doombox

I've been feeling like the vk scene in general has been slowly dying out for a while, and people have been losing interest since new bands barely last a month anymore. It's hard to keep subscribers if you don't have many bands to post that continually draw people in. And if YT channels aren't getting views/likes/subs from the content then they don't bother posting those type of things. And when there's not readily available content then a lot of people stop caring. Half the time even joining a community such as MH is too much work for a casual fan. So they move onto Kpop, or Jpop or whatever else is easy to find and fills their time. It becomes a vicious cycle. 
 
The scene has changed so much from what it was a few years back. I remember some bands were together 2-3-4 years before any foreign fans ever heard of them, and the artists themselves (unless on a major label) never bothered posting on global sites like Youtube. Everything was fan posted content. Once the indies started posting their own, and labels started reporting the fan channels everything got harder and we started to only get CMs for videos or "short ver" of the videos. I think people find those things annoying. And it cut down the fan to fan contact, replacing it with one-sided artist to fan advertising. So the community as a whole became more distant and had less reasons to talk to each other. And now with bands lasting such a short while, it leaves people a bit lost and unmotivated to keep repeating the cycle for little to no satisfaction. 
 
I run a jrock video blog for the last two years and while I can tell you the vk fans are loyal (I tend to see the same people liking the videos) but the visual kei videos don't get half of the attention as some of the others because A.) some companies now block viewers from outside of Japan, and B.) they rarely post official full versions of the videos (then proceed to report anyone else who uploads the full version). It's like they are purposefully trying to kill their own international fanbase. It's sad.

I like D'erlanger and that's a great song. I had to listen to it before making my list.


1. 椎名林檎 - 旬
2. Huckleberry Finn - A
3. Kid Cudi - The Mood
4. m.o.v.e - Monster Amplifier
5. The Hives - Go Right Ahead
6. Down - Temptation's Wings
7. 浅井健一 - はかない命
8. System Of A Down - Bubbles
9. Crystal Lake - Twisted Fate
10. The Back Horn - 雨
 
pretty mediocre list but kenichi asai and the back horn saved it.

Let's hope it's gonna be something awesome...

The new Suck a Stew Dry and 04 Limited Sazabys songs are both really cute. It's nice to see the singer from Suck a Stew Dry looking so confident too. Seems like he's really cheered up a lot with the last few releases.
 

 

downy uploaded a PV for 猿の手柄 (from their first album) onto their Youtube channel today. I could be wrong, but I believe this is a completely new PV rather than a simple re-upload. Both their first and second albums were recently re-released so I'm guessing that's the reason.
 

I like the variation in your list (especially the jump from BUCK-TICK to We Came As Romans).  A few of the bands I've heard of but some (akissforjersey, The Winking Owl, and Block B )  I haven't. Interesting band names.
 
 
 
 
 
1. Johann Sebastian Bach - Keyboard Partita No.2 in C minor, BWV 826: II. Allemande
 
2. Jean-Philippe Rameau - Castor et Pollux Prologue and Ouverture
 
3. Richard Wagner - Tristan und Isolde, "O sink hernieder, Nacht der Leibe"
 
4. Johann Sebastian Bach - Cantata No.25 "Es ist nichts Gesundes an meinem Leibe': 'Die ganze Welt ist nur ein Hospital' Recitative for tenor
 
5. Grateful Dead - Fire on the Mountain
 
6. Felix Mendelssohn - Cantata 6. "Vom Himmel hoch": I. Coro    (from the 8 Chorale Cantatas)
 
7. Johann Sebastian Bach - Duet in F Major, BWV 803
 
8. Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No.5 - III. Allegro
 
9. Beatles - Drive My Car
 
10. Franz Schubert - Sehnsucht, D.516
 
 
 
 
Considering JS Bach makes up over 1,600 songs on my iTunes surprises me that he did not show up more on the shuffle. Surprisingly, no Metal appeared on the shuffle. And I'm also sorry for the lack of Japanese music, it's minute compared to what I've collected in other genres.

I did. He also told me they're gonna spend the hiatus debating whether to change their name to Alice Eight or Alice Ten.

Okay I finally finished the Intro Video and I'll apologize in advance for:
-my grammatical mistakes
-the quality
-that it took me so long
and please DON'T expect to much from it xD well here you go:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIhO5vygv3g

I have a small comment in reference to this. Because I've noticed, in Japanese music in general, and in Visual Kei as well, it's all about trends (Well, this is not just Japanese music now that I think about it). So one lolita and one masked member is a thing, just like how it seems song and album titles make the circles. Last year and this year I saw so many refereces to "End of the World/Owari no sekai/World's End". And now I've seen like 3 albums coming out in recently or the next couple of months all named "Supernova". I think while some people value being different, there's still a huge Japanese sentiment of 'following what everyone else is doing so you can be included'. A lot of these bands are simply trying to follow the formula that they believe works for the scene they want to be in. And I think VK has always had a lot of this, I remember there being a lot of bands that had similar looks to X Japan in their heyday, lots of bands who were called "Dir en grey clones" 10 years ago, ect. The popular styles now are just not as shock value oriented as they used to be, but lots of bands are just following what is popular.

