saiko
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Is anybody here interested in making a post about the 90s softvi movement? Yesterday I've got very hooked by a bunch of guys that I've never given the chance to listen to yet: Lastier, Jurassic, Close, Waive, and many more. Since they clearly don't belong to the more serious, gothic stuff that the category of visual kei calls for most of the time, I've turned my sight off them because they were mainstream appealing and blabla. But hey, they sound amazing! They bring all that 90s anime opening sound, powerful and dramatic, with that awesome chords modulations that made myself interest in J-music as a kid. So, if there's anyone here interested into giving more insight over them and/or music recomendations, here's your chance!
This is what I found on a brief research over softvi. Still don't know enough Japanese to go into more insightful sites, so my information may remain very little till somebody enlightens me more lol:
*They formed a large group into the 90s VK scene, and also many of them received constant attention from media (judging mostly from magazine covers);
*They had a kind of specific aesthetics for them, both visual and sound wise;
*Most of them (if not all of them) were signed under a label named Break out.
So they were a thing back then, so I think they are a key point to anybody interested in looking for VK's history (although they've fallen into the obscure side of the Western fandom's radar even to this day).
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Softkei is the best kei! Check out CHILD. My all time favs!
Softkei developed in the mid 90s as kind of like an antithesis to VK. Guys like SOPHIA and CASCADE kicked down the door to make it acceptable in the mainstream, while underground guys like 16,Piano, OZWORLD and Dias Ray were pioneering it in the underground. It was such a juggernaut by 1997 that already established bands like Glay, L’arc and Luna Sea started flirting with it.
Softkei reached its peak around 1999/2000 when guys like Janne Da Arc and e.mu started breaking the Oricon top 20 charts, while it took over the underground VK scene quite rapidly at around the same time with countless acts blossoming around then, some of the more noteworthy being JURASSIC, ~Akira~, Wyse and Waive, among dozens of others.
Unfortunately, softkei took a strong downward dip in popularity around 2003 when more traditional VK started to become more dominant, after rivaling softkei for several years. The mainstream appeal for softkei practically vanished around this time following the split of former leading major bands like e.mu and CASCADE. The only flagship bands that were still active at this point where Janne Da Arc and SOPHIA, whose popularity was eons past the visual kei lump-in. Tie in the fact that oshare kei became a major player in the visual underground at this time as well, and softkei was all but extinct by 2005.
Softkei will always be my favorite subgenre of VK. I guess I’m just a sucker for a nice hook, blonde bands and a sky blue aesthetic lol.
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@robkunwow, AWESOME! Also, very nicely written! Thank you so much!
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