keyinjpop

Well, Youtube only exists since 2005, so obviously there won't be any channels from early to mid 00's bands.
 
But in principle, you are right. 5 years ago hardly any indie vk band would bother with Youtube. Now it is very common for them to have channels or just some videos with samples. Rarely full PVs, because obviously selling PV-DVDs as an extra is still part of the vk business model.
 
 
And yes, copyright has gotten much more strict and complicated on YT. I used to upload vk videos on YT once in a while. I had like a million views on Versailles' Ascendead Master (which wasn't even a DVD rip, but ripped from TV). I even had a few hundred subscribers, lol. But after like 2 years the Ascended Master video was taken down due to copyright, as were some of my other videos. I made all my remaining videos private, except for some Versailles comment video. It just wasn't worth the trouble.
 
 
And as for the other question: why are foreigners in general less interested in vk than a few years ago? I will tell you why. It was only a fad to begin with. Nothing more, nothing less. When I got into vk about 14 years ago, there were very few foreigners interested in vk. Then from 2005/2006 onwards, it became a huge fad. A lot of bands, including smaller ones, started to tour overseas. Shops that were previously focused on Anime suddenly began stocking jrock. A lot of people jumped on the bandwaggon during that time. After a few years, I would say 2010/2011 onwards, the fad began to die down. People left the bandwaggon again. Apparently Kpop became the new fad, and I'm sure that one will die one day too.
 
I'd say we are still above the 2005-level of overseas vk fandom, but not as much as during the height of the fad.

But he was already pretty clear about it. It's not a cover, it's the same recordings he said.
 
 
Normally I would suspect that some random seller on Yahoo wanted to make some money and just faked the tape. But Kisaki's official site confirms the cover and tracklist and it's pretty weird in itself that the tracklist is 2/3 of the Nude-of-J tape. Which is another thing, the Nude-of-J tape has 3 tracks, so it's not just that the tape somehow ended up in the wrong case, someone must have gone through the trouble to copy over those 2 songs specifically.
 
 
Aaaaand there's more. I recently got the mp3s for another purported early Kisaki band, SHEY≠DE, via trade. It was later brought to my attention that they were probably fake. Fake files can happen in trades, although my source was usually a very realible one. One of the tapes I got is also on Kisaki's homepage, this one:
 
http://kisaki-official.syncl.jp/?p=shop&id=530032&af=
 
So, I showed my files to another japanese guy I know who's very knowledgable about old vk stuff, he said the tape I got was actually by a band called INSANITY.
 
And here's where it gets interesting.
 
Upon googling a bit I found this old auction where somebody was selling that old INSANITY tape: http://aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/w80588066/
 
The tracklist is slightly different, but look at the cover! It's the same as on Kisakis page, except that one is red!
 
 
For comparison:
 

瑠璃の雫 by SHEY≠DE
 
1. insanity
2. XXXXX
3. 夢遊病者
 
 

Unnamed tape by INSANITY
 
1. 恋模様
2. Desert Labyrinth
3. 瑠璃の雫
 
The first song on the SHEY≠DE tape has been altered with the name of the actual band (!), and the second one has been replaced with xxxxx (!!). The third song of the INSANITY tape was used as title for the SHEY≠DE tape (!!!). Now that's creative! But hey, at least he came up with a COMPLETLY NEW fake name for the 3rd song this time. And he re-colored the cover in Photoshop. That's gotta be worth something, right?
 
The INSANITY tape was sold for 1000 Yen btw. The seller could have asked for a lot more for a SHEY≠DE tape, so there's no reason whatsoever for him to fake a SHEY≠DE tape into an INSANITY tape.
 
 
At first I thought I was spoofed by a tricky trader. But there seems to be more to it. So after the dubious LAYBIAL and Levia tapes.... make it three.

Somehow I'm skeptical that foreigners' interest in vk is declining. Of course this isn't something quantifiable, but taking a cursory look at Twitter will suggest that even the indies vk bands show some awareness of their foreign fanbase (whether and to what extent they cater to this fanbase is a separate question). Also, the sheer number of VK bands having overseas tours these days indicates that there's still a healthy demand for vk bands outside of Japan - in addition to those who have toured Europe in the past couple of years, bands like DIV, Plastic Tree, Royz also regularly perform in Asia.
 
The youtube question is tricky, and like what Zess has said I suspect it's more of a consequence of copyright enforcement than a reliable index of foreign popularity. Just look at how many PV or full songs of obscure indies as well as disbanded bands do exist on youtube because there's a lot less surveillance in that case and these videos get taken down a lot less than e.g. Nightmare or ViViD PVs. Which is kinda ironic because obviously the disbanded bands won't be there to benefit from the publicization of their music lol.
 
