Atreides

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.

Gilles de Rais was a cool dude who didn't afraid of anything. I think it's a sick band name, go read the wiki page for the historical figure.

I mentioned this elsewhere but I should mention it again. I feel as if what we consider legendary visual kei bands today are only legendary because of longevity, not because of building up their brand.

Listen to this:
 
 
How can people not miss this kind of subtle, sexy japanese-ness? What a great fucking band. 

I voted for Kagrra,, but I would've voted for A if they weren't on the list.  Also, I miss Sugar in general, and Suicide Ali.

Grafton Calling is such a BEAST of a song! And ELEMENTA ALCHEMICA is the only song that earned its right to exceed the 15minute mark.
 
On a personal note, I'd like to see more rap/mixture infused vk bands, like early baroque, xTRiPx and bis did masterfully in the past

| A wonderful resurgence for a band I didn't care for at all.
 
The halfway point of this decade marks a resurgence in Japanese music as a whole. I would have never thought guitarist Die of DIR EN GREY and Kobayashi of THE NOVEMBERS would team together and cross the traditionally solid divide between visual kei and indie rock. However, things that seemed a match in heaven at first were not. It became clear after the first few releases that the band couldn't find their sound. Kobayashi departing soon after was the best move for the band because Die found not one, but two new members to fill out the roster in vocalist Ataru Nakamura and violinist Ayasa. These additions imbued DECAYS with the charisma they previously lacked without changing their core sound.
 
Die's contributions to DIR EN GREY have always been eclectic and he's responsible for penning classics such as "Audrey" and "304号室、白死の桜" (304 goushitsu, hakushi no sakura). Those musical tendencies are everywhere in Baby who wanders. The whole album falls into the shoegaze realm with some punky influences. The crisp production really pushes the wall of sound shoegaze is known for and Die and Nakamura's vocals blend incredibly well. Ayasa's violin opens everything up musically, breathing life into their previously stagnant, almost mechanical sound. This is best shown when contrasting the album version of "愛と哀を遺さず…" with its single version. Supplemented with a healthy dose of electronics and a mesmerizing rhythm section, each song pulsates with a radiant atmosphere.
 
For a band I thought was a flop, DECAYS has done a lot to improve my opinion of them. Baby who wanders remains interesting right up to closer "綺麗な指" and gives off an intoxicating warmth that invites you back again and again. It gets better with every listen too; multiple listens brought me around on some tracks that didn't win me over the first time. Recommended heartily for any fans of pop, rock, or shoegaze looking for something new and captivating. This is so good it makes you forget it's a side project.
 
 
Support the band!
CDJapan | iTunes (Japan)

A universal truth about visual kei is that it is forever changing. The tiniest of bands can grow into an influential force given a few years, the largest of bands can end a legacy with one tweet, and there's an ever-growing catalog of unique and defunct bands lost to time whose talents will never be truly replicated. However, since nothing is original anymore, I'd love to see someone try their hand at it. I've listed a total of five bands or musicians who at one point had a unique, definitive sound I'd love to see come back.
 

D'espairsRay (1999-2007)
Sound: Dark, depressing, gothic industrial metal
 
 

Kagrra,
Sound: A classic rock sound with a cultural twist
 
 

愛狂います。(Aicle.)
Sound: Quirky, turn of the century rock and metal
 
 

RENTRER EN SOI (up to Sphire-Croid)
Sound: undescribable
 
 
 
 

A (Anonymous Confederate Ensemble)
Sound: Rock with a cultural twist
 
 
That's all for me! Given time, there are plenty more bands that I would love to see reincarnated in some fashion. What bands do you want to hear again?

New video-game. Visual Souls. Carbon copy of Dark Souls except replace main character and all enemies with pretty effiminate Japanese men with garishly coloured hair and a penchant for leather and neo classical outfits. 

^ Pretty much this for me too though I'm only really a fan of Dream Theatre's first album. I also love Rush myself. 

Dream Theater cause me to crave hour long masterpieces, I loved that they take me on a journey. The problem that I have now is when I listen to a 35-40min album I feel like the album has just come to an abrupt stop like when I listen to classic Rush or 80 metal albums. Because of this I'm determined to have all b-sides and non album tracks just so I can have complete recording sessions.