Time to shock you. Sorta. No it's not on YouTube. Go here:
 
http://www.jpopasia.com/group/aldious/discography/
 
To the immediate left of a song title, you will see what looks like 35mm film icons. That means the entry has a video. Most are on Youku, some are on DailyMotion. But they are in their entirety.
 
I do agree that they are stupid for putting partial videos on YouTube, but I can see both sides of disabling comments. On the one hand, fans are denied a chance to communicate with the band (as I understand it, the girls own Bright Star Records, which posts the videos). OTOH, they are probably sparing themselves some obnoxious sexist and racist comments. I am thoroughly sickened by what I've seen said about the Babymetal girls by people who don't like them.

I have a small comment in reference to this. Because I've noticed, in Japanese music in general, and in Visual Kei as well, it's all about trends (Well, this is not just Japanese music now that I think about it). So one lolita and one masked member is a thing, just like how it seems song and album titles make the circles. Last year and this year I saw so many refereces to "End of the World/Owari no sekai/World's End". And now I've seen like 3 albums coming out in recently or the next couple of months all named "Supernova". I think while some people value being different, there's still a huge Japanese sentiment of 'following what everyone else is doing so you can be included'. A lot of these bands are simply trying to follow the formula that they believe works for the scene they want to be in. And I think VK has always had a lot of this, I remember there being a lot of bands that had similar looks to X Japan in their heyday, lots of bands who were called "Dir en grey clones" 10 years ago, ect. The popular styles now are just not as shock value oriented as they used to be, but lots of bands are just following what is popular.

You are right, digitalbounce, and probably about most musical genres/scenes honestly.  Once one group makes a unique statement, others try to adopt that formula.  The notable ones I feel may take a formula and then skew it a bit and make it their own, while others just straight up copy something.
 
I'm also a fan of glam metal and 80s stuff, and in Scandinavia it is decently popular, its got a great underground scene.  But you can definitely tell there are a number of bands that think putting on some ripped-up jeans and a t-shirt make them "hair metal" - it just makes them blend in with the rest.

TAMTAM new album "Strange Tomorrow" will be released at 2014/09/17
 
[track list]
01.バベル
02.エンターキー
03.ニューロン・ダンサー
04.パーフェクト・ウェザーリポート
05.Interlude-untranslated region-
06.エデン
07.スピカ
08.ナッシング・バット・ア・ガール
09.サボン
10.トウキョウ・カウンターポイント
11.サナギ831
12.エンジョイ・アワー・フリータイム
13.ファンファーレ

Fixed that for you. Because really, you need to chill with shoving all of your labels down everyone else's throats, please. With all that taken out, you still made your point just fine ok.
 
I agreed, Apocalyze is a solid album. I don't understand why so many people hate on it. I don't think Ken is the best screamer in Japan, but he's definitely up there among the current modern vocalists in his scene. He could use more dynamics in his range. His lows are great, but his highs could use work, imo. His clean voice has come a long way since the first album. I think we'll be hearing his cleans more and more. 

^ went and checked your favourite pick and I gotta say it's a really nice song, can't say I quite like the others though, maybe MERRY a bit. Always hated ADTR for some reason xD.
 
LAST ALLIANCE - Time-Lag-Cloud Perfume - GLITTER (Album-mix) GIRL'S DAY - 기대해 (Expectation) 和楽器バンド - 千本桜 (Senbonzakura) YUI - Ready to love UNLIMITS - カナシミノセカイ (Kanashimi no sekai) TK from 凛として時雨 - unravel (TK from Ling Tosite Sigure) RADWIMPS - 揶揄 (Yayu) RADWIMPS - ハイパーベンチレイション (Hyperventilation) ONE OK ROCK - Nothing Helps It was really hard to choose a favourite this time. I really like Wagakki Band's arrange of Senbonzakura. Tokyo Ghoul's OP really surprised me, was obsessed with the song for a few days xD. Hyperventilation is such a fun song, should've have been an album track and not a b-side. My least favourite would be GIRL'S DAY and Perfume's song, I prefer other songs from Perfume xD.

