending genres and not sticking to one variant of metal) to want to give VK a chance.

The lack of translations is insane.  I can read/understand Japanese but even I sometimes just don't feel like dealing with having to look up a word(s) I might not know.  In the past translations for stuff was easier found but now, either you better know enough Japanese yourself or know someone who can translate for you even if it's a rough translation. Heaven help you if you are fan of bands that don't have a fandom with some translators. 

The lack of translations is insane.  I can read/understand Japanese but even I sometimes just don't feel like dealing with having to look up a word(s) I might not know.  In the past translations for stuff was easier found but now, either you better know enough Japanese yourself or know someone who can translate for you even if it's a rough translation. Heaven help you if you are fan of bands that don't have a fandom with some translators. 

I'll just say it?
 
Visual kei as an international music scene is and has for many years felt incredibly elitist and gatekeepy. 
 
There are very few places to interact and discuss it, very few reliable international news outlets, and even as those things do pop up or grow they seem to fade away just as quickly or come off so dense that it's hardly worth the effort. 
 
Add to that the fact that it has a very high cost of entry for supporting bands with your wallet ($15+ for a single? $30+ for an album on CD? Multiple types?) and a minimal chance of ever getting to see your "fave" live, it often feels like more effort than it's worth in a world where there is basically an endless supply of good music and over 90% of it is much easier to consume.
 
I respect the idea of wanting more people to enjoy something you enjoy - but I don't think it's effective when packaged in a way that makes it seem "better" or "more valid" than other things. 
 
Hell, I'm pretty sure most of the people on here enjoy visual kei with a certain level of self-awareness that it's extremely niche (and kind of goofy) ((and often honestly kind of really bad)) but we still dig it for our own reasons.
 

I can only speak for my country, it was very huge in my country (Sweden) not just a niche. They showed visual kei on mainstream TV, in popular magazines etc. In every class at school there was at least one who loved it. We even had shops selling visual kei merch, fashion and everything.
 
Yeah, I feel like the community is very silent. Closed and inactive groups on facebook, people who dress up in visual kei doesn't even mention it which makes other people believe they just like metal or something. We don't share the music like we used to, we don't talk about it etc...
 
The fandom might be the problem, we are too silent and not very inviting for new commers.
 
Maybe we should create a cool discord server for visual kei and subcultures or anyone really, that way it might spread more? ❤️

For the west it is mostly the same reason new non-rap / non-edm music doesn't get popular. Like previously stated here, its way less costly to make (giving consequently bigger profits/less risk for the creator) but at the same time a lot of people see the possibility of doing it themselves, which regardless if the person is actually doing it or not it still creates more instantaneous attachment.
 
Saying they should do the same thing korea did would not work because most famous kpop groups are still composed of mostly singers / dancers which is not the same as having to buy/learn about an expensive instrument AND find other people that play the other instruments that you don't so you can actually start getting somewhere.
 
Also, I going to be a retard here and say the main reason k-pop exploded the way it did its because it got the people that liked the androgynous look PLUS it had the benefit of going the same way musically that was getting popular (rap/edm). They just had to add coreographies and multiple members that raises the chance of the listeners getting attached to at least one of them instantaneously. Although, obviously they are not the inventors of the boyband concept they did it with such efficiency (and mercilessly if you see how most k-pop trainees live) that it could only result in a lot of money.

A better marketing team. That is what VK lacks.
 
Being edgy isn't the issue, Billie Eyelash is the latest example of that. And language barrier? Although valid, but with these K-Pop acta around and actually popular, so much so that they went to evening talk shows or performs at Coachella, one of the major Summer music festival in the world, I don't think it is that much of an issue these days. Especially when your music genre audience market is younger people or people who are young spirited.
 
And what did Billie, BTS, BLACKPINK, Ariana, Kardashians, and others have that VK acts don't? A marketing team that control the hype machine up in large scale.
 
Also, they are not utilizing internet very well when it is a great  tool to expand your reach. And actually this is a main issue with Japanese music industry in general. Like, L'arc~En~Ciel a major label band have only set up their official YouTube channel in December 2019!! And have been copyright strikes every single uploads of their music or music video by regular people so nobody but the actual fans actually know who they are. Imagine that.
 
