TheBistroButcher666

35? Holy shit that is sad, he was so young! :C

I'm liking this, I've started listening to Scarlet Valse and really liking these guys.

Last time I bought something from Arithmetica it took over a month to arrive because HOLY SHIT I HAVEN'T BEEN HOME IN OVER A MONTH AND A HALF -___-

The title should really be changed because it was debunked already on a previous page.

Oh :C

Glad I didn't get it then. That is dumb! What's even on it then? I thought B TYPE came with live footage? More dumb behind the scenes stuff and making ofs?

If it's just for your own use, there really isn't a right or wrong way to what genre you use. If you like listening to Deathgaze with say Aicle and even though they're technically worlds apart when it comes to genres, if you still like listening to both at the same time. Then tag em as dickbutt kei or whatever just works.

Honestly I like to use playlists but if you really are adamant of tagging genres, it's just whatever works for you personally. 

HOLY SHIT I LOVE ZIN!!


So finally my copy came and ZIN won me over. I think he is a fantastic singer and the vocalist Versailles always needed. I was at first apprehensive when I first heard a preview of him back in April or whenever it was. Especially since HIZAKI has a habit of working with mediocre VK vocalist that never do his music justice. Their first single also had me on the fence but now I see it's because those songs didn't really give him the opportunity to show us how much he really kicks ass! Yet wow, after Decadence I definitely love ZIN. His performance and raw talent really helps carry Jupiter, perfectly complimenting all the guitar wankery quite well.

I won't do a track by track review but basically Jupiter really comes off as the metal band Versailles wanted to be. Since they've finally stepped away from the whole vampire concept they now have an opportunity to write music not confined to that theme. So I felt like we got great variety from every song and every member had their moment to shine one way or another.

Decadence is totally my favourite. This is what I love about these guys, this song is just so strong and powerful and why I have been listening to HIZAKI from his wee little days.
I love ZIN's singing in this song and it was immediately what won me over. It's definitely my favourite song on the album and am I getting some Rhapsody vibes up in this bitch!? ZIN's singing reminds me of some of the techniques you would hear from Alessandro Contri which makes me love it so much (becuz I luv Alessandro) and the symphonic wankery is definitely something I would imagine Luca would write. I love it and can't stop playing it over and over! The choir is a nice touch and well done, especially because some bands will overdo it and will drown everything out in bombastic choir choruses and so forth.

Scarlet is another that I really love. At first I didn't like the preview for it but after hearing the full thing, it really is an awesome song and everything I would expect from Teru. It's fast, catchy and definitely has some fun and interesting rifts and soloing. His style really does bring in some variety and color to whatever band he is in.

ALLEGORY CAVE caught me by surprise, I had expected this to be the typical instrumental classical guitar wankery song Teru and HIZAKI like to do. Yet it wasn't that at all! I am mixed about it though, ZIN's singing and gnarly harsh vocals are great but it's just so typical VK to do a heavy verse soft chorus format. I mean, it's definitely better than any of the fake metal bands VK fans love like OZ, BIOSPHIRA and Mejibray could ever do ever but it's still tad bit boring. I guess because every song on the album is so refreshing and then you get the lame "hard" song. I think either ditch the soft chorus and keep it harsh or make the harsh verses soft vocals instead? It's just a format I don't like that much. PERSONAL OPINION MMKAY!?

Other highlights, the swapping between acoustics and that other frilly stuff they do in Atmosphere is cool! I like the riftage in Symmetry Breaking and really liking what ZIN did for the chorus here. Classical Element is quite good and only 12 minutes? That's great because I felt like Versailles' attempt to do longer and longer songs each album was getting tiring. Especially songs like Faith & Decision which felt like they were just trying to push to do a long song for the sake of doing a long song.

I am debating about buying the B Type now HA! I really want hear the live recordings. I am super curious to hear what ZIN sounds like live and if all the amazing stuff I just heard is studio magic y'know?

Either way, I'm all up on the Jupiter bandwagon now. I'm looking forward to more from the band and I hope this world tour actually comes to the US because I would love to see them live.

I've had a few responses when I bought something from a super duper indies band and posted a photo of it on twitter with them tagged in it.

Usually it's a retweet or moon speak.

Technically majority of the Japanese music I have is Visual Kei but I felt it would be an insult to tag my nonVisual Japanese music as that lolololol.

Dude, just do whatever works best for you.

Honestly I tag most of my Japanese music as just Japanese. Some artist that don't fall under wishy washy genre like say Sabbat I'll label them as their appropriate genre.

