Bear

On my phone, so I won't respond to all that. But if one choose music as a job to earn money, but fail to do so, then they obviously suck at their job and disbandment are but positive. Good riddance and so on. One can't just start a band and expect to become rich over the night. Start it as a hobby and see how it goes. If it goes well, quit your job. If not, keep it as a hobby, unless it's something you don't really give a fuck about. Then just forget about it.
My point, which obviously didn't come through, is that if you actually care about what you're creating you won't give up after a year or two just because you didn't make money from it in that short time.

On my phone, so I won't respond to all that. But if one choose music as a job to earn money, but fail to do so, then they obviously suck at their job and disbandment are but positive. Good riddance and so on. One can't just start a band and expect to become rich over the night. Start it as a hobby and see how it goes. If it goes well, quit your job. If not, keep it as a hobby, unless it's something you don't really give a fuck about. Then just forget about it.
My point, which obviously didn't come through, is that if you actually care about what you're creating you won't give up after a year or two just because you didn't make money from it in that short time.

On my phone, so I won't respond to all that. But if one choose music as a job to earn money, but fail to do so, then they obviously suck at their job and disbandment are but positive. Good riddance and so on. One can't just start a band and expect to become rich over the night. Start it as a hobby and see how it goes. If it goes well, quit your job. If not, keep it as a hobby, unless it's something you don't really give a fuck about. Then just forget about it.
My point, which obviously didn't come through, is that if you actually care about what you're creating you won't give up after a year or two just because you didn't make money from it in that short time.

Pushing all wide generalizations in this topic aside about "the scene", the only bands that have done this so far are small indie bands that I don't care about. Facts are that there is no good reason to do this. Let's run down all the reasons I can think of:
We need money to continue functioning as a band!
If you're that deep in the hole, one live where 100 people come to see you isn't going to save you. What are you going to do, continue to ask those same 100 people to play inflated ticket prices to hear you play the same songs until they're done with you? This stopgap measure just doesn't logically flow, so I have a hard time believing bands announce conditional disbandments for the money. If you're in a band as a full-time job, the most important aspect is money management. Poor money management skills have broken better bands than any we're passively alluding to, and honestly a lot of visual kei indies bands tend to focus on visuals before music. If you have more pictures on the internet than songs in your discography,
 


We want to play in front of a live audience for once!
Too many times I see upstart visual kei bands that I've never heard of before getting upset because they don't have a lot of fans, but every single other visual kei band started in the same hole and worked their way up! The fuck did you think you were getting yourself into when you're in a society based on appearances and you look like you got smacked with a rainbow's make-up kit? It's delusional to think that in eight or nine months you would be selling out a venue because it takes years for bands to do that, and some bands still don't even sell out a hall when they play! What makes your small band worthy to play to a crowded hall other than your temper tantrum on Ameblo? If you want to play to a full music hall, earn it with skill, dedication and patience. And if you don't, you don't.
We don't want to disband! The label is making us do it.
I'll have to let this one slide. Especially since the line where band influence ends and label influence begins is a little blurry. But this doesn't apply in the case where independent bands do this. Then there is no label.
The only reason I can think of is for a band's fifteen minutes of fame. Every band that I've ever seen pull this stunt have disappeared regardless of the outcome. I don't know what they hope to achieve with those fifteen minutes, but I'll let them have it. I'll never hear of them again anyway.

Small bands from all over the world are poor and what not, yet most of them are fully capable to continue their band, recording albums and releasing them, and play live now and then despite never having played for a crowd bigger than 30, and despite never having been paid anything for their lives. It's in fact the opposite, they have to spend loads of money to be able to play live.
Money ain't that big of an issue unless you:'er into it because of the money. Lack of money might hold you back a few years. You might not get to record and release it right now, but waiting a year or two should'n make you disappear, unless you're into it for all the wrong reasons.
Even the heroin addicts living on the streets here, with no income whatsoever other than the bottles they find on the street and what random people give them, are capable of recording and releassing here. How? They save small amounts of money whenever they can to be able to fullfill their dreams, even if it takes them a decade. Spirit!

Small bands from all over the world are poor and what not, yet most of them are fully capable to continue their band, recording albums and releasing them, and play live now and then despite never having played for a crowd bigger than 30, and despite never having been paid anything for their lives. It's in fact the opposite, they have to spend loads of money to be able to play live.
Money ain't that big of an issue unless you:'er into it because of the money. Lack of money might hold you back a few years. You might not get to record and release it right now, but waiting a year or two should'n make you disappear, unless you're into it for all the wrong reasons.
Even the heroin addicts living on the streets here, with no income whatsoever other than the bottles they find on the street and what random people give them, are capable of recording and releassing here. How? They save small amounts of money whenever they can to be able to fullfill their dreams, even if it takes them a decade. Spirit!

