New VK vs. Old VK

[The Bread Wolf 231]

Since this topic has spawned in various and various other topics and every time it's off the original subject I decided to make a topic for it. From this on, no new VK vs. old VK conversation (slash debate, slash fight) will be offtopic. Especially since there are people who constantly like to bring this juxtaposition up. *cough*

 

So where do you people stand? Is old VK really better than new one? Why? Why not? What makes it better? What makes it worse? Or are they just different? Do they both suck? Whatever is your view on this, please do express it.

[Jigsaw9 6783]

In my opinion there is no better or worse, there are just different personal tastes. Personally, I find myself drawn towards more old-schoolish sounds on most occasions but there's also a number of newer bands I equally like. I also like that old sound because it resembles older Western music I love listening to (post-punk, new wave, goth rock, etc)... so eventhough there are lots of similar sounding bands even in that era, I don't mind them that much.

[Dark Kinma 960]

I like both, it isn't just restricted to "old" & "new", we don't talk about "old rock" & "new rock"... It's different, not the same vision of music.

All period have their good and bad band... and old vk isn't exception to this rule, they would be foolish to say old is better than new, because some old band are very, very crappy (and conversely off course).

the mode of expression be changed, marketing too. but we must live with the times, and don't live in the past, La:Sadie's or Lubis Cadir (or other old band) never come back.

 

I think if we are in the 90's, we have the same disputation between 80's Visual kei & 90's....

[Thedane 176]

By far I'm more drawn towards the 00's and forward.

 

To me, the old-school bands all sound the same, but most of all, I don't get the appeal of them.

Guess it's because I didn't jump on the vk wagon at that time, I seek out the bands that sounds like those I first stumbled upon.

[CAT5 9075]

What exactly constitutes "old" and "new"? Those terms alone are pretty vague. When you say "old" you could be referring to bands from the early 00s, the early 90's, or last year even. If you defined "old" and "new" VK more precisely, then perhaps I'd be able to offer you a proper reply.

[The Bread Wolf 231]

What exactly constitutes "old" and "new"? Those terms alone are pretty vague. When you say "old" you could be referring to bands from the early 00s, the early 90's, or last year even. If you defined "old" and "new" VK more precisely, then perhaps I'd be able to offer you a proper reply.

Answer based on what YOU think is old and what is new. I'm not in a position to tell anyone that. :'D

[Tokage 5930]

For me personally, when I think of 'new' VK, I imagine the post-2005 stuff mostly, where VK started to get heavily dominated by nu-metal and (eventually) metalcore-ish elements. And I hate it. I prefer the older, more post-punk/goth/new wave-influenced bands from the older VK scene before that. (And the ones that are still around)

[TheBistroButcher666 228]

I prefer the Kuroyume, BUCK TICK, Luna Sea copy pasta bands over the br00tal DIR EN GREY and Gazette copy pasta bands.

I don't think any are better or worse, except current VK has a lot of little boys doing horrible grutal growly kyo-isk death vocals and should seriously stop. At least old VK had bad off tone singing, now we have off tone singing and bad death vocals.

The whole old vs new argument is stupid. While the early 00s and late 90s had more stuff I like, it doesn't make it better. There were just as many shallow and vapid bands back then like there is now.

[Zeus 7997]

The whole old vs new argument is stupid. While the early 00s and late 90s had more stuff I like, it doesn't make it better. There were just as many shallow and vapid bands back then like there is now.

/thread

[sai 868]

To OP: thank you for making this thread. I'd like to take the opportunity to remind everyone that we now have this thread for all your new VK vs. old VK arguments, so no more derailing in other threads. Next time I'll just start hiding or deleting posts if said thing happens.

 

Edit: whoops, guess it's my own choice.

 

I personally think neither is better, because of reasons already stated: both old VK and new VK had its unique bands and its tons of shitty bands. Sometimes it's harder to see that when it comes to older VK, since the VK community online wasn't as big as it is now, but I've heard out of reliable sources (note: Biopanda) that there was plenty of terrible bands in old VK too. So I guess it comes down to personal taste which one you think is better.