Which is sad and tragic, since internet was the reason VK went viral outside Japan in the first place in the early 2000s with the P2P file sharing such as Soulseek being popular.

There are a lot of hidden talents in V-kei. Some yes do suck but its more opinion based just like how every type of music out there internationally.
 
To be honest most people i have showed this genera to i always find one thing in common and that is, a reaction like you just got hit by ton of bricks or relate it to anime openings. Also have stated that "Why am i going to listen to a band i do not understand". (I'll get more to that below ). I live in new york and in a region where a lot of pop/rap music flourishes. I have rarely found fans maybe might be looking in the wrong places some days but have lived here most my life and even when i have found fans they dont know as much as i thought they would have known. Honestly people can say V-kei some of is bad but select few have a ear for this type of genera and surprisingly it has grown ever so slightly now of days. Even fans of the genera ive have met don't have an ear for some bands that are visual kei. Remember when Mejibray music videos had only like about 50k even 100k now its like a million or half a million closer to those number ranges. This is just a base example. Or even now deviloof's MV for ONI has now 1m views and they did that in a couple months. I would have to say that's pretty impressive. Yes many have fans in japan that watch these videos but my based point is this: There are a couple of under lying reasons why its not popular or main stream and these are some of the barriers to my knowledge. If anything is incorrect please let me know ill be happy to change this.  : 1. Expensive import costs for Music/Availability. I get it you if people have to buy music overseas but Shipping costs are pretty up there. Some releases i bought that are exclusively on cd can cost anywhere from 10-20 dollars on just shipping alone. Mostly for the ones not on CDjapan.  Not to mention the limited lives >.>.  Im glad some music has been being sold on official amazon. com which gives free shipping. There has been digital support some people like the hard copy. (Spotify has helped in some availability issues) 2. Translation support/Band recognition. I think the language barrier can cause some issues with trying to love your band that you do not understand. This turns some people off from the genera. Major aspects of music changing and constant line-up changes are something people aren't use to this can deter people away some some bands.  There are also bands that don't really put themselves out there internationally all that much. This leads right into the final point. 3. Disbandment. Due to the nature of the genera there are constant disbandment, reforming and other extra terms that can be confusing to a person. This can also be hard for a band to even get to be known if a band isn't functioning to its full capability which in turn doesn't make them popular/ lack of ability to go international.
 
 
Overall what generally people like is things simple rather confusing and also talented music. Visual kei is only one of those things, half the time because of the nature of the genera and how one band can change so much or disband and reform. This is also the beauty of the genera as well. Case in point to much going on for one thing. 
 
Side note: The V-kei disbandment rate has been unchanged for the past 20 years so i honestly dont think visual kei will die anytime soon but it will remain a float as that one underground scene that not many people pay attention to. As long as there are still fans of the genera that support bands to make music there will always be new member awaiting in the back stage you have never seen before. But visual kei is at a all time low as of recent... 😕  Hopefully 2020 changes that. 
 
Last thing, this is a far off distant wish of mine i would love to see a nice chart that displays popularity of visual kei bands from 1980 - 2010 or 15 in this style. Im quite interested. What are peoples thoughts?

I hope that NEVER happens lmao. No offense to those who like trap, but I hate the sound (at least the current sound. There is some "proto-trap" that I find tolerable, like UGK), the aesthetic, the whole attitude.
But sadly, that may actually become a reality. Falling in Reverse's "Popular Monster" mixed edgy white boy trap™ with metalcore, and while I do see there is an audience for it, I'm way too much of a Hip Hop boomer to really vibe with it.

There were rappers outside of the "norm" in the 90s and 00s (Andre 3000 being an example who became extremely mainstream). Also this emo rapper thing is pretty much the new norm and standard. It's all still really manufactured when you think about how these streaming sites and social media sites work. I noticed how manufactured it had become when Adele would show up on lesser known R&B singers streaming stations but the lesser knowns would NEVER get streams if you were listening to an Adele station. But that is a totally different conversation.  Unless vkei bands start mumble rapping I don't see it. (That would be hilarious tho). 

