This can be said about the vast majority of Popular Music. And trying to quantify the amount of "soul" in a piece of music is just a useless buzzword. There's this Romantic ideal by many that music has to be produced by these struggling artists who put their very feelings into a work. Well, that's just not true.
Laraine all the way. Their 90's stuff were pretty good as far as I remember. Versailles have never made a single second with good music. I can't decribe with words how much I dislike Versailles and their awful brand of power metal.
Somehow I couldn't find either the Lamiel nor the Vasalla track from my computer or youtube, so I have compromise and pick Lamiel because I like them better than Vasalla
1. Dean Blunt - Imperial Gold
2. 中村晃子 - ブルー・シャトウ
3. Basic Channel - Octaedre
4. きどりっこ - お面をつけた猫
5. UGK - Ridin' Dirty
6. Swans - You Fucking People Make Me Sick
7. Crossed Out - Suicide of A Species
8. Black Flag - Fix Me
9. Saint Etienne - Like A Motorway
10. Karin Krog - Karin's Mode
Basic Channel is by far the best one out there, but I also have a personal fondness for 中村晃子 and Dean Blunt. Would have been a good set of songs if it wasn't for the Crossed Out track.
you can refer to my third post in this thread for anything not concerning nocturnal bloodlust.
since you seem to love the fine art of demagoguery so much, I'm going to put it this way:
I have never ever said anyone was forcing me to listen to this band, but I will be listening to their music, pirated or purchased, if it did not suck.
On a side note, I'd love to see works cited for your thesis alone, 60 pages of stuff would require diving into market analysis that you seem to dismiss completely in your overly emotional way of handling conversation.
no questions about that, it's still not dismissing the whole "lol look who's talking" vibe of the situation.
jsyk, I'm going to label you a possessed stan for the sake of convenience to wrap the creativity/originality point up;
regarding the support - this whole thread started because this band is not getting it and is publicly upset about that. plenty other bands are getting it despite business obstacles. piracy has not killed panic at the disco, who have been graciously used as an example by one of members here, who also have been a nobody band at some point.
this band does not get good legal sales because their music is bland and mediocre and their fanbase hardly expands, not because Jorge, Svetlana, Punawit and Mateos have mediafired their discog. you seem to filter this point out of the thread completely, but I'll try to sneak it in again one last time.
musicians are not entitled to being successful commercially.
You missed my point when I discussed a distinction between Popular and Art music (I wasn't talking about the "Art of popular music", whatever that means). The point was to demonstrate the high appreciative standard in Art music which deems music as a "privilege" does not necessarily hold up in a lot of Popular music -- especially when the end goal is marketability (especially with image in Nocturnal Bloodlust's case). If someone is trying to market something to you, is it truly a privilege to listen to when it's being thrown in your face? I also said nothing about how NB "don't have the market". I believe there you are referencing the point I just reiterated which was the band pushed their new look for the sake of marketability (when previously as those more knowledgable on the band have said in this thread, their previous look wasn't doing anything for them).
And we're not necessarily arguing potential (I'm not at least). If you were to ask me about their potential, I would say they're a terrible, derivative band that has next to no potential for staying around much longer. But that's just my opinion on their music, not an assessment on their financial dealings. So while others may have shared an opinion on the band, I'm shying away from that kind of argument because it has too great of a chance of devolving into subjective opinions without any care for reason.
And you'll need to link me to where they have announced they are playing in larger venues, because I took all of the shows they have lined up on their website and went through them by capacity, all totaling to about 600-700 each. Nowhere is there any mention of anything to indicate otherwise, please provide a link if you can.
There is one thing that struck me, and what I find to be the focal point of your narrow interpretation of this situation: "They're losing in the international market not because the interest isn't there, but because it's easier and free to just illegally download."
At first glance this is blatantly incorrect. The reason why it's not entirely incorrect when in consideration of the whole is because there are people that will just download an album because it's free. There are those that can't be bothered to pay anything, and that's fine. But how many of those are even fans to begin with? How many are potential fans that want to hear the music first? How many are people who just want to rag on the band by downloading the album and shitting on it afterwards? There are many groups that need to be considered because it's not a black and white issue of "they're losing the international market because it's easier and free to illegally download". 1. They're NOT losing the international market because they're not even IN THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET. Their presence is literally unknown to everyone but a minority of those that listen to and follow Visual Kei. How can you be losing a market that you have LITERALLY 0 presence in? You can't, because they were never there to begin with. This is a failing of the band. If they're not marketed, how am I to know I can purchase their music in the US, or Europe? If you disagree, show me sales outside of Japan that indicate otherwise.