Pathetic, and they are obviusly in it for the wrong reasons.

I buy music and merch for my myself, not to support anyone. However, if I help artists getting a bit more money that's great, no matter what they use the money on, be it to record music, go on tour, buy expensive clothes, pay prostitutes or buy drugs. That's none of my business and they are free to spend it on whatever they want without me complaining about it.
 
 
 
 
Do you think most Japanese bands decides where their CDs and merch should be sold? I'm sure most bands would want their CDs to be sold anywhere in the world, but at the end of the day that's not up to them to decide, but the label they're signed to.

I checked their debut album earlier today because people have been comparing them to the late 90's/early 00's VK bands like Madeth gray'll, Aliene Maφriage, La'Mule, old Dir en grey and so on and I can definitely hear what people are talking about. Not quite sure what I think ofthe production after one listen though, as I've used to like it a bit dirtier than that. I thought the production sounded a bit too modern for that kind of music. But it was promising, and it's an album I'll keep listening to. Hopefulyl I'll get used to the production.
 
 
I'm really looking foward to new releases from these guys.

Yes, he's not a very talented vocalist. But so what? You don't have to be very talented at what you do, be it singing, playing the guitar, bass, drums or whatever, as long as you're able to sound good and make good riffs/create good atmosphere, and you can do those things without being a very talented guitarist/bassist/drummer/vocalist. Being talented is so fucking overrated.

BUT BUT YOU WILL LOSE YOUR VOICE AND YNGWIE MALMSTEEN AND??!133 UHGHUH 
 
All opinions and other junk aside; Jin has this uncanny ability to irritate the unsuspecting listener. 
 
I like Jin, I secretly like some Nega as well - but it sure took a long while to get used to Jin's voice. It has a very rough quality to it, as to me it sounds like he is under the weather and very sore in the throat - so much so that is causes him pain to sing at all. While it can certainly be considered one of its appeals, it's also why a lot of people can't get into the stuff he is in at all. So a negative reaction isn't really surprising. I guess I would also maintain that he is not a particularly expressive vocalist ( which seems to be the main pro-argument ) or a good one, but that's neither here nor there. I'm still looking forward to whatever this projects turns out to be. 

I understand. But metal is a huge genre though, and a lot of the sub genres doesn't take use of any harsh vocals.

Unique vocals isn't equal to good or listenable vocals. Unique vocals can be horrid and unlistenable as well.
 
 
I don't mind Jin's vocals at all. I'd love for this to be a throwback to old Nega or something, before they decided to swap their bass drums for a typewriter and all that shit and got bad. Something in the lines of early Nega would be very, very welcomed.

Vocals are just another instrument to my ears. I listen to plenty of bands both with and without vocals. And just as with drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and whatnot, if it's done poorly it can ruin the whole song, but it doesn't necessary have to ruin it either. What's important is that it is interesting as a whole. If a song has nothing beside good vocals, good guitars, good bass, good drums OR good keyboards it won't be enough to keep me interesting. Not even close. If there's only one element in the music that's good, then it really isn't good. Ya? Ya.

Vocals are just another instrument to my ears. I listen to plenty of bands both with and without vocals. And just as with drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and whatnot, if it's done poorly it can ruin the whole song, but it doesn't necessary have to ruin it either. What's important is that it is interesting as a whole. If a song has nothing beside good vocals, good guitars, good bass, good drums OR good keyboards it won't be enough to keep me interesting. Not even close. If there's only one element in the music that's good, then it really isn't good. Ya? Ya.

Vocals are just another instrument to my ears. I listen to plenty of bands both with and without vocals. And just as with drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and whatnot, if it's done poorly it can ruin the whole song, but it doesn't necessary have to ruin it either. What's important is that it is interesting as a whole. If a song has nothing beside good vocals, good guitars, good bass, good drums OR good keyboards it won't be enough to keep me interesting. Not even close. If there's only one element in the music that's good, then it really isn't good. Ya? Ya.

THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERSFOR THELASTEPISODE OF SEASON 3
 
 
 
 
 
God damn, that was a great episode. So the sudden change in mood wasn't so much of a change after all. It just felt like it. You know what I'm saying? Great episode, and it had plenty of surprises. You just gotta love that!

And to add to the post above: Stop lumping all metal together as if the same trends apply to every single movement therein. 
 
I can tell you this much; the endless bickering about vocal technique and other acrobatics is not really present in the underground, while it seems prominent characteristic of the metalcore scene. Go to the youtube videos of Bring Me The Horizon ( cheap example, but you get the point ) and whatever have you, and you are bound to find all sorts of wank how good or not the vocalist is live, and how this and that guy losing their voice. This does not happen that much - if at all - in extreme metal, and the sloppiness and rawness of it that was inherited from hardcore is still widely appreciated among its fans. Go complain about vocal technique of some vocalist to the NWN forums and you'll most likely be laughed at. And I'm not discrediting technique, I'm just saying that it's not entirely necessary.
 
