Champ213

Yup, but just for example, I know that Alcest is reasonably popular around here (as popular as you could expect a black metal band to be on a jrock forum anyway), so I don't see why they shouldn't get their own topic, instead of getting swamped between the new Wintersun song and some doom metal band. More obscure black metal bands could then be discussed on a "Black Metal thread" - those bands will probably only appeal to people who have a general liking for black metal anyway. I dunno, maybe this thread could be converted into a "General Metal Recommendation thread" because this is essentially what it has become - people asking for or giving recommendations, regardless of genre. And yes, some news are posted here and there, but those get quickly overlooked and would probably gain more recognition on an appropriate artist or genre thread. Anyway, just a thought.

To be honest, this thread is too random for me. One moment it's about obscure black metal bands, then suddenly we get a vidspam of power metal bands and next somebody asks for groove metal. It's all over the place and nothing gets really discussed. Not saying that people can't post in here if they think it fits nowhere else, but the global music sections isn't that active, so I think there's no harm in creating seperate threads for certain things to attract attention of posibble fans. Even if one thinks that a band doesn't need its own topic, one could still make a black metal thread, and a power metal thread and so on. Just like there is a folk metal thread, a Trip-hop thread, a postrock thread... I listen to a lot of metal but "general metal" is a bit too... general?

Done. But.... next time please just use a PM instead of making a topic.

I'm feeling judged.

My friend introduced me to MM somewhen in 1997. She had spent half a year in the US and bought "Antichrist Superstar" there. I really became a fan a year later when he released "Mechanical Animal" (or they, more appropriately - I always considered the band to be more than just MM in person, especially since he barely wrote any of the music until Twiggy Ramirez/Joerdie White left). It was quite different from the music I used to listen to until then, so I consider them to be quite influential for my musical taste. Mechanical Animals and Antichrist Superstar are my favourite albums, though Holy Wood was alright as well. I even saw them live twice, once in 1998 and once in 2000. However I became quite desinterested in their stuff afterwards, partially due to my musical taste still developing, but mostly because I thought their music had taken a turn downhill after Ramirez left. The only post-2000 song I remember liking (or remember at all for that matter) is "This is the New Shit". I must admit though, I haven't really tried "High End of Low" as of yet, but maybe I should, seeing how Ramirez returned for that album and wrote most of the music again.

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but making a review based on samples seems rather odd. Feel free to post the link to the samples in the Dir en grey artist thread though.

Yeah, we are currently restructuring the news section, the news threads have been moved into the artist thread, please continue the discussion there for now: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4

I always wondered why CDs in Japan are relatively expensive compared to Europe and America. I mean, apparently they can still afford to ask for such prices because people are willing to pay for it, despite illegal downloads.

As I said in the shoutbox, I fully support this, even though I don't use any smartphone myself. And I'm sure, Kai and manda will be able to help you out with the technical stuff.

I knew this was going to happen some day. I blame it on a small bunch of crappy members that have nothing better to do with their lives than to post shitty comments on threads of bands they don't even care for. Because obviously, if they don't like a band, nobody else should be allowed to discuss them undisturbed either. We are trying to crack down on that but I guess we were too late. Anyway, thanks for doing it up until now, hope you'll stick around.

Oooooooooh!

Stop talking about some random guy and get back to the topic. Now.

Really people? Do I really have to start modding threads in the Toasted Waffles forum? Can't folks just like... once... behave like semi-decent people around here? Keep it civil. Refrain from personal insults. Warnings have been issued.

A small update from me too, cause 2011 finally started to deliever for me. Týr - The Lay of Thrym Corde Oblique - A Hail of Bitter Almonds Kauan - Kuu... Actually those three might be my favourite releases this year so far. Also: Devin Townsend - Ghost Enslaved - The Sleeping Gods Still need to listen to new Unexpect. As for japanese stuff: dieS - 発情 Yaneka - All in the Air Dear L'Novel - Mistral 実験台モルモット - 箱庭の音樂会 I also still need to check out Versailles' Holy Grail, but from what I heard it doesn't seem to be as good as Jubilee, and Jubilee was decent but not amazing for me, so Holy Grail probably won't make the list.

Well it seems the broad opinion is not in favor of a split, so I guess I'll close this topic. Let's hope we can one day make that tag thing work, it would make it easier for people to browse the downloads by certain genres or styles.

Just what the world needed. Another social networking site.

