Atreides

Good day,
 
It has been many years since I have been active in the Jrock/Visual Kei scene. I was provided this forum name as a suggestion from a friend when I inquired about certain music I was searching for. I am a little hesitant to emerge again in the community after being absent for so many years, but I wished to at least say hello while I am here.
 
Thank you for having me.

This is my view from the decade of being involved in the J-rock /vk scene.
 
I think the current slowdown of VK over the last few years has a number of factors behind it.
    
The first is the over saturation of bands in the scene. Not only did there seem to be more bands than ever in the VK scene but they more or less all sounded the same. It kinda makes sense that following the rise in the number of VK bands, there would be a huge number of disbandment's with the competition being so stiff, and very few bands actually innovating or at the very least making decent music. A vast increase of bands with the same cookie cutter sound and low quality output is a brickwall for any genre. This also has the effect of making labels and even fans, tired of VK bands, thus further ensuring a downward trend. 
 
Another reason is that VK is usually horribly promoted either by the labels or the bands themselves. They make such dumb decisions that end up costing them a ton of money, either by squandering it on ventures with very little to no returns, or over looking untapped but very potentially rich opportunities. This has always been a problem with the scene, but it becomes magnified on an even greater scale when you have a whole bunch of vk bands rise up and almost simultaneously implode back to back, month after month, year after year.
 
A big part of what I believe plays a major role for those outside of Japan is the accessibility to VK, and music in general. To an extent this has always been a problem with VK, but with a ton of file sharing sites, music blogs, and forums getting axed in the last couple of years, it is harder to find access to VK or Japanese music in general. There used to be a time where you could literally google some obscure Japanese band and get your hands on their releases without much effort. Today that’s rarely the case. Not only is the quantity of releases down, but it’s a lot harder to actually access them.  And while there has been good strides for Japanese music to be obtained legally for foreigners, it still leaves a lot to be desired.
 
As others have pointed out, the erosion of the VK community is another contributing factor for the decline of VK. I’m specifically talking about the online community outside of japan. I believe the online VK community is what kept the scene invigorated with interest and a steady supply of new bands. As to why the community has been drastically reduced I’ll point to the first reason I made and the one written above. This along with the fact that many listeners probably either outgrew the scene, and those that remained retreated to refugees like MH. So you’ve gone from a widespread but scattered ardent community, to a centralized but much smaller passionate community.  
 
VK was always a niche market, and I don’t think that will change anytime soon. I do think it has reached it’s critical mass and what we’re seeing now is the implosion of the scene. It’s not it’s death, but a remission after being over saturated, and with no new bands pushing forward, it’s established bands retiring and it’s community mostly gone and unable to keep it relevant and interesting as it once was. I don’t believe  EDM, or K-pop or whatever killed VK, or even affected it. I believe this was the inevitable direction VK was always heading in, and those genres just happened to coincide with it’s downfall. 
 
I do think there are less people getting into rock and metal but that has to do with an age difference. I believe the majority of us here grew up and were exposed to some sort of rock, metal or genre that used actual instruments. While most of the newer generation today is primarily exposed to electronica or mainstream pop and thus they end up heading down that route and have less of a chance of discovering rock, or something like VK. This wouldn’t be so bad if the electronica or pop they listened to weren’t soulless vapid unoriginal turds. It’s not impossible, but a lot harder for younger generations to get exposed to rock music in general.
 
I don’t think VK is dead or that it ever will be. Yes genres and styles fade into obscurity, some much more than others, but I think VK will definitely always stick around. Part of the reason is because bands like Luna Sea , and X  Japan, among a few others,  have made enough of a significant impact on the Japanese music scene to remain relevant and inspire younger generations, either directly, or indirectly.  The other part is that VK is super diverse in terms of  aesthetic appearance and in terms of genres, so it allows a ton of creative freedom, and makes it more likely and appealing for musicians to take part in it.
 
Another benefit from that genre diversity is that it keeps the door open for VK to enter different realms. While a strictly metal band would only have certain paths or opportunities in which to grow, just like pop would only have certain paths, VK has the advantage of covering a wide base of opportunities. Of course you still need a band that can actually makes good music and can play.  
 
On a side note I do think EDM and electronica get’s a bad rep. Like everything else there’s a lot of good and bad  in every genre and electronica is no exception. There’ s a ton of mainstream crap, but a lot of amazing stuff that has come in recent years too. And although it may be a different skillset , it still takes lots of skill and talent. You’ve got to synthesize lead synths, and sound design elements,  select or create your drum tones, know about music theory since everything is still based on chords, notes, and rhythms, be good with programming and on top of that do your own mixing and mastering. Kinda dislike this idea that electronica is just pushing one button, or that it requires no music theory or talent at all.   
 
