When will V-kei die out?

[iSin-Sama 4]

Kinda wondering, I know it was going strong there for a long time, Seems to be dieing out right now. Just curious to see what you guys think.

[ficsci 50]

I think all rock genres are still alive, they look like they're dead because they went underground or they take on a new form. You think 80s hair metal is dead? Well now you can call it "Visual Kei". And just when you thought Visual Kei is dead, there's Neo-Visual Kei. Think about it, first there was punk, and then there was hardcore punk, and then there was grunge, post-hardcore, etc. Guess what, they're all still "punk" (or half-punk, or whatever), just the modern-day form.

I think it's hard to tell from your perspective, since you are following a non-mainstream music scene, and you know where to find the communities connected to it. Who knows, other people might already think it's dead. But I'm pretty sure that anywhere, any time (in the next few decades at least), there will always be some dude who likes to dress up like a chick who looks like a dude, and play a guitar solo in every damn song or sing in a bizarrely out-of-tune gothic vibrato while looking like that.

[Mei 276]

i hope v kei dies the day i die

[Zeus 7997]

Visual kei has this ability to change and adapt with the times. It's what makes it so resilient. The visual kei of the 1989 sounds nothing like the visual kei from 1999, 2005 or 2011. Who knows what it will sound like in 2015 (I have my bets on metalcore drenched in electronic bleep-bloops)?

It does seem to be losing steam but I doubt it will ever "die".

[Guest Magatsu]

it will never die.

no music did ever die. so VK will never die too. XD

[Slsr 207]

I don't think it will be too soon at least, it's constantly transforming anyway. Basically it will be alive as long as Japan still has teen girls who want to rock and have pretty looking guys play those rock tunes to them (of course those guys who are willing to/want to perform as visual band need to exist too...)

[dannemannen 69]

never

[Pandabear 414]

Who knows what it will sound like in 2015 (I have my bets on metalcore drenched in electronic bleep-bloops)?

I want to hear that now. Don't know if there any Vk bands that would be daring enough and have the production and musicianship skills to pull that off.

And yeah, I also agree, Vk will never die. No type of music ever has.

[Number Girl 48]

It will die once bands stop identifying as visual kei and when it stops being profitable, I guess.

But most likely that will never happen. I don't think any music genre has really "died" or fallen off the face of the earth completely. Like ficsci said, most of the time it just spirals into obscurity and most people forget about it. Because even when the genre or scene has been warped and adapted into something completely different with the passage of time, there will always be the old artists that come back or remain active and keep a remnant of the past alive.

[LIDL 692]

Never. I think it will goes on,

there is always new ears for new bands.

[Takadanobabaalien 3607]

Semi-related but isn't vk at it's popularity peak right now (2010~2012)?

A shitload of bands producing themselves, new labels popping up everywhere, alot of older artists coming back (LUNA SEA & D'ERLANGER to name two), many revivals (not only counting the ones kisaki did) and vk bands play overseas more than ever before.

It might not be the best era of vk, but I do think it's the most popular one to date.

[Mr Bacon 106]

Then again, 75% of the bands disband within half a year and aren't signed to any label, their releases are sold only at lives, etc.

I mean, many VK bands have always been that underground, but never as much as now is the impression I'm getting. Before, shitty bands could get signed, but now (thankfully) that doesn't happen as often anymore.

[CAT5 9075]

VK will die out WHEN YO FACE DIES OUT. Doesn't even make sense, I know.

[Yasupon 18]

Visual kei has this ability to change and adapt with the times. It's what makes it so resilient. The visual kei of the 1989 sounds nothing like the visual kei from 1999, 2005 or 2011. Who knows what it will sound like in 2015 (I have my bets on metalcore drenched in electronic bleep-bloops)?

It does seem to be losing steam but I doubt it will ever "die".

This pretty much.

Visual Kei at the most will continue to change direction, or adapt with the times. The amount of fans could generally change for the negative or the positive as well. Either way, that doesn't mean that the genre is going to start dying any time soon.

[Zeus 7997]

Semi-related but isn't vk at it's popularity peak right now (2010~2012)?

A shitload of bands producing themselves, new labels popping up everywhere, alot of older artists coming back (LUNA SEA & D'ERLANGER to name two), many revivals (not only counting the ones kisaki did) and vk bands play overseas more than ever before.

