saiko

What's your VK-related guilty pleasure?

Mine are the first Malice Mizer songs of the Gackt era: "Ma cherie", "Après midi", and the like. 

The compositions sound so amateur, the keyboards feel so overwhelmingly cheesy, and the live performances are so pointless and clumsy... they make me cringe when I think of them too seriously, like "What the fuck was Mana actually thinking" but I can't stop siging them. Damn!

After many (many) listenings to DeG's "Gauze", I could moreless figure out which are the sources of the majority of the songs in the album, in terms of styles and bands. For example, "Mitsu no tsuba", "Yurameki" and "Akuro no oka" recall Luna Sea very easily, "Cage" does for X songs like "Rusty Nail", while "304 blablabla", "Zan" and "Mazohyst" do the same for Kuroyume. 

But there are still some songs whose arrangments don't fit in any "constelations" of arranagments I've heard before withing and out of the VK scene. "Yokan", "Raison detre" and "Mask"; the only word that comes to my mind while hearing them is "dance punk", but I can't tell anything else on the subject.

Any ideas?

So my bf said he didn't like Gauze beyond "Cage", because of Kyo's voice sounding "weird" at him. 

Should I dump him?

After looking at Michi (ex-Maschera) and Koji's (ex-La'cryma Christi) new project, a thought came to my mind. I love both musicians, and the music they've put out is ok. But I can't avoid getting cringy vibes from this kind of looks. Don't exactly know why... All I feel is like they are pretending too much; they don't carry that look like it's themselves. It actually feels like they are making fun, doing cosplay of some BL anime instead of doing "art".

This kind of over-the-top fantasy aesthetics looked great on 90s acts like Malice Mizer, Psycho le cemu or even early DeG; they felt "genuine", "fresh", "artistic". Nowadays, when there is a trend of bands that exploit it (the like of Grimmoire, Pentagon, the raid, Yumeleep, Mathilda, BabyKingdom) they seem always forced and, in that way, painful to look at. Those nekomimi and tails are... ugh...

Does anyone else feel the same?

With this issue of Diaura switching labels, I got curious about the topic. How many labels of the VK scene can you count? If you can, add information on year of starting and closing; owner (and bands he/she got involved); at least three names of the most famous bands they have worked with; overall reputation.

Did I transcribed correctly what Kamijo says in the intro?

ようこそ
ここは 君の ??? 記憶の中
未だ
自分の全部で苦しみを 知らない
小さな蕾お
これから 君は 自分が 生まれるまいにだいて
全ての感情を 知る事の 生る
そ
前線の君は 運命を 占い
リリーと言う 
指の 名を持つ 
自分の 運命を

There are some words I can't identify clearly, so maybe I missing a の for an を and so on...

Which do you consider are the most "anthemic" vk songs ever? 

For me there are quite a few, but "Cage" from Dir should be in the top of the list.

Does anybody know what happened to Yomi's voice during the last era in Naito? I've never heard such a damaged voice onstage... He tries to put all his best into his performance, but he still sounds like having lots of mucus into his throat... and thus misses a lot of notes. The last live's "Mahora" sounded awful...

Poor Yomi. Although always having some problems since the begining of Naito, I've always felt he is one of the best vocalist in the scene.

Ex-ViViD Shin has just liked my comment on his recently born YouTube channel.

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

Senpai noticed me

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

How many anime/dorama openings made by VK artists can you count?

I need somebody to share with my love for this song, because I just can't stop to move my legs to the rythm and if this continues I won't be able to finish my research paper lol

Interesting fact: the credits for the music are to SHINYA, who will be also credited for the music of "Yurameki" a few months after, another classic of Dir that shares with this song the same syncopathed guitars' groove that makes one easily recall Eden-era Luna Sea. 

Wow, never thought BAISER had a major debut, less a single for an anime series opening.

The few stuff I listened from them was pretty much irrelevant to me; also, I felt Yukari's voice ruined every bit of goodness the music could have. He made me recall IZAM's awful voice... So, I always believed they were some kind of nobodies that had relevance because somehow they managed to strike hard into the likers of old-school VK music, but nothing else... Perhaps I'll give them a try now...

Are there any musician fellows here on MH?

I've been playing bass for almost ten years to date. 

Still waiting someday some mysterious user on YouTube uploads a handful full VHS recordings of Dir en grey's first concerts, where they played Zan faster than it would be recorded, and Kaoru missed almost every solo.

I don't understand how this hasn't happened yet, considering it did happen with La:Sadie's and also big bands like X, Luna Sea, L'arc, D’erlanger, and many more.

Tbh I got really bored of watching the 1999 Osaka Jou live over and over to have some of the most glorious 90s vk performances ever...