12 inches

^ I am stealing that dance that starts at 0:50

I have always ended the tally on late-2001, early-2002, the period in which Syndrome finalized its activities. By that time the 'kote-kote' era was officially over for me. I have always been more drawn to the more or less original blend of Visual Kei; chaotic, hypnotic and when you look at earlier activities, more genuine than what I'd call recent music. Musicians would care to create art instead of simply taking on an appearance to attract youngsters and popularity. Lately I have been attempting to more or less drop the modern music and end my searches for something that can still entertain me and stick to what I know as of now, as it's becoming increasingly difficult to find original works.
 
The other side of the old garde of course burgeoned to life in the late 80's, with bands such as X JAPAN, LUNA SEA and 聖飢魔II. I have been listening to Glam Rock since my early teenage years so it was only natural for me to branch out to other countries starting from there, and I'd look out for bands who were influenced by the likes of Mötley Crüe and Poison. I had my first experiences with X JAPAN, ZIGGY, Cats In Boots, TOKYO YANKEES, 44MAGNUM and Loudness when I was perhaps twelve years old. They bear a greater charm to me than modern bands and music do, their characters stand out more and I feel as if these musicians were genuinely interested in creating music and didn't just do it 'because they could' and then give up after a year, like most Visual Kei bands nowadays do. 
 
A few bands I have greatly been in to the past several months; BY-SEXUAL, Gilles de Rais, WITH SEXY, VIOLET-NARCISSUS, Justy-Nasty, ZI:KILL. Of course other names are in that list as well, but I'd probably be creating an entire archive of them were I to go on.

The parallels between the decline of VK and the undoing of the global J-indie scene are almost scary. By 2009, the fandom had already gone into recession and has since only snowballed into oblivion. Granted, the J-indie world has never had the viral reaches of VK, but what little we did have is all but a snapshot in the web archives now. There have been a few sparks here and there, but it's never been enough to ignite that oh-so necessary communal flame. Thankfully, the VK community has had MH here as a pillar of sorts, while the feeble structures of the J-indie scene mostly lie in ruins with too few enthusiasts around to help excavate.
 
I could point towards a few things that I think lent a hand to the global J-indie scene's decline from within, but given the almost parallel time-line between it and the global VK scene, it does make me wonder what external factors might have affected both international scenes (in addition to the points some of you have already mentioned!)

Pretty much this, and even earlier than that. This goes for any media type.
Back in the early 00's, P2P file sharing/online pirating sites were free from the laws that had yet to destroy, or corrupt it.
I remember finding music at the drop of a hat, and although they were low quality, they were at least there.
There was minimal fear of viruses, but they were still there. They just weren't as potent as today.
I feel most of us from those times learned how the internet worked, and discovered the scene at some point from our exposure to Anime or Video Games.
 
Good luck finding anything without some sort of malware, viruses, or even a root kit on the web. People just wont take the risk like before, on top of when the laws here in the USA in particular find ways to make sure you get fined.
 
If you run a Google trends for Anime, you may see a similar decline.
It all boils down to lack of resources and marketing/exposure. In fact, Japan's influence in general is slowly declining here in the USA, but I wont go into details there.
 
Truly, the enthusiasts are the ones keeping the scene alive. How long? Idk.
 
Also, as @Zeus had mentioned, people who really weren't interested in the scene, will just give up entirely if the source is cut off.
(Which is funny because I didn't hear about TW, Batsu, or MH back then)
 

Well, I got into VK in like 99. I'd say the 09 boom was definitely a high point because you could find almost anything on a multitude of sites though granted the quality wasn't as good as it is today. (128bitrate all over). It was a fun ride, and the ride keeps going. WE are here and we like visual kei. As long as the core group remains it shall never die in America.  It's our job to bring it to those who are interested, and that doesn't just go for visual kei but Japanese music in general. Even otonomai/yorukaze/younmai is gone now, besides shitty blogs holding the last remnants of years gone by, this is the core site.
 
#RideOrDieTogether

I'm surprised that 2009 was the peak. It was already around that time I was complainin' how there's no good shows to attend lol. With that said, those shows that we did have sold very well and a few bands could even venture to have gigs in the second largest city of the country as well. 
I reckon the pop culture peak of visual kei in Finland was in 2007-2008 when the odd few bands made the telly and got gifted some magazine space. Shows were packed, the fashion was wild, no koreans gnawing in on the real estate, events that were associated with visual kei could actually be held at relatively low risk.
 