It might not be the best era of vk, but I do think it's the most popular one to date.

Yeah, I'll have to agree with Mr Bacon here. I actually thought VK is in a "lost phase" right now where it doesn't have an identity as a scene. It doesn't feel like there's a unifying idea or theme underneath all of the bands and that bands are VK because they label themselves as such. Bands come into the scene unsure of themselves or the direction they want to take and they collapse into one another like riffs from a Moonsorrow song every time they face a tiny challenge or setback. Disbands are as constant as ever but I don't see or hear of an equal amount of new bands coming in to replace them, so to me the scene seems to be shrinking as the potential amount of new bands appear to be less (and despite my anti-VK image, I do pay attention to what's going on in the scene closely).

I'm not even going to get into the music aspect of things because that's all subjective but objectively from what I see I can't say that it's at it's highest peak right now. Then again, there doesn't seem to be many "high profile" releases coming out soon so this could be why my mindset is like this.

[Maiku 4]

VK will go on as long as there are fans who buy the cds and go to lives. Of course styles and such will evolve and things will change but I don't think we can expect anything too drastic to happen soon unless some new bands show up with some fresh concepts. Some of the best bands in the scene are looked down on or ignored because of their band name. Some people look down on bands because it doesn't fit with their self image of what they like and listen to. I used to be a metal diru elitist and listened to a lot of harder rock VK bands. Then for some reason a shift happened for me and other bands started to seem more interesting and I was bored with all the new rockier VK bands and the ones I liked seemed to lose what I thought was interesting. (Also, a lot of weird let downs from bands. 12012, Deluhi, Girugamesh, and then a bunch of disbands and break ups too.) The scene is constantly shifting and looking for the next niche. I believe BugLug would fall under the Neo-VK label but they really seem to be doing way more interesting things than the more popular bands but no one gives them a chance beyond checking out a PV and making a swift judgement. This is the problem with a lot of really good bands I feel like. I guess a lot of it is a matter of taste but I feel like the cool thing about VK is the GIANT mix of genre and style. It's all different. It's all similar. VK is special because there is a want of stylishness and fashion mixed in with the music that a lot of non-VK rock bands don't care about. VK bands have a flare that regular bands lack and it's honestly a lot more interesting to watch. And seriously, a lot of VK bands are no different from American pop stars that dress in crazy dresses and outfits of meat. I can't even remember where I was going with this but I hope I made some sense ahaha.

[ricchubunny 2013]

totally agree with you :')

I hope that, bands which i like recently like BFN, UNiTE (happily these guys got some popularity), Blu-BiLLioN and etc don't give up early, or i dont know what i can expect from VK.

[237Q 154]

there's one thing I'm surprised nobody brought up.

Visual kei in it's fundamental definition DID already die out. It's no longer a movement against the "kata-ized" japanese society (the one where everything has a right way of doing, and any deviation or innovation is considered very wrong to the extent where the individual could be even eliminated from the society), well mostly since it got a better understanding not only inside but even outside japan. it's changed to something completely new, not only with the obvious things (general music and costumes style) but the "inside force" of it is changed too. The only thing I hardly see these days is classic oshare, and now with Lilt disbanding I have yet to find another band that really follows the "oshare code".

I don't want to make any predictions, but I assume it will only develop further to the point where we wont be able to recognize it as standard VK we all know. All the "new wave" bands like Royz and 2nd dyz etc with kinda "electronic" blue-silver style would seem very odd a few years ago, wouldn't it?

[Ikna 1225]

I agree to 237Q. Visual kei, the original movement, doesn't exist anymore. Modern Visual kei has become something entirely different and I doubt that this is only the result of how it has evolved in the last 20 years. VK has lost its original intention, its power and what was the main reason to create and determine its existence.

I agree that visual kei is more or less a so called patchwork genre- a style, culture or genre that takes influences and elements of other cultures and genres. In conclusion it's right that the bands from the late 80s are different from those of the 90s- that's something we can all understand if we just look at the bands from the 80s who have used elements from glam, punk, new romantic and the 90s bands also mixed metal, hardcore and goth to it. Modern VK bands are more fond of pop-rock Nu-Metal, Metalcore and electronic music. A band like Color looks and sounds different from a matina band like Madeth Gray'll, that's a fact.

