Genres...?!

[nullmoon 784]

This helps to explain things a bit -http://homelessvisualkids.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/a-look-into-visual-kei-subgenres/

[TheBistroButcher666 228]

If it's just for your own use, there really isn't a right or wrong way to what genre you use. If you like listening to Deathgaze with say Aicle and even though they're technically worlds apart when it comes to genres, if you still like listening to both at the same time. Then tag em as dickbutt kei or whatever just works.

 

Honestly I like to use playlists but if you really are adamant of tagging genres, it's just whatever works for you personally. 

[seikun 317]

Most people understand that Visual Kei is free and that a song can have more than one genre in it, which in my opinion is a great thing ever since sticking to one genre makes music predictable and boring for someone like me.

 

Nowadays there are lot of bands that don't follow a specific genre, instead bands from all styles mix a lot of them. A friend of mine even says that today it is not even importat to be able to play well.

 

So I think if Visual Kei has to be labeled something I would suggest "ALTERNATIVE".

[kurenaishineek 646]

Okay i help out here a little cause i see as always ppl start to generalize , and justify why you should stick to calling music by not genre but by a subculture . Its stupid cause music is music , and only thanks to its stupid comercialization ppl started to think of it as a thing you "watch" and not "listen" . So heres the list , most of it is head on , some is a little simplified cause i dont know all the Rock genres out there .

Kaggra - most of their stuff can be described as a mix of Dark Rock and some Traditional Japanese Folk elements , so lets say Folk/Dark Rock

Kra - did not listen to much of their stuff , but its mainly alternative rock with jazz , pop and funk influences , there are also some pop rock songs from them

Alice Nine - only listened to what they have on spotify and those are all pop rock songs , altough japanese wiki says its rock,pop rock,hard rock , so probably the more harder songs are power pop , but i only hear pop rock

Versailles - thats pretty simple , cant believe no one hit it right its Symphonic/Neoclassical Power Metal , if you cut out those symphonic elements you have basically the same stuff Galneryus plays .

Early NoGod , no difference early or not , they still play the same , its Heavy Metal , altough they got a lot better in it .

Lolita 23q is a little of a mixdown of a lot of stuff in different genres , you have some glam rock , power pop , pop rock , industrial metal and nu metal .

Ayabie only few songs i know and all where pop rock .

Alsdead/Deluhi/Lycaon/Heartless , basically its what i hate in VK its a rather shitty americanized mixdown of alternative metal and metalcore that makes in neither metalcore nor alternative metal , deluhi was at least a little good at it the rest reather boring and repeatable , as all bands making this mix .

New Lycaon dont know , did not listen after the crap they played at start .

The Gazette started as very technicaly and guitar driven mix of darker industrial with hard rock , later they started with more commercial style of nu-metal trying to copy american metal bands , later turned themselves to alternative rock and alternative metal , no dont know ive already gave up they can record any album that wouldnt suck .

Dir En Grey early stuff was a lot of genres , with some punk rock and garage punk , inustrial stuff , pop rock , rock , hard rock , there was even pop punk ("Jessica" , you remember this song) and some other stuff i dont really remember . Later started to play more commercial and americanized nu metal , then they started to change experimenting with stuff , mixing progressive metal with death metal and deathcore elements like on dum spiro spero , with some add on of ethnic stuff like in dozing green , now they still play a little more experimental but lighter and changes style to alternative metal .

Older VK bands played a lit of different genres , Aliene Marriage played Dark/Gothic Rock , Pierrot played Hard Rock and Gothic Rock mostly , Luna Sea is a mix of many rock genres and from what i remember correctly thats what progressive rock is , and they do sound like all the other prog rock bands im listening too . Glay is power pop and pop rock .

Copy cats are copy cats , theyre just copies and basically do the same stuff the ones they copy do .

Miyavi , uh not really like him so cant help you out , but heard someone called some of their stuff blues .

Piass is a hardcore/thrashcore band , hardcore songs where good , the thrashcore ones , well i dont like this genre .

Renter en soi , call me what you want for not knowing this band but ive never heard em . But i checked it on youtube , well to be precise only some songs ,

Protoplasm - Gothic Rock

Last Scene - typical lighter Alternative Metal song

Amongst Foolish Enemies - Alternative Metal/Metalcore

So its for now its hard to classify em , but i think taging them as Alternative Metal band would be the best here .