2019 has already started and I've been thinking over 2018 that:

- Homage kei trend, which was one of the sweet spots that kept the scene alive in the last 5 years, is pretty much dead. Also, La Veil sucks; Kyouki from Grieva could sing at least a little decently, and their bassist was a beast;

- After watching Lycaon's Eve's new "twin project" I still can't believe how 98% of releases won't get less idolish and/or formulaic. 2018 was catastrophical in that sense: there was almost no cool releases to balance off the rest of the shit. I fear an oversaturation of the market comes and a lot of people lost their interest in the scene (and I couldn't blame on them for that...);

- big bands delivered great but not stand out music, rather uninspired (Dir's The Insulated World and TG's Ninth are the perfect examples for that);

- BPR and Goemon bands aren't cool anymore. Kiryu and Arlequin were skilled, fresh and original when they first came out, but nowadays the ghostwriting is so blatantly obvious, and the overexplotation so painful to notice, that I started keeping good distance from them;

- What the fuck is Diaura doing? We need them to save VK again.

- 2018' VK was saved by the proggy ones, Kizu and Dimlim. Nothing epic, but actually really good; I'll be definitely looking forward them in the future. Got very recently on them, and blame myself for not wanting to put my faith on them when I read all the hype here before. Oh, and don't forget Mamireta's "Ojamashimasu" (the rest of them is pretty much forgettable).

Which is your 2018 balance?

I showed Dir's "Cage" to a friend to isn't remotely aware of VK or even J-rock, and he said "Wow, this sounds like Iron Maiden".

VK always sounded very unique to my ear. But in the last year, since

I was not very fond of the (Western) classics of punk, grunge, gothic, metal, and their respective subgenres and "post" scenes, although I always knew that theorically VK made itself over Western artist, the gap between VK and Western artists came up as much shorter than I tought, with only few elements of it (musical, visual, lyrical, performatic) keeping actually "unique".

In the case of "Cage", since I haven't heard much from Iron Maiden, what can you say about what my friend said? Are you agree with him?

We are all aware that Mana's music writing skills for Moi dix Mois are totally a flop and 90% of their catalog is worthy of a cringe compilation, but I wouldn't be fair if I don't recognize "Solitude" to be one of the most beautiful compositions VK ever had. I'm totally in love with the atmosphere of elegance and darkness, and overall over-the-top cheesiness Mana put into it, and how well Juka's voice manages to bring all the tragic tone. I feel it on the vibe of Malice Mizer works like "Garnet" and "Gardenia"; Klaha's voice could perfectly fit into it. Same opinion goes for "Vestige", another MdM track with the said vibe. Sometimes I wonder they were tracks already composed for MM before they decided to disband.

Why does Dir en grey's "Yurameki" sound so Luna-Seaesque to me? We all know that Dir, along with almost every vk band, cites Luna as one of his big influences; my question goes in a technical sense. I tried listening to every song Luna put out before "Yurameki", but I haven't found yet one you could say "Here is the guitar/bass/drum sound Dir borrowed for this song"🤔🤔🤔

Hay guys, have you this bangya channel on your radar? 

I cannot but feel this is very charming.

Recently, motivated by the sharing of a Dollis Marry's best-album a kind user did here, I have been listening to a good portion of Metis Gretel, Dollis Marry and Izabel Varosa, a group of bands that I've seen their name in every download website I visited since I started myself into vk back in 2009, but never tried. Although their sound is absolutely not a novelty, and in this sense they sound/look kind of generic, let me say that they actually did came over my expectatives, at least for a first listening, which is a really good sign. The best one was, of course, Dollis: a very decent vocalist (which it's like a miracle in this god forsaken scene; it's actually a pity there isn't any live footage available at least on Youtube, it is the only challenge it lefts to prove he is so) and very good arranged songs, some with a fresh approachs (with that I mean they take themselves off from the archetypical indie clichés), they best example being this: 

VK songs that I deeply regret they didn't become anime openings:

An Cafe - Snow Scene

Penicillin - NICE IN LIP+L

Janne Da Arc - Lunatic Gate

Seriously, I love this kind of anison-kei.

I feel very pitiful about BPRecords bands. Kiryu have very good musicians within it. I can't stand the fact of their managers trying to squeeze them all they can, and sadly, seeing how things are coming, it seems that I won't have enough of it. I hope Mahiro or anybody don't burn out completely before it's too late...

Does anybody remember that alter-ego band of An Cafe's? It seems impossible to find it on the net...

Does anybody know how are Resistar Records bands doing? And also, is it me, or Diaura kinda flopped the non-stop rising popularity they had around 2014-2015?

If it wasn't for "Jisatsu ganbou", "Meikyou shishui", "Re:plica", "Rodeo", "-0°C", Due'le Quartz would be actually a prety shitty band. Miyavi was already a fierce player and genuine showman back then, but aside from the songs I mentioned, his compositions were very weak plagios of MISSA-era DEG songs like "Zan", "S" or classic "Byoushin". Seriously, it's very hard to listen to their discography entirely, and Sakito's voice makes it only more painful (I'm sure his voice will be remebered as one of the worst to have ever reached the scene).
Bassist and drummer were skilled, too, but their arrangments didn't add anything interesting (Re.plica and Rodeo are the coolest ones, in this sense).
I don't understand how they became so succesful back in the day, considering 2000-2001 was the era in which VK started to dramatically lose all the little, but overall significant, attention it got from the mainstream audicence.