But (here comes a big but) the bands from the 80s and 90s still have enough in common that you can say "they both are visaul kei bands". I don't get the same feeling when looking at newer VK bands. Why is that so?

What I miss in modern VK is its power. Old visual kei had it, because it was radical. It was a statement against the well ordered and strictly ruled japanese society, it was rebellious, chaotic and it seemed aggressive, dangerous (back then more than today. What's today rather unintentionally funny has been viewed as suspicious in the past). Visual kei musicians were the visual portray of how not to be as a japanese men: cross-dressing, wearing dirty clothes, looking extreme (leather, netshirts and netstockings, rocker and punk fashion elements), having very creative hairstyles and dyed hair and so on. And despite the bands mostly only dressing up for concerts and perfomances they were still consiedered to be rebels- just dying your hair was very unusual in Japan and seems to be still (especially when you go to school or work, where you have to follow a strict dress-code)

Of course there were already a lot of bands dressing like deliquents, rocker or divas and once they've got fairly known they would transform into your average bland boy group band. So in the end VK wasn't never really successfull with the "anti-society" thing and bands in the end would always rely on money (and if that didn't work then disband). Modern Visual kei has adopted a lot of the former "scene" and some things didn't really change, but VK has entirely bacome a part of japanese culture and society- there is nothing aggressive, questionable or extreme about it. It's just another fashion and music trend which adapts to current trends and therefore will survive- but it has no meaning or statement.

Back in the old days nobody would have thought VK even to manage to go to the streets- today a lot of people are wearing typical modern visual kei fashion. It's not hard to pull it off anymore as the modern VK look is quite shallow too. You will be in danger of failing a lot more if you want to pull of the VK look from before ca. 2004 or 2005 and most people will think you are totally stupid for running around like a clown with neon colored hair, try hard spooky make-up and leather wear.

I am not saying modern VK is all shit and only good old school VK is the only thing- but VK has changed way too much since its beginnings and I personnaly can't find any linkage between bands like Futurism Boyz, Devi+tec and for example ROUAGE. They look different, they sound different, that's understandable, but in my opinion the "let's be cool and cute boys and make some cool bland music" isn't the same as "now let's provokate a bit through founding a band that plays rock music and we put a lot of make-up on". Both intentions may be silly, but I like the outcome of the latter one better.

And there is also a lot I miss in VK. The costumes which were visually striking, the way they have played their music (which also was very similiar throughout the 80s and 90s though the different sounds and styles which were popular at their era), the topics and imagery (insanity, pain, loss, death... of course also a lot of cheesy stuff like lost love) and the use of concepts (for example the stage plays Malice Mizer did). Hell, even the crappy low budget PVs of the indie bands had their own charm.

All in all: VK will survive, it may become more popular or vanish from the mainstream completely, but it will adapt and transform and with every new transformation it will lose another (already almost dissolved) part of its origin. There will people who will like the way VK bands will play in the future- and some older fans will be sceptical. That's something you can't change, I admit, because sooner or later this kind of mechanism happens to all genres if they have gotten known and popular enough. We are living in a capitalistic society and one can only survive by making money- so VK has and had no other choice than becoming mass-compatible.

[*りりこ* 14]

I don't care if visual kei is considered dead or totally changed because musical genre can't die, they just lose their popularity. And change happens. So I'll just enjoy my favourite bands, visual kei or not, which made a progress during their career and didn't follow the trend of the season, like the majority of neo-vk bands.

For example, MUCC is a band who can't be categorized. They explored many musical and stylistic genres because they love music. Many bands just stick with a genre and do repetitive songs. I think that's why I can't enjoy new bands: almost all the songs sound the same to me.

I think we all should care about our favourite bands and not about the whole genre. We can't say "I love visual kei" because that would mean we love ALL the bands which use that term to identify themselves. If V-kei will be identified as Futurism Boyz and so on, I can't call myself a fan of V-kei, but a fan of Mucc, Plastic Tree, girugamesh and so on *insert fav. bands here*

[hyura 465]

I couldn't agree more with iknas statement!