I don't think anyone can honestly blame DJs. DJs are just doing their jobs. At the end of the day it is music fans who hold the most power. I can't remember which TV pop talent show it was but I remembering reading about fans in like the UK being over those types shows and they all mass streamed/bought Rage Against the Machine music pushing it to number one in protest. When fans start throwing money around and making noise stuff happens. 

Even when it was popular it was a niche thing. I would say people in the community could do a better job at broadening the discussion and making communities more lively to join. That would help but a lot of the fans have gone silent or moved on to more active fandoms/communities.  

I'm completely fine being in the remaining minority of a dying genre. I would rather find what I like on my own, then have 'them' figure it out for me.
 
I think the whole 2006-2010 resurgence of the genre was more organic than any of the created/algorithmic/lackadaisical trends the post 2010's have given us. This was in part due to social feeds/search terms/content that we were using/sharing/discovering ourselves during this period. These days, the internet has basically been turned against its users, and through very powerful technology, we're shown a barrage of cookie cutter content that the vast majority are entertained by. It doesn't matter if it's good or not, or if some of us aren't interested in it, it's what works. Fortunately, VK is only cookie cutter enough for it's own genre, and too risky for mainstream audiences.
 
If it takes VK following mainstream trends to get popular again, count me out. I am grateful for the old bands and existing bands that keep true to their style without selling out.

Well there's many reasons and we've had topics or discussions about this before on the forum so if you do some digging you'll find some decent posts about it. Here's some points tho:
 
1. The Japanese have stopped investing time and money in the western market. The big tours and promotion campaigns and shit are all long gone after everyone ( most likely ) lost their money ten years ago. This situation has actually now started to change slightly with big relevant bands like DADAROMA making the exception for anime conventions for that big anime cash, and also they've been starting to wake up about the potential of streaming services like spotify despite having been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. I don't think this will amount to a boom like it was before, but maybe at least it will normalise the situation where our existence is at least acknowledged in some roundabout way. 
 
2. Visual kei ain't doing so hot in Japan either. Now with the hiatus of R-shitei the amount of big bands is only dwindling down and the fact that successful new bands like Raid that, let's be real, are nothing to write home about musically and that would never ever get any press outside the vk fandom because it's strictly for visual kei die hard gyas only, super niche. Also the biggest media draws are getting dangerously close to retiring for good if not by their own will then by time itself. The international rock circuit is not going to recover once those legends are gone and the time is almost here, and I'm open for suggestions as to who'll replace X, GLAY and L'arc and draw like they did. 
 
3.  General culture shift is hugely in favor of music that can be done at home and then toured for fraction of the price ie. rap music and electronic music. Big spectacle pop performers aside, touring a rapper and a singer without loads of equipment is significantly cheaper and easier.  People can start realising their musical ambitions without finding other people even in the middle of nowhere; and then to this you add the reality that rock music stopped innovating for the culture years ago. Nothing came after the metalcore post-hardcore fad, and rock audiences are aging by the year while hip hop audiences span multiple demographics from all male to all female and from young to older and the underground scenes change faces around every six months. Techno is also insanely profitable where the night lives of cities around the world function around the techno economy that can cater to normies and underground diehards at the same time. People ( normies ) go to rock clubs on the weekends as a curiosity to listen to shit that's at least 20 years old and most often between 30 and 40 years old.

I don't think anyone can honestly blame DJs. DJs are just doing their jobs. At the end of the day it is music fans who hold the most power. I can't remember which TV pop talent show it was but I remembering reading about fans in like the UK being over those types shows and they all mass streamed/bought Rage Against the Machine music pushing it to number one in protest. When fans start throwing money around and making noise stuff happens. 

Even when it was popular it was a niche thing. I would say people in the community could do a better job at broadening the discussion and making communities more lively to join. That would help but a lot of the fans have gone silent or moved on to more active fandoms/communities.