Seimeisen

I was looking forward to the collabs, particularly elizabeth addict. I was really hoping kyo's dumb out-of-place screeching in the middle would have been replaced, it's literally the only thing wrong with that song, but no, it was preserved. I'm curious to hear the collaboration version of mama, because ガラ, but other than that, I don't really care anymore lol.

Damn now I'm starting to kick myself for not scheduling my Japan trip for early July

I was looking forward to the collabs, particularly elizabeth addict. I was really hoping kyo's dumb out-of-place screeching in the middle would have been replaced, it's literally the only thing wrong with that song, but no, it was preserved. I'm curious to hear the collaboration version of mama, because ガラ, but other than that, I don't really care anymore lol.

Adoratio has been what I've been waiting for sukekiyo during his career. All his tracks are great for me. The only bad thing I see in it is the second disc. I hate collaborations. I want  change that concept. More remix like IMMORTALIS.

Hells yeah, I gotta make it to either the Sacramento or SanFran show, I was gonna see them on the PINK tour but I couldn't

Hells yeah, I gotta make it to either the Sacramento or SanFran show, I was gonna see them on the PINK tour but I couldn't

Fuck, I wish this wasn't live-limited. I love the "normal" version of MASK, I'm sure this "gore version" will be awesome and much much heavier. I'm also sure asshole flippers will hawk this for ¥7,000+.

Fuck, I wish this wasn't live-limited. I love the "normal" version of MASK, I'm sure this "gore version" will be awesome and much much heavier. I'm also sure asshole flippers will hawk this for ¥7,000+.

The jackets for the the upcoming albums. So fucking cool @_@

Actually it would be "M-ologie" because medical terms derived from German in Japanese language and it's written "gii", not "jii" at the end.

I want to buy Dadaroma's new single so I can say: 'Look, I bought a Pornograph!'

If I don't have control over it, it's not mine. that's been the philosophy I've carried for the better part of ten years, and it's one that hasn't failed me yet. The only time it comes to bite me in the ass is when I don't heed it. I learned my painful, personal lesson not with the loss of my music library, but with the loss of my cyber locker. The death of MegaUpload meant that things I had backed up on that site are lost for good and I'm not getting them back. @fitear1590's example of the movie is another aspect to this conversation.

Industry support of streaming standards stems from a place of profit; with any technological revolution there are bound to be inventions which do one simple thing that upsets the natural order of the ecosystem. One early example is how casettes could record the radio and the head of the MPAA (at that time) complained that the invention was going to kill the radio and introduce rampant piracy. There are plenty more, but the general point I want to get at is that these technologies allow the individual consumer to exert some level of control over our products that was thought infeasible at the time of its creation. This is the first result of a technological revolution where control shifts back to the company owners and away from individual consumers. Companies can determine when something is available, where it's available, and for how long it remains available. I can rip a CD as many times as I want as long as I own it and the tools to do so, but when Netflix or Spotify or some other company can just decide it's no longer profitable to market and remove my access to it, that's it. If I don't have control over it, it's not mine.
 
There's also a compound effect here, one I've noticed outside of music circles. "The cloud" is nothing more than someone else's computer and hard drive. If it's stored elsewhere, I don't need to store it locally, right? So by now, I thought we would have terabyte iPod models to hold all the media we could desire, but we don't. Manufacturers everywhere have taken a slide back in the amount of space they are willing to ship with their products by pushing "streaming" and "cloud services" as an alternative.  If I wanted any half-decent media device with internal storage, I have to either buy something that supports SD cards or import the device from Japan and pay a heavy price tag. Shrinking local storage only incentivizes people to give in to streaming, which I think is a bad development even if it's not pointedly malicious. (Not to mention most of these companies introduce data caps to limit the amount of streaming you do, also shared with other forms of "data", effectively putting an upper cap on how much music you can listen to...as opposed to having the music on an MP3 player where you can listen to it until the hard drive dies. Even if the former limit is technically infeasible, it's still there...)
 
Note the emphasis on "control". I don't have the obsessive need to own something as long as I can do with it what I want, when I want, where I want. Buying CD's versus buying digital copies is one and the same to me, especially when my entire collection lives and breathes digitally. I can control my digital collection and it's something I know all of us here have in common. If I pay for streaming, I'm not paying for a copy of the music. I'm paying for the right to stream the music at a predetermined bit rate for a set amount of time, in specialized locations.  I can't even stream and take the subway because the signal will cut out once I go underground!
 
