Anyone else getting over VK recently?

[vanivani 558]

These posts are always so subjective. People get into visual kei at such a young age, and their interests change. People tend to not listen to music they listened to as teenagers. Just saying. Music scenes change and grow--whether for better or worse, which is also subjective. I also think people get too attached to their favorite bands. Bands come and go. But their music stays around. 

[Tokage 5930]

3 hours ago, Zeus said:

I would love to jump on the bandwagon...but to be fair growing up in visual kei we had a similar phenomenon, except the flavor of the decade back then was bland metalcore and bubbly oshare. The scene cares not for yesterday's interchangeable acts such as GHOSE, BIOSPHIA, DELACROIX, Crest of Aleist, DILIAL, Xepher, Re:dis, DIO -distraught overlord-, SHEDIA, DEPAIN, WERKMARE, THE RUDIE SATAN PARK, ichigo69, Diavro, GAUZES, GremlinS, トーマス, SCAPEGOAT, Since1889, Annabyss Coast, Gossip-ゴシップ-, Gimmick, DI3SIRAE, Deflina Ma'riage, Lustknot, JyuLie, 2the DISCOLAND, VIRGENOW, 2nd dyz, Heartless, Crazy shampoo, Golbeza, Dragonwapppppper, PIECElang, 東京指定., V-last., REALies, Zip.er, お遊戯ゎが魔々団×【PaRADEiS】, ZUCK, CANZEL, Called≠Plan, Zelktage, DIS★Marionette, Ap(r)il, 御主人様専用奇才楽団Virgil, xTRIPx, v[NEU] or 0801弐209336 -ゼロハチゼロイチニーニーゼロキュウサンサンロク-. Great bands, good bands, shit bands all forgotten to the sands of time. Half these bands are why people left the scene in the first place. Never forget the massive amount of shit we had to wade through when the scene was at its lowest.
 

Oh, hell yeah, I'm not trying to say that "generic, derivative flavor of the month" bands haven't been a part of the VK scene since its inception or anything. I mean, hell, that sort of stuff is common in just about every music scene. For example, take some of the late '00s indie acts Pitchfork hyped up to hell and back (like Sleigh Bells, Wavves, Yuck, Surfer Blood etc) that have at this point basically almost entirely vanished from the public eye..

 

In my personal case it's just that this stuff doesn't connect to what I'm currently looking for sound-wise, both the saccharine pop rock & the brutal core music that seem to dominate among the shit-to-mid tier bands have pretty much never really been my cup of tea, so it's only natural that at some point one starts to gradually float away from the scene in that case tbh. I'm not gonna entirely ditch it tho, VK's played an important part in shaping my musical taste, just can't really be assed to listen to 50 more bands that desperately wanna sound like Dir en grey or Dezert or w/e when I can just listen to the real stuff

 

[evilcoconut 109]

idk, i always think i'm over it, but then i find some random new band and sometimes i still straight binge on the stuff.  at this point i very srsly doubt i'll ever be "over it" lol

[Takadanobabaalien 3607]

there are some great bands if you just care to look for them.

[Komorebi 2193]

On January 24, 2017 at 9:34 AM, Euthanasia said:

 

Sorry, but no. But I don't compare new bands to old bands either. If we compare bands all the time I don't think we'll ever find newer bands to like c: 

 

Preach.

 

Some VK fans in Chile keep whining about how today's bands aren't as great as some Matina band that was around for half a year. I don't see how that can be enjoyable...

 

To me 2016 was the year of discoveries, of jumping on the post 2006 bandwagon and trying the new scene. If you dig around you can find stuff you like. With like 80 new bands a year there's gotta be something that fits your taste.

[YuyoDrift 1540]

Sometimes I wish I could sticky my own threads on this forum.

 

 

Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, I've been busy.

Have a read through there, and perhaps you may get some insight from others here who felt the same way at some point.

[Lestat 2167]

On 28-1-2017 at 2:58 AM, Komorebi said:

Preach.

 

Some VK fans in Chile keep whining about how today's bands aren't as great as some Matina band that was around for half a year. I don't see how that can be enjoyable...

 

To me 2016 was the year of discoveries, of jumping on the post 2006 bandwagon and trying the new scene. If you dig around you can find stuff you like. With like 80 new bands a year there's gotta be something that fits your taste.