Hope it helps out , if you really want to classify em so you can easily compare em and make better playlists , than you should read bout the genres on wikipedia maybe knowing the characteristics of some genres will help you in the future . I know there is a lot of genres , but you really only need to focus on some of them , cause no matter what other ppl say VK bands are not really playing that many genres , they mostly focus on Alternative Rock & Metal , Nu Metal , Punk Rock , Power Pop , Pop Rock , Metalcore , Gothic Rock , Dark Rock . Bands like Versailles and NoGod are rather rare , true metal bands on VK scene are almost non existent .

BTW just a stupid offtop question , anyone ever heard a VK band playing Post British Pop (like Coldplay or Keane) , cause some time ago i heard such band on youtube but i forgot the name and i wasent logged in on youtube so its not in my history .

[kurenaishineek 646]

 

Most people understand that Visual Kei is free and that a song can have more than one genre in it, which in my opinion is a great thing ever since sticking to one genre makes music predictable and boring for someone like me.

 

Nowadays there are lot of bands that don't follow a specific genre, instead bands from all styles mix a lot of them. A friend of mine even says that today it is not even importat to be able to play well.

 

So I think if Visual Kei has to be labeled something I would suggest "ALTERNATIVE".

 

Sorry to burst you bubble but 90% of new VK IS VERY BORING AND PREDICTABLE , older bands mixed a lot genres , todays VK bands are 90% dominated by a shitty mixdown of Alternative Metal and Metalcore . Other then few examples of course , and the VK rock bands , the metal one suck as hell . VK rock bands are a little less predictable but still its either pop punk , pop rock or alternative rock . So really dont try to make up some excuses for being lazy to know at least some characteristics from some genres . Read about 1 genre daily and after a month you will know a lot more . Altough its not really my place to say it , its your decision how you tag your music , its it either pop and rock , or pop and rock and metal , or even you use VK as a music tag , its your choice .

[sai 868]

Jesus fucking Christ, do you have to bring up this debate in every thread you enter? We have a special thread for this whole New VK vs. Old VK-discussion, so I'm going to redirect you there now:

 

http://www.monochrome-heaven.com/topic/21022-new-vk-vs-old-vk/

 

My apologies for sounding rude, but it doesn't help that you bring this up in every thread you post in, most of the time completely unrelated to the initial meaning of the thread.

[Umi_Niwa 31]

What is 'kei' anyway?

For me starting to break everything down to genres and styles just  beats all the fun out of the music. I don't see the point.

[Biopanda 2675]

What is 'kei' anyway?

For me starting to break everything down to genres and styles just  beats out all the fun out of the music. I don't see the point.

People like to have their things in neat little boxes, even though some bands only fit in there sometimes or you end up making things complex by either mashing together a bunch of tags or creating a new genre just to describe one band(post-punk-avant-garde-blacksploitation-porno-groove music).

[Umi_Niwa 31]

That's the biggest human flaw isn't it? 

[kurenaishineek 646]

Jesus fucking Christ, do you have to bring up this debate in every thread you enter? We have a special thread for this whole New VK vs. Old VK-discussion, so I'm going to redirect you there now:

 

http://www.monochrome-heaven.com/topic/21022-new-vk-vs-old-vk/

 

My apologies for sounding rude, but it doesn't help that you bring this up in every thread you post in, most of the time completely unrelated to the initial meaning of the thread.

Than look at all those goddamn post in this topic , im offtoping ? GODDAMMIT he just asked bout genres , not what you think about him wanting to tag it by genre not by subculture . It dosent need to help , its just a fact and maybe i bring it back a lot but no one in this topic is holy , cause all ppl here wrote crap no one asked for .

What is 'kei' anyway?

For me starting to break everything down to genres and styles just  beats all the fun out of the music. I don't see the point.

Kei means style from japanese , so proper name in english would be visual style .

[seikun 317]

  

Sorry to burst you bubble but 90% of new VK IS VERY BORING AND PREDICTABLE , older bands mixed a lot genres , todays VK bands are 90% dominated by a shitty mixdown of Alternative Metal and Metalcore . Other then few examples of course , and the VK rock bands , the metal one suck as hell . VK rock bands are a little less predictable but still its either pop punk , pop rock or alternative rock . So really dont try to make up some excuses for being lazy to know at least some characteristics from some genres . Read about 1 genre daily and after a month you will know a lot more . Altough its not really my place to say it , its your decision how you tag your music , its it either pop and rock , or pop and rock and metal , or even you use VK as a music tag , its your choice .

