sai

I admit I made a huge mistake so yeah, doesn't mean apologizing for it makes it better. lol

It doesn't fix the situation, but being willing to apologize does mean that you realized you were wrong, that you learned from your actions and that you will not be doing it again. I'm pretty sure many people on the forum would appreciate it if you had apologized.

Also, if you're going to post translations that aren't yours, always credit the original translator. It doesn't matter if they're your friend, these people worked hard on their translations so it's fair they at least get some credit if their work gets posted here. Their online name or a link to their work/blog/website is more than enough.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

I personally would not advice to use a full template, because I appreciate users who try to make their posts as pretty as possible and we should just let them. I do think however that a few more things should be mandatory, being:

• The name of the release and the band name in both kanji and romaji for easier searching purposes.
• The release date
• The tracklist (already mandatory)
• A cover image of the CD (except for cases of old rips where it's near impossible to find a cover image)

I'll discuss this with the other staff members and I'll get back to you about this, but I think that yes, the posts should be a bit more elaborate and informative.

stanning the .5 second ukelele part

FIRST THING I NOTICED LOL.

Not too impressed yet, misses a bit of "oomph" for the type of ballad they're trying to go for. Can't wait for the PV though, I'm in need of some good old cheese VK.

TIME TO FORMALLY JOIN THIS THREAD (finally). I recently discovered a band called 雨のパレード (ame no parade). They've formed in 2012 but only released their first material this year after being signed to Zankyo Records. So far they've released two mini-albums, though the first one can't be found anywhere (I've tried iTunes, zankyo's bandcamp, CDJapan, etc.) the second one CAN be found and it really impressed me!

They seem to go for a sort of shoegaze sound, but since they're relatively new I'm curious what more they'll bring to the table!

What, I think, they're trying to say is that something is derivative, which is a legitimate complaint; but one which says very little of the quality and more on its basis in genre conventions and the inability to set itself apart from them. Take any generic "-core" band and you'll find sections (i.e. "breakdowns") that are just there....to be there. To widen the scope, take generic Pop music and its lack of invention when it comes to chord progressions. The I-IV-V is a staple of Pop music and is the basis for hundreds, upon hundreds, upon hundreds of songs. Pair that with the widespread form of "verse, chorus, verse", and you have a formula for a song that can be likened to manufacturing. Take the individual parts, piece them together, and you have a Pop hit. This, though, is not always the case, as even Sting, Roy Orbison, and the Beatles are/were able to become creative in those conventions, especially the Beatles' expanded harmony in their middle to late period.

This is basically the main issue, or that's how I see it. Artists within a genre follow a manual that makes them part of that genre and there are plenty of bands who don't do anything outside of that manual. That's either because they don't want to (mostly those that don't feel like stepping out of their comfort zone), they're being restricted by their label, or they simply don't have the musical qualities for it.

I personally don't mind if bands don't take that step. I agree with Bear however, that you're going to have to stand out, and you can't do that if you blindly follow a manual over and over again. That's what I deem "generic", in this case. It's a well-loathed term, but for me it equals bands that don't work outside a certain framework, yet a framework that is also used by a lot of other artists. That doesn't mean however that the experimentation that a band does outside of said framework will always be succesful. It can be a huge trainwreck and in that case you sometimes wish they had stayed INSIDE of the framework, lol. However, when a band plays outside of a certain framework and does it well, that's when I would say that yes, different does equal good, but only in that case. Sometimes the framework itself is enough too, but that depends on each individual's taste.

OKAY THIS ESCALATED QUICKLY. I'm not going to say anything about the topic of requests and so on as I already posted about that. I'm going to say this from my position as a moderator, though I will not be using the color as I do not see it very necessary for this situation.

This is probably going to sound harsh and I really don't like saying it, but for the sake of decent discussion I'm going to have to say it anyway: there is no need to use your depression as a crutch. What you're basically doing by using your mental illness as a crutch is giving the impression that you feel like you need it to be treated fairly by other people. You don't. The fact that you're a human being is reason enough to be treated as anyone else on this forum, no more, no less.

Mental illness is incredibly hard and draining, but please refrain from using it as an argument in discussions where it is not relevant as it tends to derail discussion. I'm sorry if this sounds catty or judgemental (which I'm really trying not to be), but I'm only saying it because it isn't going to speed up your recovery.

Plus, in general you don't know someone's reason for ignoring people asking for music. I know a friend of mine who ignores requests too, mainly because every time he used to answer them he got terrible insults coming his way. Can you really blame him for not responding to requests anymore because of that?

I can understand in such cases that people would not want to reply to requests anymore. Rude requests just as well. I'd personally never ignore someone who asks kindly for something. I do have to say that I think that completely ignoring someone is kind of rude. Of course you don't owe them any of your time, but a short message of a few words saying "sorry, my last.fm is not a freepass for sharing" would suffice more than enough.