Now if you tag things poorly on Last.fm IMA CUT YOU >:U

Otherwise if you're on the interbutts recommending something to a new listener, then use genres that are descriptive and avoid using vague wishy washy genres like Visual Kei or Jrock or J metal and stupid shit like that. Ugh and calling a band J metal or Jrock is so weeabooish and people that do that need to drink acid. You don't call Blind Guardian Gmetal or Kukrynsky R-rock or Megadeth Ametal. I feel like doing that will unfairly stigmatized the band as some sorta animu theme song band and driving away potential serious listeners.

Oh and another rule of mine is I never classify a VK band by the clothing. I label Versailles as Symphonic/Power Metal, not Aristocratic Vampire Kei Metal.

In the US it depends on what state you're in and then it gets even more out of control depending on what city or other jurisdictions you're in.

So I can only speak in regards to Washington but Washington state has pretty ridiculous alcohol prices. We have a wonderful sin tax thanks to a bunch of cry babies and bible thumpers that need to save us from the devil. So it's not just booze that is pricy, it's also smokes too. 

Fortunately this caused our craft beer scene to flourish because no one wants to spend $50 on a tiny bottle of spirits when they can instead get a pack of 10% proof IPAs from the grocery store for $8.00.

Bar prices it's always more and it just depends on the beer and liquor. Average is about $5-8 for beer here and will go up depending on the specialty of the beer you're ordering. Mix drinks are usually about $10-15 and that just depends if you get top shelf liquor or if it's just a high end establishment. 

Also the two worse places in the world Utah and Oklahoma have laws that won't allow you to sell beer that has more than 3% of alcohol in it. So basically fuck those places.

(BTW I don't know the exact percentage of taxes, so those are just estimates. I just drink beer and don't pay those taxes.)

I WROTE A WHOLE BUNCHA STUFF BUT MY BROWSER CRASHED >:U

tl;dr

I am not anti-file sharing and I agree that the "industry" needs to get with the times or die out like the newspaper and stop trying to pass broken and invasive laws to protect their failing business model. I agree with all that.

I just don't believe music should be free and all that other hippy faggot anarcho bullshit people try to spew. If you are a fan, you will do your part to support your favorite artist. Music isn't free and there are a lot of people trying to live off of it. Whether it's the artist themselves, the producer, the ghost writer, the graphic designer and just so many more. It's fine if someone can't afford every single release, I know I can't but just buying something here and there to show your support goes a long way, especially for smaller artists.

Basically when I start having fits is when ignorant "fans" try to justify why they shouldn't have to pay for music or how it's soooooo unfair that their super duper indies band can't release a CD in bumbfuck nowhere Paraguay or Canada. Then when said band makes their music available and affordable via digital outlets they still just can't be arsed to spend a few bucks to support the artist.

And even more, this user thinks that Jupiter suddenly decided to release their material exactly the same day Kamijo did so as to overshadow Kamijo's release.

Didn't Jupiter announce their album release date before Kamijo had even finalized most of the details for his single?

I guess it's hard not to speculate what happened between the group but they're also adults. So anything that sounds like catty high school drama is probably BS.

I agree nothing will stop people from sharing. I just really disagree and hate the mentality that people who don't create things expect artists to do it for free. 

I do wish there was more discussion about music. I feel like that's one area sorely lacking on MH. The only artist topics that seem to stay afloat is the Dir en grey circlejerks.

How many people are listening to KAMIJO's and Jupiter's new release yet there's barely any discussion regarding the actual releases. Except for a few posts in a review thread, it's pretty sad. I guess can always troll the Last.fm page but trying to have a discussion in the shoutbox is a joke.

Oh good idea!

Question sent! Also I told him to say I like big butts and I cannot lie.

So while I wait for my copy of CLASSICAL ELEMENT to come this came in the mail! Woohoo!

But holy crap this is a short single. So gonna knock it a point for being so sadly short. 

Basically the title track Louis is amazing and I really do like it. Unfortunately because it was so awesome and so good and so fun it made Grazioso and Gensou Trianon feel pretty lack luster. I suppose there is a reason why they're B sides but after listening to Louis these two just aren't up to snuff.

Grazioso is a nice song but it's way too short, barely over 2:00 minutes long just isn't enough. I am one of those people that prefer their songs to be at least a minimum of 3:30 minutes because anything shorter is just never satisfying. Gensou Trianon is a nice song but is pretty forgettable. About halfway through I am already hitting the back button to play Louis again. I guess just not as exciting as Louis but maybe because I'm still just so hooked to it right now. I really dig the instrumental version though.

Otherwise, it's a good release and a nice debut but the length is pretty disappointing. Looking forward to an album or a mini album or something with more than three songs.

I bought the regular edition and think the voiceless versions are definitely worth it.