I wasn't exactly thinking of today's bands but the old ones.

 

Oh please why don't you instruct me on this? You seem to know very much. I could learn a lot from you...

 

Genres are life...

[seikun 317]

By the way. Aliene Ma'riage doesn't sound gothic to me, not much at least. To me this band can be taken as reference for the achievement of a particular sound that distingueshes the 90's and early 2000's Visual Kei era.

 

Baiser, Aliene Ma'riage, Missalina Rei, Lamiel, Madeth gray'll, Verfe~gorl and the list goes on and on.

 

But in the end it is good that you cqan't classify a lot of bands. Nowadays the more you mix the better.

[Umi_Niwa 31]

Kei means style from japanese , so proper name in english would be visual style .

Thank you.

[kurenaishineek 646]

By the way. Aliene Ma'riage doesn't sound gothic to me, not much at least. To me this band can be taken as reference for the achievement of a particular sound that distingueshes the 90's and early 2000's Visual Kei era.

 

Baiser, Aliene Ma'riage, Missalina Rei, Lamiel, Madeth gray'll, Verfe~gorl and the list goes on and on.

 

But in the end it is good that you cqan't classify a lot of bands. Nowadays the more you mix the better.

It depends on what you think gothic music is . Nightwish and Within Temptation are not gothic , Silver Sweet Edge Phantasm are gothic .

[evilcoconut 109]

Before I got sick of separating genres, I only had two folders for VK: major and indie lol.  I may have also had angura and Nagoya folders alongside the aforementioned two.

 

 Another idea could be good vocals and bad vocals hahah.

[sai 868]

Than look at all those goddamn post in this topic , im offtoping ? GODDAMMIT he just asked bout genres , not what you think about him wanting to tag it by genre not by subculture . It dosent need to help , its just a fact and maybe i bring it back a lot but no one in this topic is holy , cause all ppl here wrote crap no one asked for.

 

This whole "BUT HE/SHE DID IT FIRST"-argument is irrelevant. Threads usually go off-topic, there's nothing you nor the staff can do to prevent it. However, if a user goes a little off-topic once in a while there's nothing the staff will do to intervene, because if we're going to have to punish EVERYONE who goes a tiny bit off-topic in a thread, that would just kill the discussions all-together. However, with you both I and the other staff members have noticed a pattern. The fact you go on about how old visual kei is better than new VK is most of the time not just a little but COMPLETELY unrelated to the initial meaning of the thread and almost always ensues into arguments or people getting offended. If you're going to complain about it, at least do it in the appropriate thread, that's all I'm asking of you.

 

Also, if you've read the MH guidelines you know that mod decisions are final and that you should not argue with them. I'm leaving it with a verbal warning this time because in this thread everyone ignored it/moved on, but should you feel like commenting on my decision again I will take more serious actions.

[kurenaishineek 646]

Before I got sick of separating genres, I only had two folders for VK: major and indie lol.  I may have also had angura and Nagoya folders alongside the aforementioned two.

 

 Another idea could be good vocals and bad vocals hahah.

Thats good for doujin circles , altough 90% male vocals there would land in the bad vocals folder , but its not from my viewpoint but from what i read on doujinstyle , if you ask me , there are more good male vocalist on doujin scene .

On the other hand , i dont think that the person who started this topic meant it this way , i think he wanted it as genres . I kinda understand him , cause if i want to make a mood playlist and want bands like gyze , making a playlist by Visual Kei would not fit at all , on the other had dumping in the playlist all modern melodeath bands would fit .

I'm totally cool with categorising Oshare Kei and Nagoya Kei because they're the only types I really feel comfortable labelling. With stuff like Crossfaith, I just bung it into a 'J-Metal' folder so as to distinguish it from Western stuff.

1st Crossfaith is not really that distinguishable from western bands , they sound like a lot american electronicore bands , they are not the first band who adds dubstep and electronic elements to melodic metalcore , its rather mega popular in the US , i would even say its as popular as Pop music .

2nd Oshare Kei bands are simple to classify , they are either pop punk or pop rock mostly with electronic elements . There are some Nu Metalish bands in Oshare but not many

3rd Nagoya Kei is almost always made of dark sounding genres coming mostly from the punk tree , like garage punk , post hardcore and metalcore , that can be heard in most Nagoya Kei bands like Deathgaze , The Studs and Lynch . Most of the time combined with alternative metal of course to make it sound more mainstream .