Dragon Age II - About 15 hours in now. I don't really like the characters or the story as much as in Dragon Age: Origins, and some parts of the game feel rather unfinished (yet this is EA's fault for giving Bioware about one year to make this game, and I do have to say that for the timespan they had Bioware delivered really well), but MAN did they improve the combat system. I've played as a mage in both games and I find it a lot more fun and interactive in Dragon Age II. The movement of the characters is a lot more fluid and I feel like directing your party members has become a lot more accessible.

My current party consists of Aveline, Anders and Varric (love that guy!). I might add Fenris after I recruit him but I pretty much experienced that having him and Anders in the same party is like being a babysitter. DON'T MAKE ME TURN THIS HAWKE AROUND.

Perhaps not much of a musical opinion, but I do think it belongs here in some form or manner.

The attitude of some visual kei fans annoys me so much. The fact that people are getting harrassed because they decide to share a PV on the internet (and said people actually plan to report the video for copyright breach) because it's a rare item baffles me. I feel like the "I do it to respect the band"-excuse is usually just another wording for "this thing is rare and for having it my e-penis enlarges and anyone who decides to share it with others must be stopped or my status will decrease". Not to mention that people like this usually flaunt their purchases around in other people's faces, then get upset when someone else does decide to share it. Lmfao grow up.

Anyone play Dark Souls 2?

Been thinking of getting it tho.

dat microsoft office 2000

It seems EXO's Luhan is (just like Kris back in May) leaving EXO and filing a lawsuit against SM to nullify his contract for being "inhumane". Fellow EXO-M member Lay is supportive of his decision and there are also rumors that Lay might be leaving soon too. Another rumor is that EXO-M would be merged into EXO-K so that the group will become a single band of 10 members.

SM is calling Luhan "selfish" for his decision, but after everything that happened I'm pretty certain it's SM that's just being a really shitty company LOL.

Great, gonna listen later today

This is a topic that has interested me for quite a while now, and I figured I should make a thread for it after what happened to kyoselflove on tumblr.

I think a lot of people who are avid sharers of music have experienced something as we call it "entitlement". Perhaps you feel like you have a right to listen to a new CD for free, or you get bugged by people on last.fm to share stuff. It's something that I've seen on MH too, especially in discussion threads, so to avoid further unrelated discussion in other threads, here you can talk about it all you want!

So, here are a few questions related to the subject of visual kei and music entitlement, I think this will generate better discussion than taking one very broad, open question.

1. Do you feel like you are entitled to free music? If you do, why? If you don't, why not?

2. How do you feel about people refusing to share their music because they want to support the band?

3. In relation to the second question, what do you think of people who tell others not to share something they themselves paid money for as they think its content is exclusively for those who paid for it?

4. Do you think entitlement to free music is worse in visual kei than in other communities?

5. How do you feel about people who deliberately share releases in low bitrates to encourage you to buy the CD?  Do you think that if someone does decide to share, you're entitled to the highest rip?

6. Have you ever been approached by people, either on Monochrome Heaven or last.fm, who wanted you to share something? If you didn't want to share, how did they react? What did you think of their reaction?

These are some starting questions. Just fill them out and add anything you'd like to add about the topic Also, keep it clean. I know opinions differ but they're not hurting anyone, so don't call someone scum for sharing your precious MEJIBRAY DVD. Okay? Okay. Other than that, discuss away!

welcome to MH, enjoy your stay ;3; don't be afraid to drop by in the chat if you feel like it?

They're gonna need some ice after Kamijo's burn tbqh

Anyway, hope this turns out better than their previous efforts. I assume the album will follow after this single? It'll be the third single + they announced they had been working on a new album already, so I assume this will come after.

Interesting thread! Not sure how interesting my contribution will be, but it's fun nonetheless

Physical Music (CD`s, Tapes, Records)

I think that at the moment I own around 50-60 physical CDs. I'm not really into old VK a lot, so I don't own any tapes, nor did I have any tapes when I was younger (besides, at the time when I first started buying CDs the transition from tape to CD was already fully complete). I don't have a lot of space to put them, so I keep my favourites on the shelf and the others are put into boxes.

Physical Videos (Blu-ray, DVD, VHS)

I don't have a lot of music DVDs, to be quite honest. I find them very expensive, especially the visual kei ones. I was planning on buying some non-VK ones, considering they're priced cheaper, but I don't think I'll make a switch to Blu-Ray. My gaming console can actually play Blu-Rays, but they're a lot more expensive. So yeah, as long as DVD works fine, I'll go with that.

Digital Music (iTunes, Google, rekochoku, downloads, etc...)

I have a folder with all my music strictly organized. All folders are divided by artist, album/single, language, etc. If I don't, I'll go nuts, LOL. I think my current digital music folder is about 90GB. It used to be around 150GB, but I had a big clean up last week so that explains it >___> I don't really buy digitally, especially not from iTunes. iTunes has a tendency to butcher quality of some releases, so if I buy a CD I always try to get the physical version so I can decide what bitrate I want it in.