 

I personally am sort of a mix. I enjoy older bands like BUCK-TICK, LUNA SEA and DEAD END, but I also have a few bands that formed in the later 90's or early 00's that I really like, for example Alice Nine, D and Kagrra,.

[evilcoconut 109]

If, as someone mentioned, old VK is the stuff with musical styles more in the goth/new-wave/etc vein and new VK is in the nu-metal vein, then I probably prefer new VK, but I like and hate elements of both lol. It's not really a war with me like it is with some people.

[TheBistroButcher666 228]

What makes the argument so dumb is that not everyone will be able to agree on what defines old and new VK. 

 

Most of the people that seem to get their panties in a twist are usually referring to the gawffy Matina/Soleil era bands. Yet they tend to conveniently overlook a lot of the more popular bands from those eras that were considered VK by Japanese standards. Since those bands didn't use the overly gothic aesthetics these people usually just overlook them like they didn't exist at all or weren't tr00 kvlt vKKK. Then they get this skewed idea that VK was the howling BDSM outfit indie bandmen when Fanatic Crisis, Sophia and Wyse where around during that time and also considered to be very VK.

[madygrain 515]

I really struggle to pick a side when this subjet comes up. I really think both phases have the same quality. A few really good bands, a ton of mediocre bands and a buch of groups I like from each era wich are good sometimes but also quite bad in most cases. 

 

I think some people may miss the style of the older VK scene because it suits their tastes better, but I think that in therms of pure quality I could not decide wich one is superior. But it's reasonable to anyone to prefer 90's output due to the influences the musicians had back then. 

 

I personally like the music released between 2000 and 2009 most, but I think 1994 and 1998, 2006 and 2008 were the best VK years. This new decade is really unexciting for me though. It needs new faces taking it in another direction. 

[Number Girl 48]

Every era has had its ups and downs. I think my leanings towards older visual kei has more to do with my personal tastes. I have a thing for 80's inspired rock/punk/metal/glam music and styles, which most older VK takes inspiration from. However, that's not to say the old era of visual kei had some incredibly pitiful bands too - it wasn't all full of glory and epicness as people make it out to be. Think An Cafe was tacky? Look up the band Aura. 

 

Although, I will admit that I don't believe that there have been any newer visual bands that have come close to the talent and success of bands such as Luna Sea, X Japan, etc. I don't think bands like Gazette really have that same spark, even though they have come a long way from the bottom. 

[hyura 465]

I agree with what lots of other people already said: there is no real 'good' or 'bad' there. Very talented and totally hopeless musicians (and of course everything in between) have been around in any era of visual kei, but because the style changed a lot different people prefer different times.

visual kei that feels 'old' to me is anything until 1997 when most bands still had very notable similarities to western hardrock, postpunk and goth rock artists. Major Bands were extreme and Indie bands tried to look and sound just like them for the most part

Then from 1997 to 2005 while many major bands became somewhat toned down or mainstream rock the indies scene suddenly (while still taking lots and lots of influence from the original era) started changing rapidly in all kinds of directions and trends. The Matina Style BDSM goths. The yankees. The nagoya goths. The oshare kei bands. The aristocrats. the pseudo rappers. The angura people. The cosplay bands. The 'grown up' ex visual kei band. The dadaists. The soft visual kei boybands. The lunatics. the koteosa bands with weird hairstyles. The happy pop-punks. .. Many of those styles started earlier but most people will agree that those years were very experimental. Visual kei mutated by copying itself.

Then, somewhere around 2005-2007 until now what I feel is 'new' visual kei appeared. It might be because becoming major became a possibility again but somehow everything started to get more homogenous and less extreme, full Albums and proper songstructure took over. the scene once again started to take influence from western bands, namely different metal genres and mainstream pop.