I think oshare and nagoya are the easiest of all VK to categorize into genres , especially oshare as its dominated by pop punk .

[nullmoon 784]

@kurenaishineek - Sorry, in regards to Crossfaith I meant I wanted to separate it from Western artists. Clearly they sound alike but I like to separate the music of different countries into different genres.

 

Oshare Kei and Nagoya Kei are really easy to distinguish so how come there aren't more?! I read up on Angura Kei recently which seems to sum up bands like Kagrra nicely, and yet according to some people bands like Girugamesh are Angura Kei?

[TheBistroButcher666 228]

Hi guys,

I've been listening to Visual Kei for years now but I still have absolutely no idea how to 'genre-ify' (is there a word for this?! Categorise I guess?) 99% of it. I'm totally cool with categorising Oshare Kei and Nagoya Kei because they're the only types I really feel comfortable labelling. With stuff like Crossfaith, I just bung it into a 'J-Metal' folder so as to distinguish it from Western stuff.

However, I have a ton of bands who I don't know how to categorise. As a result I simply put them under Visual Kei, which according to this site is highly incorrect! Some guidance on the following bands would be really appreciated!

-Bands like Kagrra

-Bands like Kra

-Bands like Alice Nine

-Bands like Versailles

-00's bands which had a lot of shouty stuff (early NoGoD, Ayabie, Lolita23q etc)

-Bands like Alsdead/Deluhi/old Lycaon/Heartless etc

-Bands like new Lycaon

-Bands like D'espairsray

-Bands like The GazettE, who I guess sorta links to Girugamesh now?

-DIR EN GREY!!! (I guess they are in a genre of their own? People say their older albums are similar to old VK but I just don't see it. Were many bands doing songs like Myaku?!)

-Older bands like Luna Sea, Glay etc

-Copycat bands like Grieva (would they be the same as above?)

-Miyavi...?

-Punk bands like The Piass

-Rentrer en Soi? What would they be...?

Sorry, this is pretty messy but any help would be great! It would be cool to put a genre on shuffle and not come across songs that have nothing in common.

[kurenaishineek 646]

 

@kurenaishineek - Sorry, in regards to Crossfaith I meant I wanted to separate it from Western artists. Clearly they sound alike but I like to separate the music of different countries into different genres.

 

Oshare Kei and Nagoya Kei are really easy to distinguish so how come there aren't more?! I read up on Angura Kei recently which seems to sum up bands like Kagrra nicely, and yet according to some people bands like Girugamesh are Angura Kei?

Well i like to separate by countries as well but not into special "made up" genres , on the other hand i listen to asian music only anyway , you know japanese , chinese , malaysian and so on .

Cause most of the "vk subgenre" stuff is made up by fans , and so angura has 2 different characterizations , one is its a style where bands play western styled rock and metal blending in japanese traditional stuff , and the make up and clothes are more into japanese traditional stuff those are bands like kaggra , onmyouza , inugami circus dan , the other one is that those are underground bands with darker sound and black clothings and make up , like mucc and girugamesh . Obviously the first one is more true , cause mucc is 100% eroguro . There is also the part that ppl read the characteristics of a genre and still classify something as they see fit . I heard of ppl who classified Crossfaith post hardcore with electronic elements , well thats exactly 2/3 of the electronicore description .

Another great example of ultra paradoxal genre misclassification is Detroit Metal City , its a band playing Groove Metal , but the manga , anime and movie say they are Satanic Death Metal Band , but theyre make up tells you they are Extreme Black Metal or Raw Black Metal band .

Its not like ppl dont want to learn about genres , its just that they are bombarded by such nonsenses all the time . There are a lot more new totally made up genres coming out , like Djent thats sounds not much different than progressive metal , or Sid Metal , thats basically sounding like a mix of Heavy and Power Metal , but the band wants to call it theyre own way . And there are more and more crossover bands coming up with weird genre mixes that are hard to classify , like funkcore , punk metal (never really heard any of that) . Theres also the whatevercore genre that if you look closer describes not the bands but rather ppl who dont know how to classify something , cause all bands that land in this category are either electronicore bands or bands that play some older genres like new wave or disco punk .