Champ213

When I was very small I would stay with my grandparents a lot. I would sleep in my aunt's room who was still a teen, only 10 years older than me, and she would always put on a CD when we went to bed. These are probably the earliest musical memories I have. She listened to stuff like Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel and U2. (Hey, we are talking about late 80s/early 90s here!). I would copy her stuff to cassettes, so this was the music I listened to through kindergarten and primary school. Somehow I lost interest in music after I entered secondary school (which happens around age 10/11 here). All of my class mates were listening to fancy charts music and I would have none of it. At first anyway. I eventually started to tape off music from the radio, so I basically was listening to whatever was on the radio. I didn't have any favourite bands, at best I had favourite songs. I also started to buy CDs, but never albums, only singles, because I didn't care for any bands, I just wanted that particular song in good quality. On the bright side: this also saved me from falling into boy-band fandom. Imagine that, I was a teenage girl in the 90s, and I didn't have a single boy-band poster on my walls. I think I was 14 when I started to develope my own taste. This song was quite a game-changer for me, because it was the very first time I liked something that was "heavier". Well, heavier compared to what I listened before. I think it was also the first time that a song would touch me emotionally since years when I was listening in awe to U2's "One" in my aunt's bedroom. Anyway, to shorten things, after that I began to explore music more - wich actually wasn't that easy in an age before Youtube and mp3 downloading, lol. I somehow managed by taping music off from friends and relatives and buying music magazines to read reviews and listen to sample CDs. But yeah, the internet (which I only really started to use at age 20) obviously opened up a whole new world of music for me.

"N00blet" is the title for every new member until they have at least 5 posts. It's meant as a joke and not to be taken seriously, like pretty much most of our ranks. The title automatically upgrades once you make more posts, and if you reach a certain number of posts, you can set your own title.

Sorry for being late, but here's finally the results to our voting. I tried to fill at least the first 3 places of each category, but sometimes that wasn't possible if the results were too diverse, ie. too many different items with less than 2 votes. I added the winners from last years in spoilers. However, since we changed several categories, many have no previous results. Best overall artist (Indies) 1. A 2. 9 Goats Black Out 3. MEJIBRAY Best overall artist (Major) 1. Plastic Tree; Dir en Grey 2. BUCK-TICK; The Gazette Best full album (Indies) 1. 9 Goats Black Out - Calling 2. A - Tales for the Abyss 3. Vior gloire - Gloomy and wakeful night Best full album (Major) 1. BUCK-TICK - Yumemiru Uchuu 2. The Gazette - Division; Mucc - Shangri-la 3. Matenrou Opera - Justice; Lynch. - Inferiority Complex Best mini album (Indies) 1. the god and death stars - tonight is the night 2. D - Namonaki Mori no Yumegatari; Lament. - Totentanz; -OZ- - Crunk; DOG inThePWO – Doggy Style II Best mini album (Major) 1. Miyavi - Samurai Sessions Vol. 1 2. The Novembers - Gift Best single/maxi (Indies) 1. A - Elementa Alchemica 2. Strawberry Song Orchestra - Gesshoku no Circus 2. DIV - Natsu no Yukue Best single/maxi (Major) 1. Dir en grey - Rinkaku 2. BUCK-TICK - MISS TAKE ~Boku wa Miss Take~ 3. LUNA SEA - The End of the Dream/Rouge; LUNA SEA - THE ONE -crash to create-; SCREW - XANADU Best PV 1. 88 Kasyo Junrei - Reikai Nouveaux; Halloween Junky Orchestra - Halloween Party 2. D - Nanomaki Mori no Yumegatari; Nega - Munashiki 「Sei」 no Guui ≒ 「Shi」 no Shini Best ballad: 1. 9GOATS BLACK OUT - Panta rhei Best Look: 1. 9GOATS BLACK OUT 2. Kiryu 3. Cell; MEJIBRAY Best Newcomer 1. DIV 2. Cell; Grieva Best individual musician 1. Miyavi 2. Kiyoharu; Sugizo; Kyo Best live 1. An Cafe Saddest disbandment 1. 9GOATS BLACK OUT 2. Nega 3. Dali; Psysalia Psysalis Psyche Most disappointing release 1. Mucc - Shangri-la 2. 12012 - 12012; The Gazette - DIVISION; Versailles - Versailles Most overhyped band 1. MEJIBRAY; the Gazette 2. Dir en Grey; GALEYD Most overhyped release 1. The Gazette - Division 2. Mucc - Shangri-la 3. Versailles - Versailles Band that changed their sound for the worse 1. 12012 2. Mucc 3. Sadie Most improved band 1. Mucc 2. The Kiddie Band you spent most of your money on in 2012 1. Plastic Tree; Dir en grey; Kiryu What the Hell were they thinking!?-award 1. 12012 2. Mucc; Versailles Most anticipated release of 2013 1. Dir en Grey - Unraveling 2. LUNA SEA album; Matenrou Opera album; MEJIBRAY album Your wish for 2013 (relating to jrock) Too many differens answers, check the voting thread for details. Best non-japanese release Results here were all over the place again, but these releases were at least mentioned more than once: Muse - 2nd Law Alcest - Les Voyages De L'Âme Lana del Rey - Born to Die Deftones - Koi no Yokan For full results, go check out the voting thread. Votes will be made visible now.