 

I started liking visual kei in the 'gap' era between new and old and while I am a big fan of the legendary bands from the old days most of my favorites come from those years and it's what I associate 'visual kei' most with.

In comparison there is only a handful of bands from more recent years that I like.

Pop and Metal are not really my genre and on top of that I feel that the current artists put their emphasis too much on things unrelated to music.

Looks where very important for bands from the 90s as well, but not more important than for western punks and goths. There were special events/campaigns and photos and merchandise before 2005 but not nearly as much as now and also mostly for major and bigger indies bands. I know that indies need to make money with these things, but I think that their perfect looks cost more than they earn them.

[miyuu 40]

oh god this conversation again ...
so i was thinking this before 3 days because i read a person posting an interview and getting all mad about it in another site.

the point was that old bands started doing visual kei because they wanted to be different,weird and rebel.they wanted to shock in a way (as other non mainstream genres too)

but these days it gets harder to shock anyone or to be different.
the new bands seem to have change aim and have more of a host mentality.
for example not to shock ,but to look as attractive as can be ,so girls would buy their cd's.
also they are not trying to be unique and keep following fashion trends.

i am pretty sure old bands did that too  but less obviously ,like they were not admitting it .they  wanted to be seemed like they were more focusing on the rebellious side, while new bands seem like just a product for sale.

and this goes for music in general not only for visual kei.

my opinion is whatever... i am tired of this converasation again and again.
we live in now . old visual kei is dead. either you stuck in the past or not.
"we either adapt to change or we get left behind"

i love new bands and i listen to them!

(but sometimes i wish  for a unique band and a pioneer band . but i  know it's more difficult now to do something unique  than ever was.)
 

[seikun 317]

I prefer the old Visual Kei, the one from the mid 90's to early 2000's when most bands ended up breaking up (around 2002).

 

In my very personal opinion this era was the best for Visual Kei because it kind of attained a more distictive sound and bands tended to be more dramatic/theatrical on stage among other reasons.

 

Today's VK bands don't appeal to me that much with a few exceptions. But most bands have that nümetal sound that makes them sound dull and all the same and if I compare them to older bands, current bands don't have much to offer that I might feel interested in listening to.

 

I actually don't care much if a band sounds "crappy". One of the things that attracted me to Visual Kei was that most bands in the 90's had that "mental insanity" sound  with those hypnotic guitars that I just cannot find in today's bands. As an example, listen to Verfe~gorl's Kindan Shoujou. That song is amazing and can be used as a reference of the 90's sound of Visual Kei. I don't find that sound today.

 

There are and have been bands that I like and have liked today, but I usually forget about them after a time.

 

It all depends on personal taste. However I wish there were more bands like the ones of the 90's and early 2000's.

[jduv86 224]

Generally agree with the thread, BUT I will say personally I can only tolerate a few bands from earlier VK. I would define Old VK as 90s because that's when I first got into it. I can't compare 80s or before hand because honestly, overall I didn't like that era of music (not just Japanese, but in general. I only liked certain songs, but the era as a whole, I didn't like the music coming out).  I'm big on newer VK (2000 < ). The metal influences of today are far more appealing to me then punk influence and I also find the fashion to be overall cooler now and days. Also, I enjoy all the electronics incorporated today as I have a good amount of friends who are DJs so I'm constantly around autotune, techno, dubstep, synths, etc, etc. Then again...I've never really took the time to explore old VK. The only VK bands I've actually sat down and listen to were Malice Mizer, Dir en Grey, Kuroyume, PLastic Tree, and Janne da Arc (that was after they disbanded though). Any recommendations? I'm willing to be swayed. You can even through in some 80s VK

[Ikna 1225]