You can't argue that NB are losing sales and international market potential due to downloads, because to argue such you have to be ready to prove it with statistics. At that point you can argue that you THINK they MIGHT be losing potential; but due to the complex buying habits of individual persons, I would disagree with you. As mentioned above, how many of those downloads are from people that are curious and want to see if they like the music? how many are from people who want to give the band another chance and see if they're any good? how many are from people who genuinely like the band and want their new release for free? You don't know these things, and those are but 3 of the endless factors that take place when someone purchases an album.
I can only speak off of personal experience (and others can attest to this as well, I'm sure); but as others have said, many of those downloads could very well be of those that would not even buy their music in the first place, and perhaps don't even like the band. BUT, those downloads could also come from people who are curious about the music, and intend on paying for their goods if they like the band. I could easily inflate my argument to assume that those people (those that gain interest in the band, download, like them, and then begin supporting them) are the very refutation of your point that downloads are killing their market potential; but even I know that's not the whole picture. When I mentioned personal experience, I am referencing my large (and growing) collection of Classical that I have bought (and torrented). I recently picked up Kleiber's infamous recording of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. I downloaded it first though, listened a few times, then purchased a physical copy. Why did I do this? Carlos Kleiber is dead along with many of the musicians that took part in that recording. They won't receive the money, so by logic I can argue I don't NEED to pay; but I did to show my furthering support (and Wagner Operas do not come cheap) of the music. In fact, most purchases have come this way where I wanted to listen to a recording before making a decision. I'm not saying that this is what everyone in the world that torrents does; but this is a group you have neglected in your assessment, and which I guarantee makes up a large portion of this community from the amount that have indicated this notion in the past.
In regards to ("but I think your reasoning is flawed in a business perspective. Because it obviously does affect the market enough for the band to actually say something about it,") - you can't argue this because you don't truly know. What if their record label is acting through them by proxy? Those more skeptical would indicate such, especially when you take into account the variety of bands that speak out about piracy, and in which in many of those cases, financial dealings have nothing to do with it.
tl;dr: There are too many factors that are in place for you to make the argument that illegal downloads are responsible for the band's lack of market hold abroad. As I have indicated, that cannot be the case when 1. they don't have the presence in the international market that you think they do. 2. You are assuming an outdated argument that illegally downloading = huge impact to the band when in many cases (i.e. even big bands like Metallica) they don't see much, if anything, from CD profits (to make this argument you'd need to know how much NB make from record sales vs. merch and ticket sales). and 3. you are failing to take into account the complex buying habits of individuals.
If you can address points 1-3, and provide statistics as support for the claims on losing market potential, etc., then I will be thoroughly persuaded and will be driven to find out more about this issue. Until then, I still say you need to broaden your understanding seeing as how with points made above, it is far more complex than the black-and-white issue you're trying to draw it into.
Finally, please link me to your 60 page thesis if you can, I'd love to read it.
I don't like the new version either. I find all of the changes they made questionable and the "improved" production really takes away the magical quality the original had, which is why I'm not too big on the idea of an album full of remade songs when it's Ruellia. In my opinion Ruellia did the Lo-fi right and a lot of their character came from their casette hiss and atmosphere created by the production, but now that it's clearer, their sloppy musicianship is exposed in a bad way. That thing that replaced the solo is just fucking terrible and the prominent piano sux.
The new song is alrite, though the generic vk intro gives off bad vibes. I'll try to sit on it for a while before making a judgement though, since one tends to hold new tracks under more scrutiny than something that would already have been in their back-catalog - especially if it's some old band making a comeback ( which that has been surprisingly good so far ).
For the last two hours I've been trying to come up with something clever to say to this, but I'm just too overwhelmed by the immense stupidity and ignorance of this statement to come up with anything.
Why do they need to rerecord them? Some of those (Kurenai, X, Silent Jealousy and Art of Life) are close to perfect in their original form, and there's no way they would manage to improve them. They would kill them with a modern, sterile and lifeless production, and no enthusiasm and energy. Sounds good, yeah. Jesus, this fanbase, man.
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