saiko

yikes less than 300 views in a day lmaaoooo fucking rip yohio 
 
I can't believe how this dude can't dedicate himself to any project he starts. He can obviously rip off gazette musically, sing and scream very well and design merch for himself and what have you. And despite all that, he doesn't commit to a consistent release schedule, he doesn't stick with any project he starts ( remember the girl band? remember awoken by silence? remember this oskar he was hyping on his label? actually remember his label in general? or his podcast for that matter ) By the time a nobody vk band like Jigsaw or something has put out release after release while struggling to stay alive in cut-your-hair-or-die no welfare Japan, this dude has only flexed to an ever-dwindling number of people on twitter in an attempt to become a motivational speaker or something. He's accomplished astoundingly little after the second solo album came out and it's been years. He's obviously from a rich family and definitely hasn't worked a day in his life because his malnourished manlet child-body looks like wouldn't survive a day in the cold, so why the fuck can't he get anything done when he has all the time in the world to sit on his ass and play video games? I loved second and third DISREIGN pvs so I'm just blown away how someone can be almost legit for one minute and a total flop for the remaining 59. 

FUCK OFF
I WANNA DIE 

This album rocks my socks off rn

Fair point about the guy spamming  and just trying to get free stuff, it isn't hard to put a bit of money aside for buying music so yeah that is a bit shitty and yep, you're not under any obligation to share stuff you have paid good money for if you do not wish to.
 
But yeah, the point regardless is still fact, that it DOES cost more to get Japanese stuff from overseas, and the point I was making that for the same price you can get a lot more bang for the buck so the fact the CDs are overpriced in the first place (yes I know they're all generally 20 somethings trying to make a living and its helping keep them "in the scene" etc.... so no need to go there) is just difficult to justify, £20 for a full length album, £10/15 for a two/three song single or £30/40 for a live DVD..... c'mon..... As I said, for bands I do really love I will still support them and buy the stuff, but I just personally find it hard to justify when you can get way more for the same prices not from Japan. haha.
 
+ Just on an ending note, you have a crappy attitude in general (at least the way you portray yourself through this forum), so you may need to look at keeping that in check. Just saying. lol.

D'erlanger is by far more interesting imo. Buck-tick started to be a thing since 'Aku no hana', then with 'Kurutta taiyou' their classic sound embraced its true form. No wonder why the most part of their hits come from this albums, and not from their prior ones. Speaking of them, they are a wank of formulaic pop punk rock, same as other acts like Boowy. 

D'erlanger is by far more interesting imo. Buck-tick started to be a thing since 'Aku no hana', then with 'Kurutta taiyou' their classic sound embraced its true form. No wonder why the most part of their hits come from this albums, and not from their prior ones. Speaking of them, they are a wank of formulaic pop punk rock, same as other acts like Boowy. 

I’m not going to stop, so feel free to put me on ignore. 

Daigo from Breakerz? 

Just what the hell is momma goth doing? She just made a killer comeback with Malice Mizer last year, and now opens a Youtube account to upload this... don't know how to name it.
 
Now I have less doubts over if it was the right decision for Közi and Yuuki to leave her alone...
 
Also, Seth is a really talented singer, what the hell is he doing joining this madness!!!

Pop and Metal are considered to be almost completely opposite genres of music. One is perceived as being major key, happy, upbeat, often repetitive and known for not being diverse, while the other is perceived as minor key, angry, and incredibly diverse (Of course, these are just stereotypes). Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, these genres are sometimes mixed. Whether it's the popular artist Poppy, or the infamous Babymetal, these genres were bound to cross one way or another, especially in Japan, and Visual Kei is no exception.
For one, the mixing of the two comes with the territory of Visual Kei. After all, the movement in the 90's was filled with songs that contrasted Thrash Metal riffs with Post-Punk choruses. It is also definitely not unusual for a band to play multiple genres of music on one album. Even to this day, Visual Kei songs will often have a chorus that sounds completely different from the rest of the song. It's basically given that there will be some bands here and there who mix elements of Pop and Metal.
While there are a lot of Visual Kei bands that mix pop and metal, for this, I will be focusing on bands that specifically mix elements of J-Pop, since those are the most distinct and so I can make the title relating to Babymetal lol.
 