 

There is no commanding someone elses' taste, however. There is a lot more to it than just being unable to find bands that musically appeal to these people (myself included). I always read how others say that bands cannot be compared (and truly, they cannot), yet there is always a persisting feeling present that inherently compares a listening experience to previous and past ones. For me personally, something in me cannot recreate the same emotional attachment when we place, say... Gossip-ゴシップ- (whom I adore) and Lareine (whom I of course, also adore) next to one another. They are completely different bands and I hold both in high regard, but something within me cannot reach as far toward Gossip-ゴシップ- as I do to Lareine. The music industry is ever changing and therefore people's perspective on music is also changing. I feel that my connections to current bands (especially in Visual kei, because of the unstability in the scene in general) are a lot more shallow and insincere. I cannot connect to the music or the faces behind the music all that much anymore and I feel like my favourite musicians are simply set in stone, without much room to let new names in. Incidentially, these names are all from twenty or thirty years in the past, and I sorely miss their presence. While there are some new names I enjoy, they just cannot live up to what I experienced while discovering bands that are long gone but left a much greater impact.

[Komorebi 2193]

@Lestat, you are absolutely right. New bands you like won't have the same impact or mean as much to you. That's an undeniable fact.

 

I should have been more specific. I keep encountering people who refuse to TRY OUT anything post 2005. Not even a "I heard it, didn't dig it. I like the 90's sound" but a "they don't look like a 90's band so they probably suck". Those are those I complain about. Those who talk ill of bands they haven't even bothered listening, and the reasons for not listening to them are "I don't like how they look", "new GazettE sucks, so all bands now probably suck", "their fans are teenagers so they can't be good", "they all look the same so they have to sound the same". 

 

The pessimistic attitude of people who refuse to even try the new scene and their shitthrowing at newer bands they haven't even heard is exhausting. I've gone to parties where they ONLY play indies music from Matina bands and such because if you dare play something post 2006 or something major the majority of the "old farts" (27 +years old) will literally leave the dance floor and start complaining. They don't even stay and listen to something they might dig and it's like they are afraid of liking something new and have their precious reputation of "true VK fan" ruined. And I say true VK in quotation marks because I have LITERALLY heard them talk about what VK is supposed to look like and sound like and cross out VK bands as non VK because they don't look like Kuroyume in 1997.

No one says you can't enjoy old stuff, but this country has the ENORMEOUS luck of having a thriving scene. The incredible luck of having a meet up for the Deathgaze ST and have 70, yes, seventy, people show up in the same town. There's at least 4 or 5 event producers who try to include VK in their cons and events, throw parties and even bring artists, but this can't go anywhere if half of VK fans are trying real hard to keep the scene in the 90's and early 2000's and I swear I cannot understand why they are so obsessed with that.

 

I hope my little rant made some sense and didn't feel too biased.

[efuru 255]

On 1/23/2017 at 8:59 PM, midi:nette said:

I'm gonna admit, I hate most of the new bands coming up these days, yet I stan the hell out of older bands like MERRY, Megaromania, etc. However, this year, I've checked out some recent stuff like Moran and Crucifixion, and older stuff like Deadman, and I really liked it. For the rest of the year, I'm making it my goal to check out other bigger bands that I haven't listened to yet and broaden up my vk horizons a bit more, since I feel like I'm totally missing out at the moment.

That's what I've been really trying to do as well.

[GLASSCLOUD 38]

VK4EVER!

 

JK 

 

I've tried to pull away from it but since bands I like are still going I can't look away from them and the evolution they take. @_@ I'm not really sure why but I just like. A lot of my favorites have disbanded and I suppose once the last few do I'll only have the bands that I liked unless some new awesome stuff pops up but I highly doubt that. 

[seikun 317]

Musically, most bands today don't catch my attention. I admit most bands today play much better than older bands, but they don't play the kind of music that I like in Visual Kei. I also see the theatrical aspect of Visual Kei lost, there is no dramatization of any kind anymore except for a few bands here and there. I also feel like for many Visual Kei bands today their looks are meaningless, there's not real or at least minimal purpose in dressing and looking like that in an artistic sense.

 

Visual Kei cannot be always at the top just like no other music style/scene is at the top forever. Sooner or later they dwindle and lose their initial appeal among the crowd. Goth was the thing in the past; it isn't anymore. Metal was the thing in the past; it isn't anymore and etc. All styles lose their appeal to some degree someday.

 

I'm not over Visual Kei, I still love it; it's just that there is less offered for my taste.