So grateful for the non-visual section. I'd probably have never become active now without it (as that's basically all I have to contribute). 
And to basically every other point in Zess' post:
 

So grateful for the non-visual section. I'd probably have never become active now without it (as that's basically all I have to contribute). 
And to basically every other point in Zess' post:
 

Before I tell you and Gaz to unbunch your panties and take it to PM, I want to address the part I've bolded. I want to do this because there's a misconception I want to clear up and it's something that's been proven to work on this forum.
Sharing your music with people who actually care involves three things: music, sharing, and people. The problem with it when restricted solely to visual kei is that the sharing is inconsistent. Some people hoard the rare music and it eventually becomes lost and no one can ever hear or find it again. Some people share everything freely. If you want to find other people who like the same music you do, you have to make it freely available. But even more than that, there has to be discussion about this music. There are two very underutilized forums in the Artist and Review sections whose purpose is to facilitate discussion. If you wonder why the type of visual kei you like seems to get no attention, go look for all the topics people have started about it and look at the last time someone uploaded an album by one of those artists and wrote a review for one of those artists. It's probably been a while hasn't it? Now switch gears and look at a lot of the K-Pop fans (a good majority of which came from visual kei) and estimate the size of the fandom in comparison to VK. It seems so much bigger because they all talk about it!
The key here is "out of sight, out of mind". I'll touch on that later.
But first, let's jump into some MH history. The year was 2010. Overseas attention for visual kei was on it's way out, as Champ touched on earlier. Activity was declining on MH because a lot of fans were jumping ship to the next fad, but there wasn't any musical spheres here to keep them interested. Thus, people spent less time here as they spent more time exploring new music. CAT5 and I had a problem with this. There is an entire musical scene outside of visual kei in Japan that was getting the shaft and we wanted to fix that. We started by first uploading a lot of new music to the download section. That had limited success. The turnover rate was so fast that by the it hit page two or three no one checked it out anymore. Out of sight, out of mind. So to fix that shortcoming, we tried something new.
This was an effort on the part of a lot of people, many of which went uncredited and who I will thank now because I don't think I ever formally did this at one point. CAT5, Aion, lukrecia, and I started "The Non-Visual Recommendation Thread" which grew to be a 30 page behemoth of a topic filled with sample releases by different bands in Japan that were all non-visual. The idea was that if it was always at the top of the forum and being constantly updated, people would check it out from time to time and find things they liked. There were some issues with it (disappearing posts, MU dying, etc.) but it had it's intended effect of people finding new artists that they wouldn't know that they liked. Because we made a place for it and occasionally wrote reviews in the section, we got all three components we needed: music, sharing, and people.
We expanded this base by starting the end of year lists at the end of 2011. CAT5 and I devised this as an idea to talk about really great albums we liked that didn't get the attention they deserved, got a lot of attention and deserved to be talked about more, or weren't even Japanese but was just great music overall. We got a lot of great feedback from lots of users because it was a combination of visual and not visual artists. There was something for everyone. The topics got hundreds, if not thousands of views and even attracted the attention of some artists we praised. This got more people listening, and more people talking.
Then the staff decided to do something really crazy and split the download forum about a year back. There was always talk about splitting it between visual and non visual music because of reasons, but we were hesitant to do it because we always felt the visual forum would just eclipse the non-visual forum and the latter would die off. By mid 2013, there were enough people here that enjoyed the latter for us to give it a trial run and see how it went. It was only supposed to last for two months. But because there was a clean separation between the two, non-visual music would no longer be buried in the unified download section as it once was. Visual kei music also benefited from this as well. Now that both were easily available for view, people began checking out more non visual kei music. Instead of failing, it's grown and now there's more of a balance here than there has ever been before.
So the moral of the story here is that if CAT5 and I had never decided to do something about the lack of attention non visual music was getting here that fateful day in 2011, MH wouldn't be the way it is today. If you want to promote your preferred style of visual kei, you have to discuss it. And continue discussing it and generate interest in it. Talking about how it's dying is a start but actually talking about the music is better. Music doesn't ever die until people stop listening to it, and the fastest way for that to happen is to have no one be able to hear it and have no place for anyone to talk about it.
Now I know this isn't directly on topic but I feel that it addresses the point being made in this topic accurately enough to belong here. Now you two go play nice.

Here's me doing nothing.

 
 

I like that Shou stated they want to go back to their basics as well. This makes me excited for the future. 

I don't think it's fair to immediately add it to the list again, HIZAKAMI. Therefore it's going down again.
 
MERRY
Dir en grey
Malice Mizer
NoGod
Moi dix Mois
Grieva
girugamesh
Fatima
RENTRER EN SOI
DuelJewel
ZI:KILL

holy shit is it who i am thinking of?
 
ps: BUT I'LL GET TO SEE YOU. ;;

If Visual Kei artists are getting greedier than they already are, then why not upload full videos on YouTube? It doesn't cost them any extra effort, and (if we look at things statistically, and not based on popularity) perhaps might even serve them a little extra as YouTube pays per a considerable amount of viewers when you become their partner (as in dumping ads on your channel). Their marketing strategies are just so strange; releasing at least three different types of a record, live-distributed releases, releases limited to distinguished webshops or stores, the 'buy merchandise for at least ¥5.000 and you get an extra' strategy. Why not simply sell all these limited releases separately? Or opening the borders and set up sales to overseas customers who are often more than willing to pay whatever the price? There just needs to be one band who opens up their eyes to the world and to actually working marketing strategies, and I bet the scene could lift itself up in a matter of perhaps two years.