You pretty much perfectly sum up my thoughts on that topic.

But this might be the core:

Modern Visual kei has adopted a lot of the former "scene" and some things didn't really change, but VK has entirely bacome a part of japanese culture and society- there is nothing aggressive, questionable or extreme about it. It's just another fashion and music trend which adapts to current trends and therefore will survive- but it has no meaning or statement.

In old times most visual kei bands were started because the members were fans themselves. The shock-effect and freedom those bands radiated when exposed to mainstream attention (like on tv) must have been extremely inspiring for many "regular" guys back then.

They wanted to become famous that way and inspire other "regular" poeple by being as "different" as possible themselves. This way it was very easy for the scene to stay alive and change in new interesting ways.

But now Visual kei doesn't touch general society much anymore. It became a subculture in which always-the-same-bandmen are fighting for the attention of always-the-same-fans.

And because the bandmen were never inspired by another band which made them want to express something inside of them (more by this small group of fans and the money they might have) their music often lacks sincerity.

Instead of trying to get new fans from outside by being aggressive and different they simply try to get as much from the fans they allready have by being exactly what the majority of those fans wants them to be. Also instead of the fans inventing furi for their favorite songs it's more the band writing music which fits the most popular furi.

And because the bands do this their music gets more and more similar while the standarts for looks are rising higher and higher.

Today even the most minor bands who didn't yet play oneman-shows for some reason need tailored costumes, professionally filmed pvs, hair and make up artists, magazine features, designer clothing and accessory for offstage-time, a crew of photoshop experts and custom instruments to be taken seriously while in 2000 these were things only major artists like Dir en grey and a few very popular indies bands like Dué le quartz and La'Mule could afford.

Actually bands today can't afford it either without spending a ridicilous amount of time and energy on pressing money out of their 20 fans with the help of 2943 type releases, instore and photo event campaigns, selling their worn clothes, filming special messages in santa-clothing and selling their bodies to fans.

It's only natural that the music suffers from this.

It's also only natural that most bands lack edges now, if you try selling 2334 cds, 2392 livetickets, 93942 cheki and 2833 special bracelets to 40 fans instead of selling 1000 livetickets and 1000 cds to 1000 fans you just can't take the risk of losing a single fan by trying something new.

Back in the 90s every second band looked horrible, sounded horrible and had no fans but nobody lost anything from that and in exchange certain bands were really, really innovative.

Now we have tons of bands that look okay, sound okay but somehow can't inspire anybody.

Of course I'm a fan of older bands and not so much of the newer ones, but even if I really, really liked the more colourful and electronic stuff I'd still say that certain dynamics are dangerous for the scene and while I don't want to says that it will actually "die" as in disappear any time soon.

It's more that it already killed itself some time ago and now got less interesting since it became a zombie.

[miyuu 40]

how do you know people would not stop dressing like this at some point.

or it will change so much that it will become something else.

look at other music genres. some of them exist only as history without new bands.

if you have no new bands then it's dead.

music genres have their prime times

when even mainstream channels seem to care about them

and times when noone cares except very few. and the genre new bands go very underground.(dead in comparison?)

about looks.

i don't know maybe old looks were funny but at least they seem more artistic in thought. not just a standard costume

(although personally i don't care so much about complex styling. because i love nagoya style bands)

about music

i still believe that there isn't any new bands that can compete in artistic talend with the old ones.

or be egually as legentary as the old ones in the future. (but maybe is too soon to understand it)

don't say again the stupid reason "maybe i am getting old and don't get the new music".

yeah maybe i am not a teenager anymore and i just can't like music for teenagers.

but good music surpasses age and peoples styles.

also i think that is when a genre is in his peak. when it Surpasses age,peoples styles etc

and can be liked by bigger audience even if it's not pop. even if it's weird as fuck.

and even if it's not likeable. everyone has heard about it.

so i really can't tell. when vkei was in his peak? now or some years ago.

[ficsci 50]

Who knows what it will sound like in 2015 (I have my bets on metalcore drenched in electronic bleep-bloops)?

I want to hear that now. Don't know if there any Vk bands that would be daring enough and have the production and musicianship skills to pull that off.