 

 

Edited March 6, 2017 by seikun

[01K1NEMA 12]

For me, being in my mid 20's and having gotten into VK when I was barely a teenager, I started to be less tolerant of a lot of songs that I'd listen to more openly when I was younger. For example, i'd like certian parts of songs but not choruses or bridges and stuff and just simply block out all the parts I wouldn't like. But as I'm getting older, i'm finding a lot of the music just isn't catchy or is just downright terrible to listen to for me. I consider myself a fan of VK but there's so few songs by a band that I say I like, that I actually like, I'm really not sure if I truly am the fan I say I am. That being said, I'll be following VK for the rest of my life I'm sure haha

[Milayou 36]

I've actually found myself digging deeper and deeper into the genre over the years. Tokyo Damage Report have pretty dubious credentials but that article they put out on the shadier side of 90's VK really sparked my curiosity. It becomes so exciting to find a tiny bit of info that helps you make sense of obscure VK mythos and draw links between bands or labels (although I guess the language barrier might make it seem more exciting than it really is...)

[jaymee 405]

On 2017/1/24 at 5:50 PM, dannemannen said:

I understand that this is a returning topic, sorry.
 

I just don't see how an adult can enjoy this stuff: 

This comes from an old hardcore fan, maybe its just growing up?
Well, cheers. 

 

#20 was pretty good. A few sounded like stuff that would have been released in the early-late 00s. (Generally not my cup of tea in VK either, though.)

Golden Bomber's Malice Mizer, Dir en grey, etc. parody last year was everything. I find it awesome that although their entire career is parody/satire of the whole VK concept, they've managed to become the best-selling VK band of their time. What's sad, though, is a lot of girls don't entirely realize they're a parody/satire band (outside of stuff like this) and they're able to sell on face value alone without being able to play any instruments well (with exception to Sho). When they had that drummer named Toriaezu Riku, I about died laughing at the blatant shade being thrown at VK dudes who would change their names like 3-5 times in their career depending on how many times they wanted to ~re-invent themselves~.

As someone said, most of the music is made to appeal to ~edgy~ middle/high school/university chicks. This person seems to have particularly bad taste overall, but I imagine if you delve into more indie stuff there's variety. Personally I'm pretty content with listening to and discovering more older bands whose music I didn't have access to when I was really into the scene.

I think as older fans we're lucky because we didn't have to delve quite though so much crap to find good stuff. I mean there was SO MUCH CRAP back then to be sure (I used to own so many shitty indies band flyers and demo tapes/CDs), but other foreigners in Japan or avid in the scene had already filtered most of it for us by posting their favorite picks on their websites. Now with YouTube and streaming being a more popular way to consume music, you get a deluge of everything in the scene, crap and all.

Edited June 26, 2017 by jaymee

[lichtlune 915]

Was going to post this in this thread but didn't want to ruin the vibe.

None of these new bands have any staying power to me. I'll listen to it maybe once or twice but I wouldn't add it to my library or anything for future listening. I might sound like a negative nancy but I just don't think I can listen to these new bands until a major shift happens in the scene. Maybe the 2020s will bring forward some fresh new wave of bands that fill that void for me but as things stand I just don't think I can enjoy visual kei music.

 

See I wouldn't even say that I'm over vkei per se because I still check this forum every few days in hopes of finding something new. It's just that the current state of the scene has left something to be desired for me. I had a feeling this would happen as soon as undercode went under but still help hope. Now? I can count the amount of active bands I listen to on one hand. I'm very curious what the general consensus is around here. Maybe many of you couldn't be happier with visual kei in 2017.

 

Perhaps I'm just out of touch. Or maybe I should just let bygones be bygones and open up to other types of music outside of visual kei. Though I wouldn't know where to start. These days I find myself listening to more video game OST's than any band music. I don't even know where to begin as far as western metal and rock goes if I'm honest. Anyone in a similar position? I just don't know what to listen to anymore. Do I even like music? lol

[platy 3018]

4 hours ago, lichtlune said:

 

 

Perhaps I'm just out of touch. Or maybe I should just let bygones be bygones and open up to other types of music outside of visual kei. Though I wouldn't know where to start. These days I find myself listening to more video game OST's than any band music. I don't even know where to begin as far as western metal and rock goes if I'm honest. Anyone in a similar position? I just don't know what to listen to anymore. Do I even like music? lol

 

I'm the same position.

My library is 70% game OST's. I have a ton of new bands I have downloaded in hopes of adding something fresh and interesting to my list of favorites but I haven't got around to it yet. I got a spotify account in the hopes that it would help me expand my western repertoire but I don't even know where to begin with this. There's some experimental Pop artists that I enjoy, but in terms of rock bands I'm clueless. I also find myself listening more to audiobooks than music lol

[Chi 2624]

58 minutes ago, Platy said:

 

I'm the same position.