Then again there's always those exceptions.
 
 

tbh, VK has already hit that all time low in the 90s. It's popularity in Japan is debatable. As many others have noted, VK isn't totally obscure there (though I guess it has a bad rep, so many people wouldn't ever admit to like it) but not really as popular as it was. And no, I don't think Visual kei was always as niche as it is now in Japan. Back in the old times when VK wasn't such a widely used label bands of that caliber used to fill stadiums and had regular TV and radio exposure. There's a reason why some describe the early 90s as the band explosion era, particularity in regards to the Nagoya rock music scene.
 
But yeah, those days are long gone. hell, most of us gaijin folks have no real clue about it, since the time we got introduced to Vk it was already old hat in Japan. You had to be there for yourself in the early 90s to really see and feel it – but how many foreigners, save for a few, had the privilege and luck? When bands like Luna Sea started to kick off and Malice Mizer rose to fame I was in friggin' kindergarten. Sure, I like to diss the modern scene a lot (because I simply don't like the type of music the bands are playing now), but even I know that I am not a special snowflake and a "trvuer" fan.
 
But to get back to the core of the thread: it's true that in the west VK has lost attention and Fans. people in this thread have offered enough explanations and hypotheses for it's fade in popularity. I am just here to give my two cents on the extinction of the local VK scene in my country (if you can even call it that way):
 
As with others, it all started in the early 00s with the Manga and Anime boom. I really doubt any one in Austria and Germany could have known about VK without either moving to Japan, getting introduced to it via websites and communities specializing in Glam- or Japanese rock or Anime/Manga. Most of us peeps were too young and too poor to go to Japan and most of us had no internet at home. So that leaves us with Manga and Anime. I remember I used to buy these Anime magazines of which there were plenty on the market and many of these papers tried to market japanese culture to us impressionable youths. So they had lots of articles about japanese food, society and of course music. 
 
And some might also remember that Neo Tokyo's (a japanese Manga store in Germany) founded their music publishing label (?) Gan-Shin, which brought to us some of Dir en grey's discography. Only shortly after (or before? I don't remember that well) they started playing in Germany. And as stated before in this thread, due to the Anime fad being so closely related to the J-Pop and VK boom many Manga/Anime Conventions went a great deal to get some bands, including bloody the Gazette, to play at their conventions. And it was a self fullfilling cycle that simply worked: people got to japanese music via Anime and Japan culture based media, they participated in local communities; these were lured to leave their money at the conventions and these in turn invited bands to play to bring in the fans.
 
Then there were online communities like Animexx, where we weebs gathered en masse and talked about our bandomen all day and night, spent all our time drawing and writing shitty slash fanfics and Mangas. It was like paradise. But yeah, around 2009 the German and Austrian scene started to crumble like an old ruin. Suddenly all the people crazy about Moi dix Mois (of which there were MANY here. They even called it a "Manamania") switched from VK to JPop and what they deemed "more sophisticated" music. They also sold all their previously well treasured Moi-Même-Moitié dresses and Sexpot Revenge clothes to go either "normie" or "gyaru". I noticed weblogs of people who loved VK previously popping up with lamentations about how stupid they were for liking it, that it was just a phase and that VK is actually really dumb and shitty.
 
And of course there was also the huge amount of people bickering about how the post 2009s scene wasn't as good. Tbh I can kinda related to it, because in that timespan I also stopped giving shit about newer bands. But I still like to listen to my oldies. Many others for whom it was really just a short fad, stopped caring about it entirely. 
 
Indeed, Social media and the way we consume media and music today, compared to ten years ago, factor in this as well. But the once really big German-speaking scenes, which were infamous enough to be featured regularly in sensationalist  TV formats and press, already died before all these changes could have affected the decline of interest in VK. The truth is simply that liking Visual kei was a fad and it's success in the western world a short-lived hype. Most people have since moved on or hopped on the newest trendwagon.
 