A very infamous example of this was the cult classic band DEViL KiTTY. Mixing pop and metal was their bread and butter, whether it's primarily poppy songs with occasional metal riffing, such as DRIVE, or a very thrashy, angry metal song that goes pop in the chorus, such as Hello Katty. They also just had fully pop rock songs with no metal elements whatsoever, such as 束縛 (Sokubaku), or full on metal songs with no pop at all, such as アンチお洒落系 (Anti Oshare-Kei). Their early looks also mixed in some elements of Harajuku Fashion, but that changed after ESE IKARE Rockstar, where they just started wearing suits. Not only that, but their music contains a lot of Japanese pop culture references, whether it be Japan's early internet culture in songs like 奇形の２ちゃんネラア (Kikei no 2channeler) or even references to Visual Kei culture itself, such as バンザイお洒落系 (Banzai Oshare-Kei). Their lyrics, however, were far from radio-friendly, as Yuuga's love for sex songs is well known, and many songs are your typical vkei songs about not-so-savory stuff like murder. To summarize it, DEViL KiTTY's sound was an abrasive, lo-fi interpretation of Visual Kei's love for mixing genres, with a huge emphasis on the contrast between the heavy parts and the poppy parts.
Although this primarily applies to their 2002-2004 era. When they returned in 2015, they still mixed pop with metal, but focused way less on the contrast. However, there was one song, バンギャル最終兵器 (Bangya Saishukeiki) sort of channeled old Devil Kitty with a modern take, but that was their last ever release. (Note: While making this, I just realised the only good quality upload of the PV for バンギャル最終兵器 was taken down. RIP)

Selected listening:
Deaitai (出愛隊) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9suBOucP7I
Hello Katty (note: I plan to upload the PV for this soon, but for now, please bear with this video) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj7qwpfdwtM
 
Another infamous example of this is legendary Oshare-Kei band An Cafe. Specifically, their early years. Whereas DEViL KiTTY mainly focused on harshness and aggression, An Cafe was more focused on contrasting heavy with happy (or should I say, Nyappy?). Of course, in the beginning, their lyrics weren't always happy, as songs like My Favorite Beat actually have sorta dark lyrics. However, especially unlike DEViL KiTTY, these guys' music was definitely something that would probably be played on a pop radio station if those songs were ever popular enough to do so. Like DEViL KiTTY, they make references to Japanese pop culture, and implement elements of Harajuku fashion into their looks. (I mean, the whole Oshare-Kei shtick kinda grew out of Harajuku fashion). Sadly, they kinda dropped the whole thing sometime after 2005 (I'm not sure when because I honestly do not listen to much of An Cafe after their first album) and went on to just being pop rock, and then Bou left.

Selected listening:
My Favorite Beat - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOjcc6B_C04
Touhikairo (頭皮回廊) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIeV3a174o8
 
So what are your thoughts on these type of bands? What are your favourite examples?

That they look like women. Man, I love the music but looking at artists sometimes and just see a bunch of gay looking dudes.

the "Karen " haircut is described as the "Middle age house wife who wears yoga pants but doesn't practise yoga who lives in a middle class gated community and spends all her time on pinterest and wish." Sooo all of yall with those good shop skillz, pick your visual kei person and have fun 
tip: here's an example of the hair:

Don’t know what they expected. If they’re pushing for an international audience, renouncing VK isn’t it.
 
There are basically four camps:
1) Those that will only listen to VK, because the aesthetics are slightly more important than the music.
2) Those that mainly listen to VK because of an interest in the scene, but who wouldn’t stop listening if a band dropped their image, if the music was still good. Won’t seek out non-VK bands regularly .
3) Those that listen to all types of J-music as long as it’s good. Doesn’t care one way or another if it’s VK.
4) Actively avoids VK, either because “it’s gay”, or “I hate the fandom”. Won’t listen to a band that used to be VK either, because of fandom crossover.
 