Also, it'll be great if ppl can stop using "vk is dying!" as a sneaky shorthand for "the kind of vk I like is dying!".....

Here's a question for you: why film a promotional video if you aren't using it to promote music?
The answer is, there is none! To expect people to buy the promotional video to see it defeats the purpose of it's design, which is to promote your music. You aren't supposed to be able to directly make money off of the PV. The money you put into the video either comes out of your budget for the album or is something you recoup when you make sales. It's called the cost of doing business. Sometimes it's necessary to spend money to make more money. If you do make money off of the PV, that's just a bonus.
That's why visual kei bands seem to run into so many monetary issues. They spend a lot of money up front to get their costumes, photo shoots, albums recorded, etc. and then expect fans to pay up front for everything. Here, pay up front for this ticket to get this live distributed song which didn't cost us a fraction of the cost we're charging you to get it! Here, pay for this promotional video so you can see the song that we're going to make you buy twice so you can get all of the music. Also, buy both editions and get some meaningless poster bonus too! But you have to buy them from Like An Edison only to get the deal! Like shit, I get that you need to recoup your losses but there are better ways to do it. I'll name a few below.
Why don't Japanese visual kei bands run an official YouTube channel where they can place all of their PV's (or hell, all of their music if they wanted), and some live performances and just make you sit through an ad first? That's extra money that doesn't cost them too much work to get. Why don't really indies independent Japanese visual kei bands put their releases on Bandcamp or iTunes and set a minimum price? There are lots of ways they can cut out the middleman and save themselves some serious cash, but they don't.
But yet it's expected that we should just shell out $40 for the music? It's 2014 music doesn't work that way anymore bb.

I've been feeling like the vk scene in general has been slowly dying out for a while, and people have been losing interest since new bands barely last a month anymore. It's hard to keep subscribers if you don't have many bands to post that continually draw people in. And if YT channels aren't getting views/likes/subs from the content then they don't bother posting those type of things. And when there's not readily available content then a lot of people stop caring. Half the time even joining a community such as MH is too much work for a casual fan. So they move onto Kpop, or Jpop or whatever else is easy to find and fills their time. It becomes a vicious cycle. 
 
The scene has changed so much from what it was a few years back. I remember some bands were together 2-3-4 years before any foreign fans ever heard of them, and the artists themselves (unless on a major label) never bothered posting on global sites like Youtube. Everything was fan posted content. Once the indies started posting their own, and labels started reporting the fan channels everything got harder and we started to only get CMs for videos or "short ver" of the videos. I think people find those things annoying. And it cut down the fan to fan contact, replacing it with one-sided artist to fan advertising. So the community as a whole became more distant and had less reasons to talk to each other. And now with bands lasting such a short while, it leaves people a bit lost and unmotivated to keep repeating the cycle for little to no satisfaction. 
 
I run a jrock video blog for the last two years and while I can tell you the vk fans are loyal (I tend to see the same people liking the videos) but the visual kei videos don't get half of the attention as some of the others because A.) some companies now block viewers from outside of Japan, and B.) they rarely post official full versions of the videos (then proceed to report anyone else who uploads the full version). It's like they are purposefully trying to kill their own international fanbase. It's sad.

I just bought Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy Tactics A2, both for the DS. I'm liking CT so far but it will be awhile before I get the hype behind this game.

Sounds like a good idea, but how will the radio part work out?

I work full-time and barely make 10 USD hourly. I honestly would wear a school uniform for that pay.

I work full-time and barely make 10 USD hourly. I honestly would wear a school uniform for that pay.

I think that's what the title is suppose to be too.
 

I think that's what the title is suppose to be too.
 

Zess, about the money the idols make...
 

niceeeeeeeee

Time to SMASH! hasn't come out yet and he already has a new single lined up? Sweet.

A damp bath towel.

A damp bath towel.

A damp bath towel.

A damp bath towel.

I choose 345

With a name like that, I thought this was going to an acapella group. Guess not.

I was a fan of sfp and I definitely hear indie sfp in ego-izm. Not a bad thing in my opinion.

With a name like that, I thought this was going to an acapella group. Guess not.

They're really into the end.

Credit should be given to those who actaully did the lyrics, composition, arrangement.
 
As one person above said, it would be nice if the vocalist wrote their own lyrics since they would be singing their views/thoughts but I can imagine how difficult it would be to form those especially taking into account the instrumental so ghostwriters are understandable.
 
Also, did anyone hear about the Samuragoch guy's scandal?
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/03/07/national/deaf-composer-samuragochi-says-hes-sorry-for-deceiving/#.U0NNrvldWSo

Yes but does this cat forum allow pussy?