Perhaps I'm more sensitive to this because I've identified with a music scene that thrives and depends on ownership of physical media, but streaming is just not for me.

Makes sense. Schoolboy's Q second album, I think, was removed from spotify with no explanation. At the time I didn't give much thought to it, but looking from the consumer viewpoint, that's pretty fucked up. I am not entitled to anything when I subscribe to their service, I'll have to listen to what they want to make available... I admit I'm becoming lazier and lazier, basically all my non japanese music is listened through spotify too, and yeah, we should be aware of that, indeed. Lucky for us, torrents are always there to save the day, I guess. I still buy physical copies of releases I like, but I also think that's a fading trend, pretty soon releasing physical copies of albums will be limited to collection editions and etc. abide to the technology revolution, I guess.
 
About the japanese industry, I think it's a matter of time. Japanese consumer base is the weirdest in the world. They are absolutely open to some technologic innovations, but extremely conservative to some others. They will resist while they can, but will succumb eventually, I think. And that is kind of positive for us in the west, more music will be available to us, when they finally decide to change.
 
 

https://thesmartset.com/why-music-ownership-matters/

A band I follow recently shared the article "Why Music Ownership Matters" and I thought it was an interesting read. Here are a few exemplary quotes, in case you can't read the entire thing:

So, what do you think, does this article have a point?

I must admit, the power streaming companies have over individual pieces of media can be scary and it's something I've thought about before. There was this one older German movie I really liked on Netflix streaming a while back. In physical form, the movie only exists on VHS in the US and region 2 DVDs in crappy quality. Netflix, for whatever reason, had some remastered version in pristine HD quality. But now that the film is no longer available in their online library (to quote the article: this particular movie likely didn't 'justify upkeep anymore'), it's like this HD version never existed. I would gladly pay for a Blu-ray version, but it's simply not offered. Maybe I'll never get to watch it again and that sucks. Sure, that's just one movie, but think about the bigger implications of streaming's role in archiving.

I will say, one aspect that seemed downplayed in the article is the material difference between downloading and streaming. Both are digital, rather than physical, but remember, this article is making the argument that the shift from 'ownership' to 'streaming' is the more significant one. So, I would think downloading technically falls under the category of 'ownership' (you have file ON your computer hard drive), rather than 'streaming.' These days, I would say about 80-90% of my non-Japanese music listening is done via streaming, like Spotify. Is there some difference in that culture of listening via streaming versus listening by downloading?

And since this is a Japanese music forum, what can we make of this article? Do you think the general 'Japanese music industry' or particular Japanese music scenes are still promoting music ownership over streaming?

Discuss!

Same. I'll maintain that 420 was their peak and I think it's a very aesthetically consistent record that stands out from the rest of their discography. I was always hoping they'd have another go at a full length that isn't just a stack of singles.
 
Now I'm heavily leaning on going to Japan for most of the tour. Got my hitchhiking guides read and my 10 euro a night lodgings bookmarked. 

Wasn't 銀河ノヲト was supposed to be their "rebirth" release?
 
... well, anyway, as long as they don't release anything resembling Superabortion, I'm down for new Alice Nine.

Reasons being...?

I hope Sukekiyo covers Mama and it just ends up being their own Mama. 

Maybe every band will cover their own version of Zetsubou.
 
Maybe that's the tribute album.

They'll all cover the SE for Zekuu

Holy shit I want to rip off my ears

Bottom line is these bands are going to play whatever goddamn songs they want to play. 

God forbid we get excited over something and start imagining what we would like to see, huh?
None of these things are set in stone and everything is still wishful thinking as far as I know, so what is the harm in doing exactly that?

hazuki and ai are still butt buddies they just both wanted a monopoly on songwriting so hazuki struck out on his own. (there was even a fairly substantial rumor that ai's part time job was working for hazuki's mom's business lmao)
 
@deadman posted the link but there were problems with the member's private relationships not staying private, Au putting up fan gifts on auction, and something about a fan sign made for the 10th anniversary being given to the band and then being found in the garbage outside the venue... a lot of their "old guard" fans were the sources of this information and it completely poisoned the well