 
What's up for debate though, is how the new fanbase of the peak years wasn't able to recover from the crucial wave of hiatus', disbandments and stylistic changes that the most popular bands went through around the turn of the 2010's. Everyone should recall how often one heard people lamenting on the state of the scene with ambiguous claims of a lack of X, Y and Z, setting the scene for the gradual petering out either to the clutches of the koreans or just general normalcy. This is the way of the flesh for a fad certainly, and nobody is able to sustain creative output nor popularity for an extended period of time, but that's not all that there is to it. I suppose among great many other things, it's not unjust to consider public merely as fickle if their visual kei habit was dependent on the existence of Dio and Unsraw. Visual kei on the internet had good enough infrastructure to allow these people to discover new and old bands with relative ease, but one should still never underestimate the stupidity and the incapability of the rank and file to utilize such tools perfectly well in their disposal. There are still people who'll waltz into a conversation, feigning willful ignorance, saying "OH THESE BANDS OF TODAY AREN'T LIKE THE GIRUGAMESH OF YORE. SO WHAT HAPPENED WITH THAT VISUAL KEI?". This means that relative interest is there; they haven't forgotten about it, so what gives? 
 
A certain contributing factor that I don't think gets brought up enough is the bush league organising and the sheer ineptitude of the promoters. The fad really blew its wad during the two years it was at its peak, and it wasn't sustainable. Absurdly dumb, dead certainly set for failure, shows got booked even as late as 2015: and anyone with a lick of sense ought to know that in the long term a no-show is always better than a small-shit show. When you're flopping the proper course of action is never to keep on flopping until you can flop no more, but to change the approach. Rest assured a lot of money and contacts have been squandered by idiots already one foot out the door. Unsraw's European tour is a classic example, and Merry's a more recent one. If you're not able to project that there's no demand, and that by booking this there'll be no demand in the future, then you're simply not helping.  
 
The networking on the local level wasn't great and at its worst there were even open divisions between the fanbase of privileged rich blogger cunts and those who took the train to shows from their shit provincial towns who could barely afford the mcdonald's and second hand converse ( I confess my dislike of the former, but I'm not merely projecting it. I heard many other people voice it also, completely unprovoked by yours truly. ) When enough shows and events are abjectly booked to fail with a lack of camaraderie to match, the rot is aggravated to spread into the brain, and eventually even the life support in form of a Gazette european tour won't do you no good. Their 2016 show in Helsinki did not sell out. That's equal to the sky falling out in visual kei terms.
 
A curious example of grassroots level organising seemingly done correct: take a look at the pictures of SANA's recent solo tour from from the backarse of eastern europe. Going through all those pictures you'll notice that while the central and western European crowds are only a handful at best, the Russian and Ukrainian shows pull a kind of a crowd that man of SANA's stature has no right of pulling. I'm terribly interested to find out how they've managed to do this. The only reason I can manage to come up with by speculation alone is that the fans of "Japanese stuff" are so organised, if not rabid, that when something is organised, enough effort is done that it'll pull enough solidarity to maintain the scene's health. I swear to God one of those Sana crowds has equal heads to what EAT YOU ALIVE or heidi had here in the past three years. It can't be that there's more fans of this shit there than in here just by sheer chance, luck and coincidence. 

I'm still in it for the "cute japanese boyz" hahaha.

How did the vk boom of '09 affect you in your country?
 
A lot of the emo/scene-kids in Sweden started liking vk. Mainly Dir en grey, Girugamesh and Mucc. They moved on to the next "cool thing" when the fad was over (new metal/death-core bands or kpop). Some people are still interested in the scene, but it's mainly fans who's into the scene for a long time. One would think YOHIO and his gang would spark up the interest but he fails to promote any Japanese bands whatsoever and instead completely focuses on the swed-kei scene. 
 
What could've been done differently?
 
We had a company called Newnippon. They brought most of the bands over here. They could've been more professional and maybe some bands would still like to work with them. Since the interest is little to none nowadays I think it's basically over though. In general I think the VK-bands could've promoted themselves better as well (like K-pop bands) but I guess in the end VK is an underground-scene and therefore won't attract as much fans as the K-pop scene eitherway. A lot of the "vk fans" were also just in it for "cute japanese boyz" and I guess they figured cute korean boys works just as well.