Say, if anyone gets his/her CD in the mail, could they please type up who are the recording musicians on the single? I'm real curious about it. Thanks in advance! ^^

I think a decent portion of that could be alleviated by them embracing the digital age though. With as prevalent as itunes and other digital music venues are, they are sorely underused by the Japanese market(especially VK bands), and when they do, they specifically lock out their foreign audience from giving them money most of the time. I think many western acts have already figured out that digital is the way to go(at least parallel with physical-media releases) just because that is how most people listen to their music nowadays. Of course it wouldn't get rid of downloading(nothing ever will, no matter what they try), they might as well at least try an capitalize on some of that. Personally, if a release I'm interested in is available on the US itunes store, then I don't mind tossing a few dollars their way even if it's already been uploaded here.

 

As for the main point of this thread, I think blogspots should be doing neither, honestly. I mean, 99% of VK blogspots serve absolutely NO purpose at all. I can make an exception for ones like Evil en Lucifer because they focused on posting old stuff and most, if not all, of their posts were original and not just reposts. The other blogs, however? All they do is steal possible users from here. There's absolutely nothing that people couldn't get just as easily by spending the 20 seconds and registering for an account here.

I agree, I had done a quick edit to my post after I ranted.

It's not just Japanese distributors that lock out foreigners, American and European distributors are just as bad. It's like when I went to Canada and looked at what my friend had available on Netflix, half of it was unavailable because he's in Canada. What the heck why?

Though honestly I don't really see it completely same way myself. It would be about time to wake up to modern age anyway, sharing music happens all the time, deal with it. I think anyone should be smart enough able accept that fact but I guess it just might be complete opposite still judging how it would seem people feel about their stuff being shared etc. So maybe it is just me with some stupid thought pattern like this the

Fuck this mentality, it seriously needs to go away.

This isn't personally directed at you slsr, so don't think I'm being all rah rah rah at you okay?

It just frustrates me personally though because this mentality is just so prevalent among so many people that don't actually create and make things on their own.

It's that whole idea that because it's easy to rip and share something or someone is doing something they love it should then just be free? Why? Why do people think that is okay?

You see this among writers, illustrators, graphic designers, web developers and so on. Just because someone spent all their time creating a mock website for some shit tier home business. The designer should just expect all that work to be free because it's so easy to just hit ctrl A and ctrl C on all their code and graphics? Someone that spent weeks working on illustrations for some shitty web app game that will never go anywhere should expect not to be paid because it's easy to just ctrl c on all their files?

Then you hear, oh well you're doing what you love so just be happy people even want to use your work. What the hell? Why is that okay? I like writing shitty broken SQL statements all day at my day job, so just because I like doing that I should then work for free right? No of course not and artists whether they're a web designer or a writer or a musician should be paid for the work they do. Regardless of how easily shareable it is.

I know that most artist get more bang for their buck by touring and selling merch. Yet it's so short sighted to think that not buying something doesn't help the artist or the greedy evil label eats it up. It helps keep that "scene" afloat by helping producers and labels keep their artists funded and to produce more new artist.

**edit**

Quick edit but I do agree labels and distributors should get with it already and deal with it. Not so much that they should just give away their music and product for free but make it more globally accessible. That old notion of staggering releases in different markets is the most backward ass thing imaginable. Avatar was heavily pirated as soon as it was released in North America and can you guess what areas pirated it the most? The places that had to wait a week or more for it to release locally. 

I understand it's not sustainable to release physical CDs, merch, toys and other items in markets that won't sell. Yet restricting digital sells??

Even though I have a Japanese Amazon account, I can't buy digital music from their website simply because I am not in Japan. What the hell I am trying to give you money? Why are you stopping me? I don't understand that notion  at all. So like anyone else, if I really want that release I'll find a way to get it and it may not be the most legal way of doing it too!

Ahaha yep! It was funny because they then credit me but that's not why I did that. Okay mostly because it was funny but just upload it yourself sheesh.

Those blogs are partially the reason I don't share. I don't want to be associated with all those reposts all over Google. I listen to mostly small indies bands and these guys probably Google themselves so seeing their latest release the second or third result on Google probably doesn't make them very happy.

I have shared older indies kote kei stuff which probably ended up on Evil en Lucifer but I don't mind. Those bands broke up over a decade ago, their material out of print and are long forgotten. So those items being reposted don't bother me, but I would prefer it be reuploaded.

I think once one of those blogs sniped my hosted image so I replaced it with Goatsees and they had that on their front page for a day or two. That was hilarious.

I think there's like some big Hide anniversary going on right now. Opening, reopening, rereopening of the Hide museum or something like that.

Holy shit, that's terrible.

Truly sorry to all those close to him. I had no idea he was ill. How awful.

What did the judges say, the girl in the green seemed to like him. Is the person with the purple hair a girl or a guy? I thought it was a women but that voice makes me second guess.

Meh, he was about as good as Kamijo lolololol. He is as good as most VK singers anyway, if he was in Japan he could totally front for a band Western fans would drool all over.

Trombe is my morning news. Every morning I check the latest news when I get coffee before work.