My point being here is that "maybe the old artists needn't train as you think, but nowadays vocalists are meant to protect their vocal cords"   Is simply not true. There are new and old extreme metal vocalists who have nailed the technique and there are also those that have not, and not many people pay any mind since the focus is on the ends and not the means. Deep as fuck growls do fit chuggy emocore way better than the rough performance from Live In Leipzig ever would have, and vice versa. Someone might not like the vocal chord destroying sloppy screams of bandomen X, but there's most likely someone out there that does, and whether there is any "musical quality" to whatever the said vocalist is doing, is an individual case-by-case debate in itself. 

By the way, gais, what's your top 10 of 2013? I will come back with a small list later on.
 
These are my top films (not in order):
 
Stoker
The Lords of Salem
The Last Stand
Only God Forgives
Evil Dead
The Conjuring

These are my favourites, but I have yet to watch a lot of films that I'm sure will impress me a lot. Films such as Yellow, Snowpiercer, Kaze tachinu, Kaguyahime no monogatari, The Giant Spider, Sledge, They Die By Dawn and You're Next among others are films that could challenge for a spot in my top 10. Hard to say. But I am sure both Yellow and Snowpiercer will make it on my top 10 list. Well, if Yellow comes before I die, that is. Shouldn't really be calling it a 2013 film either as it hasn't been relead yet. Only got some selected screenings in 2012 and 2013 for immortals. We mortals have to continue our waiting. God damn!

I answered this question a while ago. It's neither, although it leans closer to being a scene. It may have started out as a genre at one point but it's long since surpassed those boundaries. It cannot be a genre because not every visual kei band plays the same type of music. For any genre you name, someone else can find a band that considers themselves visual kei that don't play that genre. Visual kei is simply music with a focus on visuals (hence visual style). Visual kei can't be pigeonholed into a scene or a genre without losing some of the picture.
And in case you missed my answer from before:
 

Now the history behind visual kei is something else altogether. I don't think there is one person on this forum with a vast knowledge of the history of visual kei because even by the 90s much of that was lost. If we come together as a forum we may be able to piece enough together.

So then basically he doesn't speak English

I'm gonna check out Cokiyu, Abe Fuyume and Ichiko Aoba and Fairies for sure. The tags and your description made me curious, especially about Cokiyu.
 
I can also go good for Blood Ceremony, Jex Thoth and Run the Jewels. All released great album this year.
 
Blood Ceremony's "The Eldritch Dark" was a step in the right direction for me. With each album they've gotten less doomier and more psychedelic/prog rockish, something which I really enjoy. There's simply less Black Sabbath and more Jethro Tull and Blue Öyster Cult here. It's on par with "Living with the Ancients" for sure, maybe even better. Great album!
 
Jex Thoth's "Blood Moon Rise" was a huge surprise. I've been following the band since their Totem days, so I knew I would get a geat record. But I was surprised they left most of their doom metal behind and went for a more psychedelic rock sound ala Jex Thoth's previous band, Sabbath Assembly, which plays a ritualistic form of psychedelic rock. "Blood Moon Rise" almost sounds a lot more like a natural follow-up to Sabbath Assembly's "Ye Are Gods", than to Jex Thoth's "Jex Thoth". A bit weird that.

So here's a few albums from 2013 I think you might enjoy.
 
1. Czarface - Czarface
I don't really know what kind of hip hop you enjoy, but this might be something for you. Nothing original at all, but it's a very solid boom bap album that will you take you back to the 90's.

 
2. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Mind Control
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats took the world by storm in 2011 when they released their second album, "Blood Lust", a perfect blend of catchy doom metal and psychedelic rock with occult vibes. In 2013 the band returned with a new album, "Mind Control", and it's another very solid album, but a bit different. I feel as if this is more rock inspired and I don't get those occult vibes this time. It's a bit more garagey and laid back, I guess you could say.

 
3. Jess and the Ancient Ones - Astral Sabbatsy
Psychedelic rock that brings my thoughts to occult rock bands such as The Devil's Blood, Coven and Sabbath Assembly, just slightly more uplifting that the few I named. I don't really know what more to say other than to point out that Jesse's a goddess! That voice, man. That voice.

 
 
I can come back with more too if you feel you're getting anything out of my recommendations. Because it's been a massive year for music and good music should be recommended to others.

That preview sounds like a garage band warm-up. I'll wait for real studio quality before I make a decision because there's no way so many musicians I idolize came together and released something that shitty.

Should be a very enjoyable read.