saiko

20 minutes ago, Takadanobabaalien said:

In celebration of their long careers they decided to have a gig in USA despite having 99% japanese fans 

True, but I bet there is a good number of Japanese fellows there in Nyc. On the other hand, it's not uncommon to the VK scene to have kind of wealthy fans, so maybe the trip could be affordable to them (Nyc is not that far from Tokyo, isn't it?). I remember attending L'arc's gig at Madison Square Garden and seeing that at least 50%-60% of the public were Japanese fans. 

I don't think they will have any problem fulfilling the bar.

2 hours ago, Axius said:

They were good towards the beginning then fell short. I like them a lot becuase everything about them during that time was done very different there style music and looks all were good... well most.  Anyway I guess i can see why people would hate them but i also dont at the same time. His voice does take sometime to grow and get into.

Thinking this quickly -thus not very profoundly- I feel Mejibray did have a good work there, mostly in the beginning of their career, like you say.

First, they were all very skilled musicians; and yes, that reaches Tsuzuku, too. I can agree on him having serious limitations to bring all his studio performance to his live performance, but the final result wasn't so different, mostly in their last era. On the other hand, he had a pretty strong and sensitive expression, in line with Kiyoharu's style, but also very unique. I mean, you could recognize Tsuzuku from every angle of the scene.

He wrote very beautiful lyrics, too, not over-the-top but kind of sophisticated in terms of poetic expression.

Second, they built-up very interesting and recognizable in-stage characters, which is the key of the visual aestehtics of 'visual-kei' in difference with other approaches to 'glam' in rock music. The best example of this was Meto's wheelchair and creepy teddy bear. Paradoxically, this something that the majority of "vk" bands can't achieve, mostly because they basically do rip-off certain famous characters of the past; I think we can all agree that Meto, Kouichi and Tsuzuku looks are still blatantly plagiarized to date.

Third, they did had a very unique sound. The tones Mia, Meto and Kouchi's chose for their instruments created that 'sandy' sound that, when coupled with Tsuzuku's shrieky vocals, made the band instantly recognizable, no matter which song you could listen to. And in terms of songwriting, they did have some memmorable songs. I can think of "Raven" and "Decadence"; certainly there wasn't something like that in the scene in the past.

For me, the weak point of Meji was the obvious plagious they did to some hit songs from classic bands (Deluhi, or even the Gazette), and also the 'formulaic' basic songs that they started to put out during the second half time as a band, more-less after "Theatrical Blue Black". Plus, I've never found their B-sides so exciting either. I think they got over-produced, and thus over-exploited. Maybe so much that they ran out of ideas, so they had nothing else to do rather than making 'catchy' songs for bangya to do furitsuke, copy-pasting their previous clichés in different ways, while choosing to put on the most eccentric attire and make the sexiest posing on stage. So they obviously gradually lost all their music value and started to become an 'idol' band.

Shoyo is a monster on bass, a very charismatic performer and also a cutie lol

What a bunch of cute fellows we are!

Also, surprised by the amount of handsome guys here... 😶 👉👈 

Should I point out my crushes? Lol

6 hours ago, Neigedesmannes said:

Wow, k-pop hairstyles have come a long way since back then :0 But i actually prefer this old style way more 

9 hours ago, yurameki24 said:

Korean group  :  H.O.T

I only remember that the sixth grade of Elementary School saw my sister listening to "H.O.T-We Are The Future"

Then don't know why I found the "X Japan" band,I remember listening to "Rusty Nail"

 

 

Very interesting! Love the sound and visuals!

I've heard that the usage of hair and make-up in Kpop was pretty inspired into vk bands of the 90s. Is that true?

14 minutes ago, psychonnect_rozen said:

 

 

 

Literally screaming

33 minutes ago, chipathy said:

theyve been posted  around on this forum im too lazy to look for it

 I'll quote it here if there's anyone interested. 

Tl;dr this guys is total edgelord level dressing-like-a-fucking-faggot-and-pretending-to-spread-hate-over-faggots. He doesn't even hit a single note for fucks sake!