I can totally relate to seikun with the "unique sound" thing.
But we have actually talked about this already in a few threads, I stated my opinion about it earlier here.
I know a lot of people (such as miyuu) will disagree with my stance on this. It is correct that old bands wanted to get their hands on girls and money too- but there is still a difference in having a vk idol who looks like a crazy fucking deliquent or idiot or having a vk idol who looks like a beautiful host boy.
I am one of those people who sees old visual kei as it's very own thing, while modern visual kei has become something entirely different. Visual kei today has it's origin in the early 2000s pile of mediocre indies band thing and you can still hear a bit the influences of these band's and older visual kei, such as Luna Sea or Kuroyume, but overall the modern Vk phenomenom doesn't share that much with the older bands. Both the music and fashion were very different, let alone the concept. When in old visual kei it was more about being rebellious, punx and radical today's visual kei is more about being fashionable, beautiful or about coolness. And while older visual kei was regarded odd, strange and maybe even dangerous, modern visual kei is part of the japanese mainstream. It's still not really accepted and people dressing up visual kei are still regarded as weirdos, but there is much more acceptance and the fashion is part of japanese capitalistic fashion industry.
I am not saying, that old visual kei bands really ended up being so radical and different and anti-mainstream, because they didn't. And I mostly base my argument on Kaorus and Sigizos opinion on modern visual kei-both have the same feeling about modern visual kei having a totally different "ideology" which surrounds more about fashion and clothes. And he also feels that visual kei will drastically change to a point it can't be called visual kei anymore. It's also interesting that both are indicating that modern visual kei bands don't express themselves anymore as musicians.
Of course their opinion is very subjective, but they have been members of two very well known and big visual kei bands. And maybe the "being different and rebellious" is true- but obviously more for the early and first visual kei bands and not for those copycats, that followed afterwards.

I personally consider old visual kei to be more creative and exciting than new visual kei. And I also consider it to be an actual genre- mainly because bands from the 80s to the mid and late 90s shared a lot of musical elments. Even when a band from the 80s would sound very different than a Matina band from 1998, you can still hear and see the connection.
There have been as much terrible bands in the 90s as today- but at least I do tolerate old horrible bands more than neo Vk horrible bands. Though I think it is hard to compare their levels of terribleness because of how different the indies bands of these two eras sound.

I am honest though with my "kote kei elitism". I've got into groups like Moi dix Mois, D'espairsray and Dir en grey first so I was actually more in the 2003-2005 years of visual kei. It was easy then for me to go back in time and find a liking to older bands- but I couldn't get into any new band after 2006. I was and am still too fond of the wannabe-edgy fake-goffick punk sound and look I learned to know from Mana, Kyo, Hisui and others and the mass of oshare or brightly cute and try-hard to be sexy bands just didn't appeal to me- let alone, that I can't stand Metalcore, new-modern Emo and cheesy Electro-Rock and in conclusion I have a big issue with all this "neo Visual kei" thing. There are only a few vk bands from today I like and I am not denying that I am very prejudiced about new bands.

Like others have said, I miss old school's outfits (as I like their ridiculous hairstyles, the unbearable amount of make up, the cross dressing, the "edgy" clothes) and I miss especially the darker indie bands. As crappy as they have been, their mix of gothic (even though a lot of "hardcore-goffs" try hard to prove that old schhol visual kei has no goth in it), punk, metal and glam created the crazy sound of screeching, hypnotic, flanging guitars, with a prominent bass (an underrated Instrument I love but rarely plays an important role in neo vk or modern pop music in general), fast drumming and of course the out of tune singing, which pendles between  (lovely) crappiness, horribleness or complete insanity. I also miss the "mental insanity" topic too. I just love when the vocalist loses his mind during a song and screams, mourns and moans like an idiot. It's super cheesy, but I like it. (seriously: neo vk is also very very cheesy. Just in different ways than the old vk bands.)
I have no problem with being stuck in the past. I enjoy listening to the old bands and there have been enough artists that I can listen to and never get tired. I can understand why some old school lovers are so frustrated about modern visual kei though. I wish there would be more Kote kei bands and that it would be more known and popular. I'd wish to talk with people who like visual kei about old bands and not get a blank stare when I mention Raphael or Malice Mizer.