We normally do frown on making reviews for releases that aren't available for anyone else to review. For once, this is a place of discussion and there isn't much to discuss if only one person has the file in question. And secondly, we did have some drama in the past when people thought it was a good idea to post reviews of stuff that was so rare that only they had it and that you would have to spent a fortune on getting. However, this isn't the case here. I quick Google search showed me that this release is easily availible as digital download on places like CD Baby. So this is neither rare nor hard to get, even if it's not posted in our download section. And if people want it badly, they can get it without much trouble. Since it's rather easy to get, it also stands to reason that it will get posted here sooner or later. So, I will leave this here for now.

Many people use a free prgramm called Spek to get a spectograph image for a file. The real problem however is interpreting the images you get. Some cases are fairly obvious, but many cases are not. We did get false transcode reports in the past because people mis-interpreted images. Also, there is a variety of reasons why such images might look odd or suspiscious that are not related to transcodes or bad rips at all. The staff has been discussing the issue just recently and I will be making a new Transcode FAQ that will deal with these problems soon. The short answer however is this: there is no way to identify transcodes with 100% accuracy. The level on certainty really all depends on the case. But as I said, I will write about this in more detail soon. Until then, this is what I can recommend to everyone: 1. If you suspect a file to be transcode, either from the spectrograph, or the way it sounds, use the report button to notify us. Please do not post it in the thread, because we would like to make our own determination - it at all possible - before open accusations are made. 2. Remember to use your ears again. Many people have become too focused on spec images, which are a much more complicated issue than it may appear. But we are talking about music here, so it's all about the sound, not looking at funny images. And: if you are listening to your music through 10$-cellphone-earbuds, transcodes should probably be the least of your concerns. But yeah, there will be some extensive post about it in the near future, so stay tuned. Until then, Zess has written a good tutorial about CD ripping, if you just follow the guide step by step you can make good rips without a lot of technical knowledge.

Just because this is a non-english section of the forum doesn't mean that you are allowed to use abusive, insulting language. Please read our rules regarding the international forum here: http://www.monochrome-heaven.com/topic/15366-international-lounge-rules/ You get a warning point and are banned from making any new posts for 5 days.

It's funny how this ancient thread somehow got resurrected and now is pretty active again. Anyway, my answer should be somewhere on the first page~

悪餓鬼恋情歌 and 【OD】52錠 are also idiot covers! This brings a lonely tear of joy to my eye. Time to revive their LJ community yet?

Eh, I don't know, his "solo" Lareine stuff anno 2000 wasn't exactly mind-blowing.... Also, I have the feeling that this will be neither sounding Lareine-ish, nor will it be metal. The first 2 releases or so he will cater to his old fandom, and then he will try to go all standard pop-rock, probably pretty sappy pop-rock, kinda like Jui. I hope I'm wrong though.

Of course they can change their password again after an admin changed it. But at the moment, they can't change their password at all, so that's not really helping, lol. But my guess at the moment is that some fileds of the "change eMail" form were filled in as well and that it caused the problem.

I tried to change the password on my test account and it seemed to work fine. So it's hard to guess what the problem is. In any case: 1. Make sure all 3 fields in the "Change Password" form at the bottom are filled in. 2. Make sure that the 3 fields in the "Change eMail" form on top are empty. Maybe you had some Auto-Fill activated that put stuff in some of the fields. If this doesn't work we would be able to change the password for you, but that's not an ideal solution. The password should only be known to you alone, after all.

Yup, you still have one week to vote, results will be published a few days later.

Have you ever tried Lacroix Desphères? 06v0auZijeE

I'm a nerdy girl that watches Minecraft LP's on Youtube. Yeah that's right. Mostly Far Lands or Bust!, VintageBeef and BDoubleO100, and other stuff as well.

If you mean Japanese HMV, I wouldn't worry about that. HMV Japan is not affiliated with the now bankrupt HMV group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMV_Group#JapanSo yeah, it's a completely different company, even though they use the same letters.