6 minutes ago, chipathy said:

hes made homophobic tweets in the past and i guess since 90% of their music videos feature high school or younger girls, well people think that might be a bit suggestive of his tastes if you know what im getting at 

I always liked the girl in sailorfuku theme, it's like the very key of their aesthetic and I feel it sums their concept very well. I've never could guess what you are talking about lol

Then, homophobic tweets? That's even serious stuff. Do you have a proof of that?

2 hours ago, tenshi said:

R指定 lmao

 

Don't know if it necessarily counts seeing as it's less people hating the band and more people just hating Mamo, for obvious reasons.  He seems to only be hated by western vk fans from what I've seen.  

 

Why would someone hate Mamo?

39 minutes ago, Reikatsumi said:

 

Well  Inside Beast MV is an obvious rip off  Marilyn Manson’s MV for Tainted Lo

Could be, but 'Inside beast' isn't EVERYTHING the Gazette actually did or does.

The Gazette a rip-off? Well, I get that some people won't like them and that's ok, but saying that they are a mere 'rip-off' speaks of literally not having anything in your ears out of a massive necessity of identification with A so you need to hate B in order to love A.

That said, whether liked or not, and although nobody can't deny that they still have their flops -in terms of uninspired works-, the Gazette actually DID their job and seated a precedent in a majority of the 'formula' that defines modern and also classic  'visual-kei' sound, visuals, lyrics, etc., like a few artists did. Same goes for X, Luna, Kuroyume, L'arc, Rouage, Laputa, Malice Mizer, Pierrot, Shazna, Dir, Nightmare, Mucc, Sid, baroque, Kagerou, Antic Cafe, Kagrra, Deluhi, Kiryu, Nocturnal Bloodlust, and a long -LONG- etc. including and every band that has some status of cult-following.

Just stop hating freely and try to listen carefully to the artists that made the bands you like to happen. And if you don't want to, that's ok, but try not to sound pretentious.

Hm.

49 minutes ago, Komorebi said:

The stores closing is more related to physical CD sales declining in Japan than the VK scene dwindling.

Oof, that was close hehe

9 hours ago, Mr.0 said:

I'm planning to

I'd love to watch it! Ganbatte!

An Cafe has actually had some teary 'last lives' instances in their history: Bou's last live, before-hiatus last live and now this. Such an emotionally-unstable band, he. I deeply admire how they struggled till the end to remain together and achieve big goals. 

2 hours ago, nekkichi said:

Im so proud for str8 people finally having courage to open up about their straightness, humanity truly has come a long way x

 

congratulations to the happy couple!

Thus said, seriously, I think the main reason why VK bandoman usually don't go all the way telling their bangya they are actually married is, aside from the specificities of Japanese artist mangaments, because they are actually non-straight in most cases.

41 minutes ago, yomii said:

 i'm curious what's happening and if it's a sign of certain changes in the scene. what happened with takemasa doesn't happen too often, and there are many bandmen who keep their secrets without getting into trouble, wouldn't it be safer to just keep everything in secret as usual?

Right?

Moreover, I smell this could have to do with the suddenly massive-closing of VK stores. Like VK fandom started to stretch out and managements are doing their best effort to keep their signed artists 'appealing' to the bangya that left in the scene?

So, suddely bandoman are getting pushed by their managements to start covering their own asses pre-announcing they are already married so their bangya won't be delusioned after knowing it by themselves? 

Takemasa Kujo marked precedent over the subject, I think.

Singer is terrible

K-Pop is a very broad term. I assume that here we are using it to refer to "gender-band pop" music as much as the common sense does, so I'm going to use it that way, too.

I like K-Pop because of two reasons.

First, the visual one. K-pop is always eye-candy. I just love watching their high-skilled dancing moves; some of them are nearly acrobatic. Then, I like their looks and tbh they are really beautiful and hot to watch, both guys and girls.I can't deny it, lol. And also they have kinda sophisticated looks in terms of hair and clothes, so it's always pleasant to look at them dance.

Then, there is their approach to pop music. I like their music, indeed, and that's because they have 'that' sense of melody and harmony that makes them sound 'South-korean' although you can really hear many arrangements that sometimes are just ripped-off a Rihanna, Ariana Grande or Taylor Swift song. I mean, you really can't expect, in matters of cultural contact and exchange, a product to be the "exact" repliqué or the copy of its inspiration source in other culture. Cultural phenomenons are always objects of "reception" within a discourse that is always different from the discourse of the origin, so a full "copy" can never happen but a re-signification and re-placement of it in a whole new perspective. So, K-pop is 'Ariana Grande', but isn't 'Ariana Grande' at the same time. The same happens with VK; you can definitely hear the Bauhaus or Slipknot influence, yet you know at the same time that you choose Dir en grey or the Gazette because they actually sound not only 'Japanese' but also 'visual kei'. I'd like to explain here what is that thing that I my ears feel like 'South-korean', but I haven't had the time to analyze it as much as I did with VK...

Finally, let me be clear over some stuff: Yes, K-pop is mainstream oriented, thus very conformism-inducing, massive-identification oriented, and blablabla everything else you could argue about it pointing out its flaws as a social phenomenon, and probably I couldn't agree more with you. Yes, I'm also aware of their slave-like treatment and deeply reject it... I assume the contradiction and it'll be very interesting to discuss it.

Btw, welcome! Enjoy your state here!

I've given the same opinion here is MH a few times... BPR is pushing their artist stuff really hard. In the case of Kiryu, their releases after "Akai mi hajiketa" started to got gradually uninteresting; just pieces of their many clichés combined in different ways, like a patch-work. So their visuals. Of course, technical execution and videoand music recording/mixing are always decent, and the composition can be overall-ejoyable, because you are there to listen to Kiryu's unique approach to visual kei themes. But thus it becomes REALLY repetitive and less 'genuine', I lost quickly my interest; I mean they can't become memmorial like 'Kyouka suigetsu', 'Etsu to utsu', 'Amaterasu'. Just fillers.

I wonder if this situation could be considered at least a partial influence in the recent wave of VK stores closing (which can be assumed to point out the suddenly lack of interest of people who were recently into VK).

Kanon was An Cafe's biggest composer, guy's really talented doing that and also a great bass player! Btw, love the otaku motif that his music regularly include!

Totally looking forward!

1 hour ago, chipathy said:

saku, karasuna, and kyouki all coming back this year, we dont deserve this much good fortune 

Within what band has Kyoki came back to the scene?

39 minutes ago, Disposable said:

That’s a tough question. For one, unlike what some might think I’m such a huge fan of vk that I can find something to enjoy in almost everything with varying degrees of guilt involved in the affair, and second, I just can’t find myself being driven to the point of disgust by anything going in the scene these days just because no individual band or event really matters or makes a difference anymore; it’s just all so irrelevant now. After this DEZERT menhera wave just repackaged the early 2010’s neon coloured mediocrity into new retro dreads ( literally some of these old royzcore bands jumped ship ) I’ve lost all hope for anything that interesting to happen, other than singular events of decent bands being decent and chugging along to a good run of a couple of releases, like say Kizu or Rands as of late. All that’s left in vk is to sink with the ship and watch it slowly fade after successive minor aesthetic morphosis taking place decade by decade, dissappearing out of sight into the dustbin as they disconnect my future 7D internet at the retirement home.

 

Back in the day I had a bit of hostility towards bands that had made clear attempts at having lamestream market appeal with a totally limp style like Girugamesh, D’espairsray and the rest of them, but one might as well fight against windmills rather than getting all hot and bothered about aging rockers losing touch and dignity whilst having bills to pay. If I was still to name something that can trigger me a bit, it’s late visual kei’s take on power metal like Jupiter that’s so excruciatingly awful that it makes me happy that at least all of us are going to die eventually and the heat death of the universe will make sure that there will be no one left on earth to play shitty music like that. Another thing are some of these very flashy bands that dazzle all the twelve year olds out there like Leda in Deluhi did to a degree, or Jiluka for example out of the contemporaries, but then again I can also listen to both these bands at any given moment just because I’m ridiculously biased towards the visual kei sound.

 

 

I want you to have a long and awesome debate with @Zeus over the fate of VK in the next ten years.

3 hours ago, keilu said:

He uploaded his blog and yep, more comments about all this

 

https://lineblog.me/kiryu_takemasa/archives/8415997.html

Some please translate asap!