My library is 70% game OST's. I have a ton of new bands I have downloaded in hopes of adding something fresh and interesting to my list of favorites but I haven't got around to it yet. I got a spotify account in the hopes that it would help me expand my western repertoire but I don't even know where to begin with this. There's some experimental Pop artists that I enjoy, but in terms of rock bands I'm clueless. I also find myself listening more to audiobooks than music lol

About spotify, just use it to listen what you already know and the next week it will give you recs in the "discover" tab based on what you listened.  It's a feature I use the most.

[apple-wa 10]

I've heard that at a certain age, people tend to stop looking for new music and go back to what they liked when they were younger. I think I've kind of reached that point in my life. I try not to think about it too much because it makes me feel old.

[Hakari 282]

On 1/24/2017 at 7:38 AM, Tokage said:

Oh, hell yeah, I'm not trying to say that "generic, derivative flavor of the month" bands haven't been a part of the VK scene since its inception or anything. I mean, hell, that sort of stuff is common in just about every music scene. For example, take some of the late '00s indie acts Pitchfork hyped up to hell and back (like Sleigh Bells, Wavves, Yuck, Surfer Blood etc) that have at this point basically almost entirely vanished from the public eye..

 

In my personal case it's just that this stuff doesn't connect to what I'm currently looking for sound-wise, both the saccharine pop rock & the brutal core music that seem to dominate among the shit-to-mid tier bands have pretty much never really been my cup of tea, so it's only natural that at some point one starts to gradually float away from the scene in that case tbh. I'm not gonna entirely ditch it tho, VK's played an important part in shaping my musical taste, just can't really be assed to listen to 50 more bands that desperately wanna sound like Dir en grey or Dezert or w/e when I can just listen to the real stuff

 

 

This x100

 

couldnt have said it better myself 

Edited July 12, 2017 by Hakari

[PsychoΔelica 648]

To your question — yes.

[jaymee 405]

On 2017/7/10 at 10:24 PM, Platy said:

 

I'm the same position.

My library is 70% game OST's. I have a ton of new bands I have downloaded in hopes of adding something fresh and interesting to my list of favorites but I haven't got around to it yet. I got a spotify account in the hopes that it would help me expand my western repertoire but I don't even know where to begin with this. There's some experimental Pop artists that I enjoy, but in terms of rock bands I'm clueless. I also find myself listening more to audiobooks than music lol

 

I suggest following a lot of different music blogs. This is how I discover a lot of "good"/indies Western music.

 

I think with older alternative rock/rock or visual kei, the problem is that times have changed so it's going to be difficult to find that exact sound by a modern band. It's kind of like trying to find new bands playing disco music from the 70s... Some might be influenced by it and incorporate bits and pieces of that sound, but it's not going to sound exactly the same. This makes sense, since most music is made in response to the trends and cultural shifts going on at that time. But since the VK artists from the early 00s on were generally not part of that culture themselves, they have no connection to its roots, and most bands now are just imitating previous bands for fashion /expression and/or to make money off an established formula. To people who have been in the scene for some time, it looks like the music of today's artists has no soul.

 

But I think VK was originally born out of a lot of imitation of punk and rock bands of the generations before it, so only time will tell if today's artists will lead to newer artists carving out their own version of the genre or if the genre will continue to stagnate until it dies out and something else takes its place.

 

 

[orange~ 387]

I've had a little bit of falling off from VK as of this year. Mostly because I'm a die-hard fan of Mejibray and AvelCain and they both went/are going on hiatus. There are still enjoyable bands around, but I've been getting more into other kinda music lately. In general I'm liking the scenes a lot and most new music is more interesting than golden era VK ever was to me. But that's just my personal taste. Anyways, I'm sure I'll get back to VK loop in few months - that's how it always goes. Taste changes go in waves.

[Nagisa 131]

I've been taking a break from Visual Kei for a few months. I'll probably get back into it once the GazettE release something new. I've been listening to Every Little Thing, which I got into around the same time as the GazettE. I don't think I've listened to "new" artists since 2012.

[Jennifer Hage 18]

Not really, i personally still like Visual Kei as it is a means to escape reality?

Or something among those lines.

[EzraEroguro 174]

I definitely stan the shit outof DeG, sukekiyo, Plastic Tree and MUCC. I just found other stuff i like atm.