And if I am honest: I do not miss it. I think it's just fine if VK stays obscure. I have moved on and no longer care about old skewl VK being dead. As already said, many music scenes have died and never came back, and that's a fate you have to accept . Though I disagree with the notion that the current goth revival is so bad. It's not the same as the 80s, sure, but it has some fun and redeeming qualities and it's not mainstream. So, if it comes back, it will probably never reach it's former glory. And that's okay too.  A friend of mine also once said that certain eras of VK needed a certain Zeitgeist. And that Zeitgeist is just strongly tied to that specific era. If that era is over than the atmosphere that made it special in the first place is gone too. Hence some of those old music styles no longer work outside the context of so called retromania. Of course, VK has the benefit of being a patchwork genre, it can and has to adapt to survive and it will probably carry on existing in some way (or will influence something else that exists in the future). But it will never be the VK we used to fall in love when we discovered it (and that counts for all eras).
 
I also do not think I ever want the local VK scene being as big again, because I remember that it was mostly a large collection of the most immature, hysterical and downright creepy individuals I have ever seen. Some of these self-called "Visus" looked cool, but were really uncomfortable to surround you with.

Yeah, so perfect for an edgy late 80's early 90's vk band in my opinion.  I don't condone the serial murder of children, but I think it makes for a cool band name.

I got new lights today so immediately I had to use them on something....
 
 

Posted another photo from these images sometime last year or something
 

Just a man and his cat <3

On 2017.02.28, DIE/MAY will release its new single called "DEUS".
 
 

Posted another photo from these images sometime last year or something
 

Just a man and his cat <3

Posted another photo from these images sometime last year or something
 

Just a man and his cat <3

Posted another photo from these images sometime last year or something
 

Just a man and his cat <3

Posted another photo from these images sometime last year or something
 

Just a man and his cat <3

Oh boy, where to start, just off the top of my head for VK stuff, D'espairsray, Deathgaze, Girugamesh, Deluhi, Anonymous Confederate Ensemble, -OZ-, Amphibian, Kuroageha, Awoi, Since1889 among many others. I wish certain visual kei bands didn't have such short runs, many of the ones above were fortunate in that they were around for over a decade.

@Ito will probably have some good suggestions for you since he's been doing the MH panel over at Anime Central for like 30 years now or something.

Hello and welcome to the site! If you keep an eye around, you'll surely find more bands you like that are similar to the ones you listed. ^^

That WIP is now finished~

 

Another source, I use it for fapping research materiel.
 
http://fuckyeahnakedjrockers.tumblr.com/

~Like every year the combination of images and videos is assaulting your web browser. Just give it a minute~
 
2016 was an ... interesting year. I came to grips with my status as a visual kei fan of shit turn of the century disbanded bands and ojisan rock, but found new comers convincing enough to keep me around. Albums I had been waiting on forever finally released and invigorated my passion for music halfway through the year like it always does. A few surprises were sprinkled throughout the year and while I felt that the year was lacking in great music looking back it's not so bad. This year certainly left a better impression on me musically than any year since 2011 - and that's saying a lot for me since that's the year that I started doing these lists.
 

 
Aphex Twin - Cheetah EP
 
 
 

 
THE BLACK SWAN - OUSIA
 
 
 
 

 
BUCK-TICK - アトム 未来派 No.9
 
 
 

 
The Dear Hunter - Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional
 
 
 

 
decays - baby who wanders
 
 
 
 

 
downy - 第六作品集『無題』
 
 
 


Flatbush Zombies: 3001 A Laced Odyssey
 
 
 

 
HIZAKI - Rosario
 
 
 

 
IX -NINE- - NIRDVANDVA
 
 
 

 
 
KEEL - Raison de etre et de sang
 
 
 

 
陰陽座 - 迦陵頻伽
 
 
 

 
Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 3
 
 
 

 
Russian Circles - Guidance
 
 
 

 
有村 竜太朗 (Ryutaro Arimura) - 「デも／demo」
 
 
 

 
siraph - siraph
 
 


 
Vektor - Terminal Redux
 
 
 

 
Versailles - The Greatest Hits 2007-2016
 
 
 

 
ザアザア (Xaa-Xaa) - 中毒症状
 
 
 
 
Thanks for reading!

Harambkei

already been done my dude, i reckon that band Jin-Machine wrote a song about that 1 gorilla all the japanese teen girls were going crazy about for a brief while

Did anybody else initially read their name as BABOON?  
 
gorilla-kei when?

A bit late to the party, just wanted to say I've been a long time fan of Fatima myself and I loved your review! You're doing gods work, keep it up! 

Reviewing Fatima's best single; M:I-44.
 
Mostly driving by corn fields.

Yeah I'm a man. Many people here know who I am but have never seen a full face photo of me so yeah.
 
 

hello, it me?