Okay, that's enough people. First of all, I'm handing out some warnings. Specifically to: precious kitty (for this) and nekkichi (for derailing the thread with stupid trolling again) Be happy that I'm not handing out more warnings, because there is a lot more warnings potential here. And now I'm giving this thread one last chance. If it descends into a shitstorm again, there will be more warnings, possible bannings, and certainly deletions of posts. Understood? I don't know this rapper and can't comment on his allegded homophobia, but he certainly wouldn't be the only homophopic idiot in rap music or music overall. And I can totally understand if some people refuse to listen to him because of that, I would do the same thing. But we are not gaining anything from turning this into a drama here. Pick your battles.

I like this more than I should.

We actually looked into installing a tagging mod on the forum in the past already. See example here: http://nanothree.net/dev/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11 People who only like certain genres could sort the uploads by tags added to them. I actually tried to install that mod on our own test forum, but so far I couldn't make it work. Kai and manda know more about coding and stuff, maybe they find some time to look into that in the future, as it would probably be the ideal solution. People who like the current mix can browse the forums as before, and people who want a more intricate seperation can browse by tags. There would still be the problem of assigning proper genre labels, but a poorely tagged file wouldn't matter so much, as it's still in the same forum and not hidden somewhere where people don't expect it to be.

By the way, I made this topic an announcement so that we get more people to give input. From what I heard so far, I think so far we can summarize the following pros and cons: Pros of a split: - People who are more or less only into to one kind of music (vk or non-vk) can browse their "own" sub-forum without being disturbed by stuff they don't like - Both forums will be slower, so this also means that uploads don't get bumped down that quickly - Creating a non-vk forum may be seen as some sort of stronger endorsement of that kind of music Cons of a split: - Difficult to seperate bands. Bands may change their appearence, and there are many bands that may look vk, but aren't. (Just think of all the goth/industrial/electronic artists, many of them violently deny being vk of any sort.) - People who like BOTH vk and non-vk will have to check 2 forums instead of one, and we might encourage musical isolationism by seperating the two. I'm sure many people stumbled on bands they would usually not listen to because they're all in the same forum. - To make things really neat, we would have to go through all uploads so far and move them accordingly. I guess it could be done though with a bit of time and effort, but it's still something to be considered. Alternatively we could create an "archive" and dump everything so far in there, but I'm not overly fond of that either. Anyway, keep the discussion going.

There is no decision. Personally I don't like the idea for the reasons I mentioned, but I'm not making decisions here on my own. So I'll wait and see what other people have to say about it. May as well have a discussion about it to get all the pros and cons, and then have a user poll.

I think we had discussions like this before. For now, the main reason why we haven't seperated the DL section into genres is because people never can agree on genres. Even just seperating into visual and non-visual is rather messy because there are bands that are borderline, or bands that were vk but stopped being vk. We basically would be forced to move an old Dir en grey release into the vk forum, while a new Dir en grey release would be posted in the non-vk forum. (And Anime/Game music rarely if ever gets uploaded, so I don't see a need for a special forum) Personally I would find it more difficult to find stuff if I had to check several subforums that all may or may not contain something I want. I think we also refrained from seperating vk and non-vk because we didn't want to encourage the kind of limited "in the box"-thinking that is rather common among japanese music fans. Usually vk fans stay among on their own, and non-vk fans stay among their own. Very often there is even hostility between them, ie. vk being looked down on by non-vk fans and vice versa. We always took great pride in the fact that while this forum is somewhat centered on vk, we also have many users that like non-vk, or both, and there was relatively little hostility between them. Having a unified DL section that goes beyond that petty vk vs non-vk theme reflected that. It's all music after all. Anyway, if a majority of people really wants to have that split, and people have some practical ideas on how we can seperate bands without causing massive shitstorms about what's vk and what not, I'm sure that I and the other mods are willing to entertain that idea. A split into genres is probably not going to happen (ie. rock/pop/metal/folk/electronic), I think it would make it rather difficult to find things. I am on another forum that uses the form, and I find it rather bothersome. But yeah. I'm open for suggestions.

They too were posted by me in the original thread. XD I wonder why they all pop up again now.

Lol. Idiot was one of the first bands I posted in the original incarnation of this thread. I don't think there's a regular member here that doesn't know them, Fakkin A is like the running gag of this forum. They are pretty legendary around here.

Oh yeah, bands themselves have very different oinions about filesharing. Kiwamu will throw a chair at you if you upload their PV preview to Youtube, but other bands have a more relaxed attitude. The best statement regarding filesharing a read a while ago on the FB page of a band called The Monolith Deathcult: