Ikna

My fav band is Syndrome, though I like Mirage very much as well. But Syndrome's musical style appeals more to me. I really love their first era with Tatsuya as vocalist. He might have had the typical 90s Matina singer voice, but it fit so well to the dark and gloomy rock music they played. Mirage in comparison was much lighter and "easier" to listen to (yeah, some of their later songs with Akira were already in the Syndrome direction and I just love GRAVE～古エノ眠リ～, the song's intro is amazing). I am not so fond of their later stuff with Asagi as vocalist... because in my opinion his operatic voice didn't really fit to the band's style. Well... Kisaki's other bands... I listened to all of them and also liked them, but I prefer his older band projects. La:Sadie's was basically Missa era Dir en grey with no budget and a really unpolished sound. Stella Maria were nice, but if I remember correctly Kisaki's impact on the band was small (he was their member only for a short time, right?). I was a big fan of Phanatsmagoria back when I got into Vk. But Mago's songs can't reach the quality that Mirage and Syndrome had. May also have to do with the fact that these band's best songs were not written by Kisaki but other band members. Let's be honest: Kisaki isn't really a good composer. He likes to reuse old songs or part of melodies we have heard in dozen of other vk songs and recycles them- like he recycles whole songs and albums of his band and re-releases them. Phantasmagoria were especially guilty of this (but Syndrome too... some Asagi era songs were just older songs with a little bit of musical tweaking). Lin however were a wonderful improvement. They had bigger reportoire of songs and therefore more to offer. But overall they still were mediocre. Never cared so much for the whole Kisaki Project thing...

Oh, I forgot about them. I agree... Phantasmagoria were fun first. Now I think Syndrome and Mirage were one of Kisaki's better bands, Mago just didn't have enough songs (only thousand re-releases) and the few ones get boring fast. I still listen to Vidoll though... I just love their early releases. But I stopped following them after Bastard. Nightmare and 12012 are like this too. I catch myself listening to their older songs but I really can't get into their stuff past 2007.

Ha, good that that post was resurrected. Because I have a lot of bands I don't like anymore. First all the boygroups and pop bands I was listening to long before I actually developed a "music taste". I was just listening to anything running up and down in the radio: Sugarbabes, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Scooter, etc... Can't really say that I "liked" them, but I digged some of their songs. I didn't become interested into music until highschool (age 11 here in Austria). In 2003/04 all my friends in school started to listen to "edgy" music. They started to dress in black, dyed their hair black, put studs on basically everything they've got into their hands and claimed to be Punx or "Satanists". Of course I got into the whole crap to, because somehow you want to be as cool as your peers... that's when I bought my first real CD, Green Day's American Idiot. I felt like a really radical Punx, omg. And other things I like in my embarassing mallgoth phase: Within Temptation - I was hooked by their first album Mother earth and thought it was the gothiest shit on earth. Lost my interest after their album The heart of Everything. I felt like it doesn't compare at all to their earlierer material. I still kinda like Mother earth... but I don't really care about them. Nightwish - the same as above. Ha... I was also one of the gurls who bashed their new singer after Tarja left the group. Deathstars - Cheesy and tacky "Industrial" Metal band who are still my guilty pleasure band. Dimmu Borgir - I actually don't like Metal so much... of course I did in the past or at least I pretended I'd do. Epica - Not really a bad band, but I just generally lost all my interest for Symphonic or Power Metal And when it comes to Vk, into which I got between ca. 2005-2007 Moi dix Mois - Omg... I still remember my days of my Mana Worship. I saw the band first in an Anime magazine and was like "holy shit they look interesting" but didn't get into them until I stumbled upon their Nocturnal Opera CD and bought it. I was pretty MdM crazy and of course convinced that Mana was the most beautiful, mysterious and kewl man on the entire planet. I can't say I dislike them (except most of their fans, even though I was pretty much another stupid fangirl) but I don't appreciate them as much as I did a few years ago. I listened almost daily to their stuff and nowadays I am not keeping up with their releases (haven't listened to their latest release). But I still love Malice Mizer. That band was also more versatile and interesting than MdM will probably ever be. Unsraw - Oh, heavy, badass Viii keeey that's so unique and awesome!!, ugh. But I forgot about them pretty quickly, only was a fan for one and a half year *lol* The Gazette - loved (and still like) their old stuff until NIL. After that they became rather boring for me. Those aren't all, but I think I have forgotten about the most... anyway, I am still a lame weaboo who liked pretentious, crappy shit. But as long as it suits my taste and I am enjoying it I don't give a fuck about it. I am sure in 4 years my music taste has changed again and i will have stopped listening to certain groups i think are the shit now.

Oh well, how do we start? Old Gazette were pretty much fitting into the whole obscure indie Matina thing, since they basically were first on that label. So their look and musical style was very much up to my liking, even though they weren't as dark as Nagoya kei groups of that time or actually comparable to kost of their label colleagues. I really like their first material after they went from indie to PSC as well. It sounded fresh, new and more like the early 2ks yet it still had the very first Gazette flair. And I liked the way ruki sang. I feel his singing has changed dramatically and everything that was unique to his style has vanished... That said, I started to dislike their work ca. 2006 or 2007. That was generally the time a lot of bands I loved started to change sounds heavily in favor of popularity since the old school sound became pretty much obsolete. I can understand why Gazette did this as well... I just miss songs like Wakaremichi. I still bought their NIL album. Stacked Rubbish didn't impress me enough to make a buy worth and after that I didn't feel anything anymore listening to songs or previews. I don't have a problem with the bandmember looking like Hosts instead of rocking the leather clothes and funky dyed hairs. I have a problem with how uncreative, boring and just insignificant they became. Every song's seem to be the same and they just lack whatever made me fall in love with their older stuff. Call me a pissed "forever stuck in the past" fan, but i will always like old (and oldschool vk) Gazette much more.

I am happy that they continue. They are surely not the greatest and most innovational band, but it's always good to have a few old school influenced groups in the scene. Don't think that their activity gives really much hope though. The majority of the vk scene doesn't care about an obscure indie band which sounds "old".

^ You have good points. I don't have so much "problems" (the word isn't the right to describe it, but I don't know what else to choose) with bands putting some Italian, Spanish or French into their songs as with foreign bands putting japanese words into the lyrics, maybe because of what you say about japanese being obscure to the western crowd. Most of us are familiar with european (or latin) languages so it doesn't really appear to be too odd when a band adds some french to spice up the lyrics. I am not able to speak or understand any japanese so I can only reckon how well non japanese bands can write japanese texts. Though, ultimately, I say: if you lack the basics of a language, no matter which one, you shouldn't use it, especially if the parts need to be clearly audible. Don't know how to feel about the "it's okay, when you can't properly understand it anyway. I might to disagree with you on that because in my opinion adding words to a song with the intent of making meaningful lyrics (instead of, say, avantgarde stuff or "laguage isn't necassary as long as the music speaks for itself") also should offer the listener the possibility to understand what he can hear or at least can look it up or translate it into his/her language. That's just my opinion, because I am always very curious about songtexts. And I know the majority of people don't care about that at all, because for them lyrics don't matter as much as the music and the emotions it can transport. And it also adds that foreign bands singing in japanese will always appear much more like "trying too hard" then a pop rock group putting spanish into their songs. That has to do with the bad experience with weaboo fans in general who are just plain annoying with their forced usage of (mostly bad) Japanese. People are just sick and tired of those "I wish I were asian and could speak, act and live like a japanese person" types. I find Engrish in Vk rather hilarious... and I find it hard to have a clear position on that. In some way I wish Vk bands who fail terribly an English would realize that they should maybe not include whole sentences into their songtextes, when the grammar is so headache inducing and the spelling unbearable to hear. There are some Dir en grey songs I actually like but don't listen too often, because the engrish parts are so disharmonic for me. But I can live with those where they only use short phrases and single words. And then, on the other hand, you can't really blame them as much as you could with foreign groups getting it terribly wrong. Because Visual kei, after all, isn't marketed for us and the bands don't really have to care about western people shaking their heads at their song lyrics. In the end it's the band which will decide what they are doing. If they wish they can add japanese to their texts. It's just an advice not sing full parts in japanese, especially when there isn't anyone who really has enough knowledge about it. And with that I don't mean "university degree language skills", but knowing enough not to create google translator-like sentences. (and now I think that the need of understandable lyrics would be a good topic for a thread of itself... or did we already have one about it?)