Physical Goods (Clothing, Obi, Posters, Cheki, Bonuses like photo`s, etc...)

I don't have a lot of clothing from bands, tbqh. I used to buy shirts for every concert I went to, but somewhere along the line I stopped doing that unless the t-shirt design was really cool. I keep the obis I get with my CDs, though I don't know why. I figure that if I'm ever going to sell them, people might appreciate it that the obi is included? I don't really know, haha. I have a few posters too, but most of them are Kpop posters (because it's hard to get posters from my favourite Japanese artists). I don't care about cheki and I probably never will. I think that they're overpriced and a cheap manner to get extra cash out of young fans. I once got a picture of D with one of my orders that was hand signed by all the members, which was kind of cool I guess. I have no idea where it is now though LOL.

Other Stuff You Collect

Other than music and some posters I don't really collect anything else. Currently I spend more money on video games than on music, though that mostly has to do with the custom policy of my country so I don't get robbed every time I order something from Japan lmao.

Summary

Don't be lazy.

Speaking up against someone acting like a jackass doesn't equal being close minded.

Just because you think something is funny doesn't mean others are close minded because they DON'T think it's funny.

BUT NOW ABOUT ACTUAL KPOP

BTS dropped the sickest album of the year in K-pop so far, ooooh man. Didn't really like most of their earlier material but this album was great.

"BOOHOO MOST OF IT IS IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE"

Yeah this might surprise you but not the entire world caters to America.

This is just another guy who thinks shitting on kpop on the internet makes him cool. Please go back to 2010. Also, I find it very insulting he calls the girls "braindead twats". Just because they perform a song you don't like, they're pretty and excel at song and dance doesn't make them any less intelligent.

In all honesty I completely looked past that reference too LOL. I'm so oblivious to underlying themes unless people deliberately explain them to me. I've enjoyed films that others deemed terrible and I've found films boring that others praised to the high heavens. In the end I feel like it's all subjective to the person who watches it, except of course in cases where everything is just so bad that even the regular consumer can't enjoy it anymore (read: Twilight).

The old Disney movies are my favourites too, I think the last Disney animation I truly enjoyed was The Emperor's New Groove from 2000. Probably the most hilarious Disney animated movie I've seen in my life, Kronk is so incredibly important.

Sleeping Beauty (1959) - Starting with the original, now finally remastered in Blu-Ray. After all these years still one of my favourite Disney movies. The new remaster looks gorgeous if you compare it to the original film. The voice acting is of course very dated but it doesn't really bother me a lot. Watching this classic pretty much convinced me once again that Maleficent is one of the best written Disney villains of all time. Insanely creepy, cruel, but yet so elegant and classy. The christening scene is still my favourite scene of the movie merely for how tense it is. You simply KNOW something bad's going to happen because this lady could possibly not show up uninvited out of spite, right? Great pacing, lovely characters (Merryweather is still my favourite of the fairies!) and an amazing ending battle. Will definitely get the Blu-Ray when it releases in Europe!

Maleficent (2014) - Following right up with the reboot. I was really excited for this movie because of Sleeping Beauty being one of my favourites. Did I have high hopes? No, not really. Yet, unlike Bear, I thought it was a good movie. Elle Fanning's acting left something to be desired (overly joyful Aurora started to grate me at some point urgh) and there were a few minor details that bothered me (lack of accuracy when it came to the personality and casting of the three good fairies, Maleficent not turning into a dragon herself) but overall I really liked it. Angelina Jolie slays as evil Maleficent too (DAT CHRISTENING SCENE). I personally wished her make-up and outfits would've resembled the classic outfit a bit more, but that's what it's a reboot for I guess. I'm really not an expert such as Bear is, I just sort of go on "did I like watching it". Which is funny considering how awfully picky in movies I am. But since this movie has mixed reviews the best way to judge would just to watch it yourself.

MEGA RAYQUAZA I MISSED THE BROADCAST HOLY SHIIIIIT.

Okay since this entire thing just threatens to go haywire at some point I will from now on hide all posts that aren't at least somewhat decent reviews of the album. And with decent I mean, a review that I can see was put at least a little bit of effort into. If you want to talk shit about Sadie in general (or just because you have nothing better to do fuck if I know) do it in their respective artist thread and not in here. Okay? 'Kay. This thread is for reviews only and tbqh I've seen far too many posts already that don't fit the criteria for a review thread. Also if you're gonna call people out on their circle jerking, fine with me, but also this thread isn't the place for it if you don't include a review of the album itself. Sai out.

Sticky'd it for you

DAT COVER IMAGE LOL.

So I haven't been keeping up with D for like ages so how many new songs are on this?