Well, I got into VK in like 99. I'd say the 09 boom was definitely a high point because you could find almost anything on a multitude of sites though granted the quality wasn't as good as it is today. (128bitrate all over). It was a fun ride, and the ride keeps going. WE are here and we like visual kei. As long as the core group remains it shall never die in America.  It's our job to bring it to those who are interested, and that doesn't just go for visual kei but Japanese music in general. Even otonomai/yorukaze/younmai is gone now, besides shitty blogs holding the last remnants of years gone by, this is the core site.
 
#RideOrDieTogether

it's that 420 bro, anybody could  do a full album worth of material in a day as long as they have a steady supply of blunts

Noticed something interesting when I was exploring worldwide trends for the search term "visual kei" on google - that tiny spike earlier this year just happened to be when youtubers react to visual kei came out:

 
So visual kei is dead. And at the rate it is going now, will be even dead-er; A scene stagnating on the same looks and sounds, rarely venturing out musically if at all. But it wasn't always that way. Although it would be  appropriate to refer to the 90s golden era of vk to remind us of how opulent the scene once was, I want to bring back memories of 2009.
 
In October 2008, Kerrang ran a feature on jrock, publishing an article predicting jrock to go big in Europe in 2009.
And sure enough, google trends highlighted the correlation clearly, confirming that the search terms "j-rock" and "visual kei" did indeed peak between January and March 2009.
 
However, following vk's brief global success was a period of near-exponential decline - to what we see now as the lowest point of popularity vk has ever experienced in a 12 year time-span. Even that spike in August wasn't enough to break above 2004's lowest point.
 
Personally, I'd been a passive fan of visual kei for many years prior to 2009, but it wasn't until 2009 that I became fully engaged. One prominent catalyst was Japanese blogging platform Ameba launching its virtual community ‘Pigg’ that year, becoming a game changer in the way fans and bands could interact. Popular musicians were also given accounts powered by ameba, a la twitter's verified personalities.
 
I remember 2009 as a year that several vk bands were going major and gaining international recognition. It was no surprise that vk reached its global height by being much more accessible through social media and other digital channels. This momentum seemed to be gaining quickly until 2010 brought a sharp turn of unfortunate events within the scene and the emergence of kpop poached a large part of the international vk audience.
 
However, the situation in Japan is a bit different, as vk has been pretty steady since it had already declined by the turn of the century. The search term "ヴィジュアル系" on google trends says as much.
 
A few years ago, major labels published all those visual kei cover albums probably in an attempt to raise the relevance of visual kei, but the hype had pretty much died by then. The drought of talent and variety meant that each band was no better than the other, and was enough for many people to lose interest. Stricter piracy laws also meant that music had become less accessible, with people being reluctant to pay the exorbitant prices of some CDs. Not to mention the discontinuation of many vk magazines as an indication of the scene's current degradation. Marketing and business models that worked in the 90s and early 00s struggle to find significance in the present day, yet management has not evolved to adapt to current trends (or have done so poorly).
 
Now that the last of the influential underground vk labels is defunct, vk doesn't have the backing and budget as it once did. X Japan and Luna Sea are like the only lifeline left for vk - there can't even be a vk festival without either X Japan or Luna Sea in the lineup.
 
I remember reading an interview where Yohio mentioned that he kinda killed western interest in vk, but I don't particularly attribute that to those western vk acts damaging the reputation of this uniquely japanese scene. Bands such as D'espairsRay, girugamesh, the Underneath, Rentrer en Soi, Dio, UnsraW and Black:List etc who laid the groundwork for vk to make its mark in the west are no longer around. I'm surprised lynch. didn't carry the torch.
 
I don't want this thread to sound too much like #resurrectvk, but instead I want ignite a discussion (and maybe create a dialog) - how did the vk boom of '09 affect you in your country, what could've been done differently, or the best things to come out of  that little modern renaissance of vk history.
 
 

Best news of 2016 to be honest.

FInally got Requiem for Fools and Sigh / Kawir - Suicidogenic / Sinn. Happy days!