I am afraid we will probably never come into terms. As Arithmetica said, it is hard to define old or new visual kei. We can see their differences though, but it is not easy to say that music of this era was more deep and musically better than another. Modern Vk too has surely great artists too- it is then a matter of taste what you will like or what bands you can relate to.

@jduv86 I am not really good when it comes to give recommendations, but I try.
Now it depends what kind of music you lean towards and what genres you would be willing to like or try out. But as you seem to like "heavier" bands I would suggest the more Metal-ish or Punk-rock bands, such as Mist of Rouge, Vasalla, Velladonna, Antique Doll, The Piass, AION (okay, they might be or not vk but I will list them though) and of course Madeth gray'll.
Other bands I will recommend to check out are ROUAGE, Laputa, Luna Sea, D'erlanger, La' Mule, Aliene Ma'riage, Baiser, Deshabillz, Mirage, 90s penicillin and Pierrot.
 

[miyuu 40]

 

I know a lot of people (such as miyuu) will disagree with my stance on this.

 

 

me?

why would i disagree when i said the same.because i said i don't like staying in the past? well that's a different  thing.
i don't really like the whole host boy looking.
i mean when i first got to visual kei, to be honest i got exactly because the band members were pretty. i find most american /european bands ugly and i never even cared how they looked when i listened to them.

i still love vkei  looks.
but before that i grew up with rock mentality and after some years in visual kei , now it annoys me sometimes. i don't understand how rock music have such a pop mentality/host mentality.

for example selling themselves more than the music and following trends. i don't even understand  the chekis they sell in lives

i am not sure because i wasn't there but i think old artists were more weird and rebellious and i will always prefer this for rock/metal.than being a host

[seikun 317]

There is an interesting interview with GRIEVA and they speak about today's Visual Kei compared to old school Visual Kei which they are bringing back with their music.

 

They (GRIEVA) say: "we're the successors of the good old times"

 

Kyouki declares he thinks the current state of Visual Kei may bring it to an end.

 

http://black--zero.blogspot.com/2013/02/grieva-vshelf-interview-translation.html

[Jigsaw9 6783]

Thanks for the link, nice little interview!

[seikun 317]

It is refreshing to listen to the old sound by a band from today^^

 

Does anybody think Visual Kei could die out if it continues the way it goes today?

[TheBistroButcher666 228]

I can certainly see it turning into boy bands with instruments. More super group bands with multiple vocalist and various musicians that are basically just selling clothing brands and so forth.

 

More AGE-OF-EP failures. I mean we already have Gakido that no one cared about until that guy died and Monolith. 

 

http://youtu.be/OWTgD8vpeZs

 

I forgot how much this cracked me up, especially the clown guy. LETS SHOVE EVERY VK STEREOTYPE WE CAN THINK OF INTO THIS BAND. Did they Google a picture of Frypan and decided they needed to shove a clown guy in there because CHICKS DIG THIS SHIT!? Unfortunately (or fortunately?) they got rid of the gawdy VK glam and just went to host boy VK that we're all familiar with.

[Mr Bacon 106]

As for old VK, like pre-00, I don't dig it. The more rock-influenced bands were kinda boring and the punk-influenced bands were just plain awful with their dissonant chords and badly screaming vocalists.

 

VK between 2000-2005 had some gems, there was lots of bad out there too of course, but this is probably my favourite era. It just all made sense.

 

2005-2010 the mainstream VK got worse - every band sounded even more the same and musicianship got plain worse. Don't get me wrong, I know that that has always been the case, but starting then even the bad bands got more and more exposure. The angura scene still had some pretty cool stuff tho.

As for VK from 2010 onwards, the "worse" trend has, well, gotten even worse. Apart from a handful of inventive bands I honestly don't see why people would want to listen to the repetitive crap that's put out nowadays. I'm mostly talking new bands, but too many old bands have also gone down that path sadly. 

My $0,02.