Number Girl

Disk Union doesn't ship overseas. You need to use a deputy service.

I have no problem with artists who do not write their own songs. In some cases in may help to do a well-written song justice - especially if you have a performer or musician who frankly sucks at writing a decent song or a song-writer who probably sucks at performing. Giving life and emotion to a song through a good voice, etc is part of what makes good song-writing worth mentioning. The kind of artists I don't respect are the kind that don't write their own songs, yet lie or pretend that they do to elevate themselves. When appropriate credit is given, I see no issue.

A combination of both would be my ultimate preference, but whichever aspect prevails depends on the genre of music. For metal music, I tend to favor more emotion and soul put into it just because the genre is so fixated on technicality. With enough practice probably anyone could perform a fast guitar solo or sing in harsh pig/frog/gerbil squeals, but making it have feeling behind it and enjoyable and memorable for longer than seven minutes implies a lot more effort. That's probably one of the main reasons I prefer standard classic metal with "attitude" as opposed to delving much into the various sub genres and niches. For non-metal music, I seek a bit of proficiency to give some sustenance to the voice or melody.

Labels overall don't matter to me, because I've always believed all music has its share of junk and gems. But if I was forced to pick one I'd have to say indie just because 1) based off my listening patterns, most of my collection is indie music which obviously means 2) there is a lot more variety and music on indie labels that fit my particular tastes. However, quite a few bands I love are on major labels and nothing about their "majorness" in my opinion has much bearing on the satisfaction or dissatisfaction I get from their music. Their music feels just as honest and just as passionate. As for if bands going from indie to major will change their sound - I guess I do get doubts at first but I always give them a chance. Unfortunately, many times the change is not a change for the better in terms of their sound but I've always felt there's no point in bashing a band for moving forward in their careers. It's best just to forgive, forget, and move on.

Gackt put out a few decent singles recently - "Graffiti" and "Episode 0."

Every time I come across someone with the "older was better" attitude, it always turns out they listen only to the radio. As Zess said, to depend on the current radio for freshness and diversity is futile. It doesn't give a clear picture of what today's musicians are accomplishing and the Classic Rock/Rap/Pop stations probably don't do the same for their various eras. In the context of the Japanese music fandom, I notice most people who believe the new scene of music "sucks" were only noticing the more popular side of visual kei scene all over the internet and never heard of anything from the thriving indie and underground scenes. Leaning away from only one angle of perspective can really change a lot. Even though people will always have their personal preferences, I believe people should experience both the old and the new and not jump to conclusions.

The only band I genuinely hated because of the fans is Dir en grey. For as long as I've been into J-Rock, the people always starting wank and being pompous jerks were the Dir en grey fans and for a short time I subconsciously conditioned myself to only hear farts and craps whenever their music came on. Now I don't hate them as much and I've actually started to rediscover them in a better light. Time heals everything, etc. Oh, and this is beautifully stated: Aside from that one exception, I consider myself to have a high tolerance for notoriously "bad" fandoms. I've been a Gackt fan and fan of various other visual kei bands for nearly seven years now and I also like Japanese indie music, which is followed by the largest league of cynical assholes in the world. However, most bands I like happen to have decent fandoms and I guess it is just because the bands themselves tend to attract those kinds of people or like in Yasuhiro's case, not enough people know about the band to really have a chance. Good music is good music no matter what and the stupidity of others can't change that. Sometimes it helps to stay off the internet for a time and see a band as they are.

Hi, welcome! Well, I guess if you love indie you can't go wrong with Number Girl. ^^ My recent favorites have been cinema staff, suiseinoboaz, the cabs, and andymori.

Hi! That's a nice music taste you have there. (I'm an As Meias fan too!) Welcome to MH!

The Cab's new single on iTunes.

Just for lawlz, here is the new official Anthem Twitter and most recent blog site: http://www.anthem2011.com/ @anthem_official I kinda wish they would create ONE blog and regularly update it as usual, but for every tour they have to make a brand new blog and after it is over they shut it down completely. -___-

Not in any particular order: 1. Boris - New Album 2. Boris - Heavy Rocks '11 3. Boris - Attention Please 4. Andymori - Kakumei 5. Cinema Staff - Cinema Staff 6. Suiseinoboaz - THE (OVERUSED) END OF THE WORLD and I MISS YOU MUH-FUH 7. B'z - C'mon 8. Anthem - Heraldic Device 9. Gackt - Episode.0 10. D'espairsRay - antique 11. Eizo Sakamoto - Golden Hits

Wow.

Well, yeah . . . it wasn't my favorite album of theirs ever, but it had a couple of decent songs. If you mean as in a download, you can probably try looking over the internet someone should have posted it, but I got mine from iTunes. I did upload one song in the second Project Mixtape thread if you wanna see that.

yes. hide's band was changed because they saw the Sapporo SABER TIGER and they changed it to YOKOSUKA SAVER TIGER. even though they (横須賀サーベルタイガー YOKOSUKA SAVER TIGER, SABER TIGER) both formed a band in 1981, YOKOSUKA SABER TIGER disbanded in 2001 while SABER TIGER from Sapporo is still releasing albums and performing lives until today. Akihito Kinoshita formed the SABER TIGER while Hideto Matsumoto formed the 横須賀サーベルタイガー YOKOSUKA SAVER TIGER. + popular other ex - members SABER TIGER - Masafumi Minato (DEAD END) 横須賀サーベルタイガー YOKOSUKA SAVER TIGER - kyo, TETSU (D'ERLANGER) Okay, thanks for that info. I had no idea there were two different bands. I had always thought Japan had one Sab/ver Tiger.

WORD TO YO MOTHA Source: http://andymori.com/ The live DVD will be released February 8th. Tracklist and more here: http://andymori.com/2nd_live_dvd_special/ The new album "Hikari" wil be released March 7th More info is coming soon. My response: a;ojfsliudsjok;igodifdjfokfihfjwohfjwkdj T____T

Wait, I thought Saber Tiger and Saver Tiger were the same band . . . if that's what you are talking about.

Chrome, for its speed and convenience; I like to able to have ONE toolbar and be able to type in keywords directly in the search engine, etc. Safari is my secondary browser; I also find it a lot faster although some of its features are confusing. IE is annoying and wants to download too many toolbars and crap, I got sick of it after a while. I'm neutral on the others.

Xan Arcanist – I AM KINDER METAL! Yep. But then again he's a joke artist making fun of black metal/noise so possibly some win for him at the same time.

Lol, I'm still using the Skull Candy ear buds - surprisingly this current pair has lasted almost over half a year (despite being through some serious torture being in my backpack) unlike past pairs which would break in exactly three-five months of use. I would like to get an actual decent headset, but right now I'm more focused on investing in a new iPod/portable music player than anything else.

I wouldn't have a problem if the band broke up for that reason; people have the right to be married and move on with life. What I WOULD have a problem with is the band making up dramatic crap to cover it up. Which I doubt they did . . . it just sounds like too much work for a band like them to come up with a huge conspiracy rather than just say it was "musical differences."

I use SAL almost all the time. The longest I've had to wait is a little over a month and it's always eventually made it to my house.

I also doubt it was a factor in disbandment. While it may sound dumb, I have more faith in the band members than that. I trust the reasons they initially provided were the real reasons. Anyway, if this is true - congrats Hizumi!

Yeah, in certain contexts I don't mind profanity - or else I wouldn't still be listening to D'espairsRay, Dropkick Murphys, or anyone else. My comment was more targeted at a lot of mainstream hip-hop/rap where every new song mostly consists of those same words just repeated over and over again, but in a different order each time and some other words thrown in there that rhyme.