So basically, there’s very little reason for a band to drop the “VK” label, especially in the foreign market.

I found some ~essence~ for retsu
 

For the most part I feel the same about the album as a whole being messy (dunno if any remainder gya would dig it), but at the same time...
 
This is probably one of the more exciting things I've listened to in a loooong time and I really want them to implement a lot of what's present here in a future release. It was not exactly the songs, but those brief "woah" moments that really made the album for me. I'd get into a groove and then there's this section of weird aural fuckery that gives me the tingles, but afterwards the track might lull out. The mixing is pretty great too, though I wonder if it's b/c I'm used to muddled cheap-kei production as of late. 
 
I have a good feeling I'll be listening to this album for at least a month.
 
Brief Notes:
The chorus of "MIST" on first listen kind of gave me レイラ/nil admirari vibes (?) "Take me out in the midnight" is the most Chon-like of the tracks, and it's super fun. "Funny world" is all over the place but it absolutely works. Sounds like it would be a killer live track. "+&-" at the beginning almost felt like an iglooghost track, but abruptly turned into a trap instrumental Beiber would use (a bit of a head scratcher.) The beginning of "for the future" sounded nu-BMTH, but the rest of the track was pretty normal. "Tick Tak" is godly, especially after 2:00. There are parts of "TO FOOL" that are a fucking trip, but then "Before it's too late" goes really heavy-handed with that nu-metal-like intro. Then it's just Sho screaming with R2-D2 getting the succ in the background and it sounds fucking goooood. "out of the darkness" starts out pretty nice and then the vocals get all sensual and whispery... then just goosebumps w/ those sub bass sections w/ bonus taser noises. "Lament" ended on a super fun note.

"In the next episode of Dimlim no Dorama: Will Retsu finally find his true inner self? Is Sho able to handle the sudden fame after the release of MISC or will he leave the band just one week before their sold out Tokyo Dome Show? Will Hiroshi finally doing anything? Will Laptop-san finally get the stage presence he deserves?"

I would assume that the Smiley Thing will be their next PV.

On this matter I would like to congratulate Gravity for making a point of being acknowledged as グラビティ↗↗楽しさ♪FULLVOLTAAAGE. I think they took this very seriously and I appreciate the effort. 

IMHO this is yet another the case of the "NOT HEAVY = HORRIBLE" tired trope, similar to what happened with DEZERT.
 
And yes, while I was also expecting more, there's also a lot of raw good ideas here, that could definitely have used a couple months more to flourish. After Rijin there was Kidoairaku, so I'l treat it as what it is: a conceptual release, an experiment to further polish the identity they are looking for.
 
highlights: What's Up?, Lament, MIST, Tick Tak, out of the darkness

Me listening to the majority of MISC:
 

 
nah, it wasn't horrible, but "What's up ?" was false advertising like a muhfucka. That was the best song on this bih.
 
"For the future" was nice too. Chorus ruins  "Tick Tak".
 
Overall, I appreciate their willingness to experiment, but I definitely think the album was a mess and many of their artistic choices were...questionable. Also lol'ing at the fact that they still sound VK as fuck.
 
 
p.s: the boogieman shit was better.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the hillarious pinned comment the band put in the section of the video: 
 
"Let's think about the "ESSENCE"".
 
I want to take Retsu seriously, but they guy puts it challenging. I don't know if it's his awkward use of English, his insistence on the matter in every place of his social media,  or both.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the hillarious pinned comment the band put in the section of the video: 
 
"Let's think about the "ESSENCE"".
 
I want to take Retsu seriously, but they guy puts it challenging. I don't know if it's his awkward use of English, his insistence on the matter in every place of his social media,  or both.

Can you post here some translated comments?

we been knew yes

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the hillarious pinned comment the band put in the section of the video: 
 
"Let's think about the "ESSENCE"".
 
I want to take Retsu seriously, but they guy puts it challenging. I don't know if it's his awkward use of English, his insistence on the matter in every place of his social media,  or both.