Weaboo kei is of course very laughable... but people pissing into their pants about foreigners playing in visual bands is as well. I've already said it dozen times in this thread, but japanese bands are 90% of the time as mediocre (if not worse) as most try hard western vk bands, yet people still favour them because "they're asian and own Vi keeey". Visual kei started as an offshoot of the japanese underground scene, it was influenced by whatever genre was hip and trendy in japan the last 20 years, including Glam, Hair Metal, Punk, New Wave, Goth, Thrash Metal, Nu Metal, Metalcore, Techno, etc... and if you fail to see the pattern here (the genres being not restricted to the japanese island because of their mainly western origin) then I can't help you. Because almost nothing about visual kei is truly originally japanese and therefore owned solely by japanese people. Ignoring all those shitheads yelling "cultural appropriation!!!" visual kei can be adopted by non japanese people as well, as long as they don't act racist or just plain weabooish. I also mentioned this in the "looking for an oldschool online project thing" thread that western visual kei could offer a big potential to expand the "scene" with adding other and new influences to the music and style, mainly those of the non japanese culture. I don't really see the problem when the western world is fond of a thing coming from Japan, yet originating in western music scenes. It's the same with Lolita- people crying about white (or african, latina, etc) girls wearing Lolita fashion because in their opinion it's "an asian thing reserved only for japanese people", which is complete bullshit as the clothes that inspired Lolita fashion weren't even asian to begin with. About the Jet Set Gypsies: they aren't really that horrible and in fact I like their look. It's still heavily Japan inspired (they look like friggin Samurais from a japanese RPG) but their costumes look well put together and their make up, despite being very heavily but at the same tim reminding me a lot of early artists like X Japan when they tried to look like Kiss, is clean and not a shitty mess. Yeah, the chin part looks strange... yet still not as ridiculous as Kayas chin mask or kote kei guys totally exaggerating with their eye make up (shit tons of swirls, lines or drawing a whole japanese textbook on your face... you get what I mean?)... or Reita's noseband. And hey, at least they don't look like those guys: (pics from visual fucks, LJ. Miss this blog because it's an awesome source for things not to do with make up. Can't say I am better than the most, though *lol* but at least I try my best not looking as fucked up as the ones above... seriously, just don't be like them or it will hurt everyones eyes. And sadly there have been foreign vk bands with members looking exactly like those)

Just a well meant advice: don't force yourselves too much on writing japanese lyrics. Being able to sing it is fine when you cover original songs from that time that are japanese, but I think that anything else (such as self composed somgs) will fail for a few reasons. First, most people who are in vk bands can't properly speak japanese. Second: it will make you look like weaboos who are trying too hard. And a personal reason: I would like to see a foreign visual kei band who can add something of their own culture to the whole thing, both visually and musically. I feel that there's a lot of potential here and it isn't as appropriative and potentially embarrassing as people trying to appear asian. Show us that also non japanese people can rock it! I am pretty sure you can translate the old school style and vibe into English for example. Well... I wish you good luck though on finding band members. I'd would join a kote kei band anytime, but I can't play a guitar and even I'd do I would be terribad.

i am actually a Genre bitch as I take those generalizations really serious. But I do that so I can help myself finding new stuff that's similiar to the things I already like. If I want to find more bands sounding like The Cure for example then it just comes very handy when their musical style is put in some categories such as New Wave/Post-punk or goth to find bands who were heavily inspired by them and therefore have a similiar sound. But I am not doing this so much in Vk. In fact I am refusing to apply "genres" to Vk, even though most bands certainly can be put into one (as Vk alone doesn't often qualify as genre itself). I think it's good enough to differntiate between eraly punk-glam visual kei, 90s "Kote kei" stuff, Nagoya kei (traditional and "modern") and divide new vk bands into "Hardrock/Metal", "metalcore/hardcore" or "Pop (Rock)". For me most Vk bands of a certain era had a certain style. You can be sure that 90% of say 1997-1999 era bands had either the typical Matina/Soleil/Key Party style or the typical soft visual style. Modern Vk works basically the same way. The "danger" I see in trying to put Genre labels over Vk is that fans often come up with alternate genres themselves. People then start to throw some bands based on their visuals and music into "[insert any cool or funky term or word] kei". I really don't think that fantastical categorizations like "Lolita kei", "Gothic kei", "Metal kei" etc. are really that useful when, in the end, it's all just Visual kei. So yeah, it would be the best to just leave them as Visual kei. Of course if you like it you can still personally put them into genre folders, but sometimes it will be hard to put a band into a certain category since Vk music is very heterogenous. Some bands can play a few spot on Death Metal songs and have another reportoir of songs fitting into the Pop Punk category- often those genre shifts happen even on the same release or album. Hm... I disagree I think people are way too much overrating early Dir en grey. They sure were a huge influence, but they weren't as unique and special as many claim them to be. Don't get me wrong, I love their early stuff, much more than their newer work. I don't know how familiar you are with old school visual kei, especially the small indies bands no man cared about, but most of them at that time sounded axactly like early Dir en grey. In fact their first album Gauze was almost like the band wanted to put every possible late 90s Vk clichée into it, starting with the whole "Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier" thing to the crazy maniacal laughter and stuff... (and as I am writing this Peace Heavy mk does a post with an even better description. But yeah, Dir en grey weren't really totally new stuff when they first appeared)

Despite the fact that I download a lot japanese music (other music not as much, because it's easier to get for me, except it's a discontinued release from 20 years ago that has never been re-released) I don't know so much about the laws and legal aspects of it. But I know that the copyright laws are very different. In the US the entertaiment industry tries any possible way to turn people into criminals so they can charge a shit load of money for having downloaded copyrighted material. I find it extremely exaggerated that even the FBI can arrest you and put into jail for downloading. But then I am living in Austria, where, as far as I know, downloading music per se isn't forbidden, unless you intend to use the files for commercial purposes or you are plagiarizing it (which I too consider as the real act of "stealing music"). If I remember correctly I read a lot of articles about the whole "if people don't buy records, the music scene will die" argument. It's an argument brought up by the media industry since the triumphal march of the cassette, which as we all know made copying and sharing music and videos very easy. I guess anyone who is old enough to remember the time when taping and recording music or radio programs was popular may be familiar with these nice warning signs: We all know that the music industry is still alive and very well and they survived the taping craze. Of course the internet is kind of a bigger dimension, because files aren't just shared with your best friends and their friends, the file can be accessed by billions of people. Popular music will spread quite fast. But I still don't believe the music industries condition is as worse as they claim to be. From what I can gather of articles in the net record sales declined already in 1999, so long before the whole file sharing thing dramatically exploded (which I think didn't happen until p2p and filesharing services became standard). And since one year the sales seem to rise again and (the interesting thing) partially due to people downloading from online shops like itunes. I guess it just can't be said objectively how many damage or not downloading makes as the whole issue is a double edged sword: really popular artists like Lady Gaga don't really suffer from declining record sales, because there are still enough people who buy the music or there are enough people willing to pay 100$ or more for a concert ticket. Some may be even following their artist and visit several concerts. If Lady Gaga and her Label gain 20 billion or just 10 billion $ doesn't make such a difference- of course only for us, not so much for the profit lusting music industry. But then you have to admit that those good earning superstars are an exception. The majority of bands and musicians are not rich and they don't earn that much money. So it makes a huge difference if the can get say 150.000 or only 50.000 $. (Vk groups of course make much less). Those numbers are just imaginary. I am not so familiar with the earnings of musicians, but you get the idea. The problem however is, that the smaller the band, not only the less will the earn, but the more will they suffer from the money the label takes from them. So in most cases just buying more releases alone won't help. And if it's true what I have read a lot of labels even charge their bands for the stuff and merchandising they sell on tours. That's actually stealing, but what can you do? (or what choices do the bands have)? So ultimately... downloading can be damaging, but it mustn't, and sometimes it's better to at least buy concert tickets or support the band otherwise than doing nothing. I know that coming from me sounds foolish though XD Regarding VK music: I agree with what most here said. Visual kei isn't really meant to be marketed for foreign fans. I'd say that this isn't even an "issue" concerning visual kei, basically anything from japan, except maybe video games and electronic devices, never surface outside the island, may be fashion, make up or any music (vk, as well as pop or rock music). I believe Japan doesn't really care for us mostly white weaboos as much as we do for their culture. Also notable is that japanese fans don't even want foreigners to drool over their Vk stuff. If you don't live in Japan and aren't able to go to the live yourself than that's your problem. Even if you ask nicely the japanese fans probably won't share the live distros with you. Of course that's also because they can't speak English so well, but I am sure they just don't give a fuck about us too. Also I doubt japanese record sales are so heavily influenced by sharing the stuff. Yeah, some japanese people will download them as well, but some of the truly hardcore fans are still buying everything or they are still visiting the lives and buy lots of chekis, photosets and so on. (and Vk bands actually make more profit with those than with records) Lastly... I have to thank the Vk filesharing community. The first Visual kei records I owned were bought myself, when Vk became "trendy" and cool here in europe and Gan-shin would distribute some artists here. But I didn't really get into the thing until I discovered the old school shit on blogs like Evil en Lucifer. There would have been no way at that time to find it otherwise, let alone buy it. I still don't have enough money to buy me everything i have on my wishlists and most of the stuff is hard to get. So blogs like these were really helpful. And I guess I will continue to share the old stuff I buy- in hope that people can get access of good rips instead of the 128 kps files floating around and because I think people need to check those groups out. I am not so fond of new vk, but I guess the principle is similar. Many people just want to share so people who don't have the money to order the CDs can still get to hear the band. Japanese CDs are really expensive for us foreigners, especially if shipping options are stupid and you are unlucky and have to pay custom fees.

Maria *_* Hope they will last a while because it's wonderful to have him back in a band.

OMFG Please tell me your secrets, I want to be as awesome and have that kote kei look skillz as you

*looking at their new look* Okay, this could become very interesting! Maybe they will do something more original this time. Would be happy if one of their new songs of their coming releases doesn't sound like a Dir en grey rip off for once.

Kote kei is another term foreign fans coined on the net... but what the hell is Koteosa supposed to be? I have seen this from time to time to describe oshare bands... I get that osa probably is taken from oshare (or even osare... ot going to fuel a new discussion if osare exists or not), but why the Kote part? A few people even say Koteosa are Kote bands who are poppy and colorful. But in my opinion Koteosa bands are just "Oshare kei". Okay, Kote kei isn't really a well defined term either. Though funny, If I remember correctly the image above belongs to a video tutorial for visual kei styles and Kote kei is one of them (I think the first pic?) And then there are things like Iryou kei, Kurofuko kei, Eroguro (kei) and whatnot... the only things I have seen that japanese people indeed use are Nagoya kei and Soft Visual. Also never understood the split into White kei or Black kei and such nonsense. Also does anyone remember when it was totes cool to invent new "subgenres" of visual kei, such as "Debiru kei", "Goschikku kei" (=that's the most stupid one. Weaboo engrish language and indication that those bands are goffick and "edgy"), "Lolita kei" and "Poruno kei". Always funny to see people who actually use them and put random bands into this "genres".

Kuhle Licht Psycho-nizm RAPUNZEL Dia le ktik Nerf VISAGE Arc:g:noël Madeth gray'll (yeah, it is a strange name) UNDEAD+SERAPH CORPSE ANOTHER PERSON (it's just "wtf?") Evil of Miser Deepthroat Valdo Creuz ewig≒zait Qual Dienërv D'espairsRay ALi'ze Mis Ra'ill Allegory Pill Crack Brain Cannival Method En:nesia Metis Gretel Loon Eye's Millyie Mist of Rouge Seeles Klar Unend Basically 80% of all oldschool visual kei bands had just plain silly (and unspeakable) names. The occasional German ones make me crack up the most. FUTURISM BOYZ would be a "newschool" name that I find totally terrible. Actually all band names that try to appear cool by putting a Z at the end. There are many stupid album names as well, but some songs would deserve an award for having the most silly title ever too. Rumble Fish by Acid Color Inferno tR=Lick by Lanus Dune I Truth Lie by Chateau La Tour Viking of Hell by Crimson Head (sounds like it's about trvue Viking Metalheads) .... to name a few songs with ridiculous names. (also: wasn't there already a thread with a similiar topic?)

Gary Numan - I Nearly Married A Human

Exactly what stylelover says. Hannibal doesn't have good ratings and when it doesn't get more popular in the US it might not survive until a 3rd season. Which would be a shame as the series has the potential for four, maybe five seasons. I agree that more "mainstream" series tend to become nonsense and boring, but Hannibal isn't the type of series which will have more than 6 seasons (though this is the amount the producers would like to reach). So yeah, I really hope more people will start to watch it in order to help the series not getting cancelled and giving it the attention it deserves (because Hannibal is really amazing9. I heard the 6th season of SPN is shitty from a lot of people (but the 8th being better). Well... let's just see. I still have to start watching Bates Motel, American Horror story and Hemlock grove. Wonder if the latter is as good as everyone claims.

8/10

Hurt Lycaon/Heal Kagrra, Nightmare - 10 Royz - 19 Lustknot - 11 The GazettE - 10 Lycaon - 4 MEJIBRAY - 7 Dir en grey - 7 Kagrra, - 11

DELUHI 10 Versailles 13 Megaromania 7 D 38 Matenrou Opera 30

Cynthia - Mask of Affectation ～虚像の仮面～

Thanks Arithmetica for the informational answer. I find it interesting that Dir en grey play at the same stage/tier as most japanese bands, especially Visual kei. That should be proof enough that they didn't get more audience and a commercial sell out band by changing their sound, what many people believe. They seem to be in the same Tier since years...

I agree, their look has kind of an Under Code-ish flavour if you know what I mean. It'd be awesome if they sound anything like Vior Gloire or Megaromania... but let's see.

As long as Trombe doesn't disband, everything's fine

Seconding Joy Division's Closer. It's a very iconic album cover, together with their Unknown Pleasure cover art as well. Dead Can Dance- Within the Realm of a Dying Sun Really awesome cover that fits perfectly to the dreamy, ethereal neoclassical music. In the Darkwave associated genre there are a lot of covers with "sad" or mysterious sculptures, but most of them look rather cheesy and cliché- this one, however, does not. Bauhaus- Burning from the Inside Depeche Mode- Black Celebration The bonus edition of the remastered album has a nice making off of this cover. It's really cool how everything was handmade and crafted carefully. There was no Photoshop back then and the cover artists put so much energy, time and blood into it. Tiamat- Wildhoney Last one, before the post gets too big: Gary Numan- Replicas