I can't wait

Actually I think they're totally getting there. They already have the bleeps and bloops every fucking where, in both rainbow-vomit oshare and the non-. There may be tons of crappy bands, but VK has always had some metal tradition of guitar shredding. As for the -core in metalcore, there are definitely vocalists that do screeching and growling here and there (especially Nagoya bands). They've got it in place, now we'll just have to wait and see when they'll put it all together XD. But to be honest with, I don't want vk vocals to be purely screaming, because they'd lose the catchiness I like so much from vk (especially the catchy chorus with descending 5th progression, please don't EVER lose that classic move <3)

What I sorta CAN'T imagine VK going to, however, is metalcore with HEAVY math metal elements, because guitar solos that are too long over endlessly dissonant chord progression is not catchy (coughProtesttheHerocoughcough). But incorporating some elements of math rock is totally happening already with some vk bands.

I actually thought VK is in a "lost phase" right now where it doesn't have an identity as a scene. It doesn't feel like there's a unifying idea or theme underneath all of the bands and that bands are VK because they label themselves as such.

Actually, this is exactly what I find appealing in VK (and what made me a fan in the first place), there's enough diversity that VK bands don't all sound like the same like they did in the 90s (gahahha, sorry, not a big fan of kote-kei or whatever fuck you call it, well ok they're funny). While it might make some bands unstable, I think it caused some awesome releases to be produced, and I think in the end that's what matters most!

[Yasupon 18]

I couldn't agree more with iknas statement!

You pretty much perfectly sum up my thoughts on that topic.

But this might be the core:

Modern Visual kei has adopted a lot of the former "scene" and some things didn't really change, but VK has entirely bacome a part of japanese culture and society- there is nothing aggressive, questionable or extreme about it. It's just another fashion and music trend which adapts to current trends and therefore will survive- but it has no meaning or statement.

In old times most visual kei bands were started because the members were fans themselves. The shock-effect and freedom those bands radiated when exposed to mainstream attention (like on tv) must have been extremely inspiring for many "regular" guys back then.

They wanted to become famous that way and inspire other "regular" poeple by being as "different" as possible themselves. This way it was very easy for the scene to stay alive and change in new interesting ways.

But now Visual kei doesn't touch general society much anymore. It became a subculture in which always-the-same-bandmen are fighting for the attention of always-the-same-fans.

And because the bandmen were never inspired by another band which made them want to express something inside of them (more by this small group of fans and the money they might have) their music often lacks sincerity.

Instead of trying to get new fans from outside by being aggressive and different they simply try to get as much from the fans they allready have by being exactly what the majority of those fans wants them to be. Also instead of the fans inventing furi for their favorite songs it's more the band writing music which fits the most popular furi.

And because the bands do this their music gets more and more similar while the standarts for looks are rising higher and higher.

Today even the most minor bands who didn't yet play oneman-shows for some reason need tailored costumes, professionally filmed pvs, hair and make up artists, magazine features, designer clothing and accessory for offstage-time, a crew of photoshop experts and custom instruments to be taken seriously while in 2000 these were things only major artists like Dir en grey and a few very popular indies bands like Dué le quartz and La'Mule could afford.

Actually bands today can't afford it either without spending a ridicilous amount of time and energy on pressing money out of their 20 fans with the help of 2943 type releases, instore and photo event campaigns, selling their worn clothes, filming special messages in santa-clothing and selling their bodies to fans.

It's only natural that the music suffers from this.

It's also only natural that most bands lack edges now, if you try selling 2334 cds, 2392 livetickets, 93942 cheki and 2833 special bracelets to 40 fans instead of selling 1000 livetickets and 1000 cds to 1000 fans you just can't take the risk of losing a single fan by trying something new.

Back in the 90s every second band looked horrible, sounded horrible and had no fans but nobody lost anything from that and in exchange certain bands were really, really innovative.

Now we have tons of bands that look okay, sound okay but somehow can't inspire anybody.

Of course I'm a fan of older bands and not so much of the newer ones, but even if I really, really liked the more colourful and electronic stuff I'd still say that certain dynamics are dangerous for the scene and while I don't want to says that it will actually "die" as in disappear any time soon.

It's more that it already killed itself some time ago and now got less interesting since it became a zombie.

fantastic comment

I learned a bit from it too.