Old school visual kei

Anyone else listens to this stuff? It's really good and completely different from nu-VK of today.
Just found out ROUAGE, can't stop listening. Pic related.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=tOIc9BUyOA8
youtube.com/watch?v=Opvgy5tDqXg
youtube.com/watch?v=tsHx2A6oAH0
youtube.com/watch?v=CTUDZd8AjEU
youtube.com/watch?v=uK8_ebPZhdM
web.archive.org/web/20040604201144/http://proxemics.net:80/honyaku/history.html
web.archive.org/web/20040604125332/http://proxemics.net:80/honyaku/reviews.html
youtube.com/watch?v=rS2RiJj0GFI
evil-en-lucifer.blogspot.com.br
proxemics.net/honyaku/trans.html
youtube.com/watch?v=vvXwF7zLONI
youtube.com/watch?v=QJAscaL9pJs
youtube.com/watch?v=V7Qbv7mzZdc
youtube.com/watch?v=IWJu2mSuLK8
youtube.com/watch?v=a1l3D620ga0
youtube.com/watch?v=vJG5T2C6JsQ
youtube.com/watch?v=Zf4uvhQadmg
youtube.com/watch?v=yKk77coMIB4
youtube.com/watch?v=mwfXp_j8ZNc
morgianasama.livejournal.com/73366.html
network54.com/Forum/26694
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

I'm kind of hoping for a fashionable revival eventually like what's happening right now with city pop

It might happen, but at the same time there's so many good shit from back then that I think I have stuff to listen for years to come.
Any recommendation? I've already listened to most Nagoya kei, and the 80s classic bands, but I'm really interested in finding out more 90s indies bands

Luna Sea are overshadowed in popularity by X Japan but they probably contributed more to shaping up the VK sound than any other band. You can skip them but it's good to get familiar with them for genre history purposes.

Check out bands on the Soleil label. Mirage come off as a "generic" band but I think they epitomize what a typical VK band in the 90s sounded like better than anyone else. This is one of their signature songs : youtube.com/watch?v=tOIc9BUyOA8

Key Party can give you a good idea of what was being done by the end of the decade. They have lots of unique bands and lots of fans got serious about the genre through them.

Matina are an iconic label too but they kind of mark the cut into the 2000s and to be honest, I think most of the stuff they put out for small bands is cheap trash.

Agreed with you 100%. I love Luna Sea, one of my favorites. But I could never get into any Kisaki bands. And I only liked a select handful of Matina bands, and some Under Code ones (the more "outsider" ones). But in general I also thought majority was cheap trash. It can be cheap, but if it's also trash then I don't bother.
I'm listening to that Mirage track and, it sounds like your typical 90s vk, but mediocre and average as can be.
Key party is amazing, been getting into them. Eliphas Levi and Deflower/Noir fleurir are seriously great. Their flagship band seems to be Aliene Ma'riage, but to me they are one of the least interesting KP bands.
Here's one of my favorite 90s vk bangers
youtube.com/watch?v=Opvgy5tDqXg

I just listened to that album for the first time last week and I instantly marked down that song and Shades as favorites.

This is pretty much the only thing this band put out but Shuuji from cali gari sang for them and his post punk influences rub off really well on their music: youtube.com/watch?v=tsHx2A6oAH0

youtube.com/watch?v=CTUDZd8AjEU
Eliphas Levi is fucking awesome

Kill=slayd are pretty great
youtube.com/watch?v=uK8_ebPZhdM

If a mall goth revival ever happens you could definitely work stuff like this into its visual identity

Cool, I also got into D=SIRE recently. Incredibly underrated band.
Cali gari is a big deal. They're like one of the favorites in Japan's underground scene. I listened to some of their albums and are indeed fantastic, but I need to listen to their side projects too. I'm already loving Sakrun, will look more of them.
By the way this might be of interest
web.archive.org/web/20040604201144/http://proxemics.net:80/honyaku/history.html
It's a sort of essay about visual kei, writen by a western vk fan in the early 00s. I think it's very accurate. It's more in-depth than your usual "vk is about theatres and kabuki" stuff you'd read everywhere else.
He also did some interesting album reviews
web.archive.org/web/20040604125332/http://proxemics.net:80/honyaku/reviews.html

This stuff

Kill=slayd are fucking amazing. Have you heard C4?
youtube.com/watch?v=rS2RiJj0GFI
Toki has this anison singer aura, he's the boss.

Yeah, haven't heard this stuff in years though, this thread is giving me major nostalgia.
Old school VK fans should check out this blog: evil-en-lucifer.blogspot.com.br
Has plenty of stuff

>last update is from 2013
I think a few mediafire links are dead.

Try soulseek, there's old VK material there.

That website is precious, thank you so much for pointing it out.

The only history stuff I can recommend is Glam Japan, its a facebook page but the guy who runs it was in japan to see the genre evolve at the end of the 90s and the early 2000s and you can find some cool anecdotes if you dig into it. He used to be a big figure for drawing attention to the genre in the west and getting trading circles running by exporting releases.

They're probably considered pleb/entry-level by VK connoisseurs but I really love Malice Mizer, specially this album. Very eclectic, full of awesome songs.

No problem!
The translations are still online
proxemics.net/honyaku/trans.html
It's indeed a precious site, but for some reason the review section is not online anymore, he took it out a long time ago. Thankfully it's on archive.

Entry level, sure. Pleb? Never!
Malice Mizer is a unique band with a whole world beautifully crafted around it. It's also kind of disappointing when you look for more bands like them, because there isn't any really.

I'm so glad to see someone who knows their stuff recommend Dune by L'Arc, DON'T OVERLOOK THIS ALBUM!!!! I dont blame anyone for skipping over it considering who put it out but its unfairly neglected by western fans

Yes, Dune by L'Arc is one of the angular stones of VK.
All of the albums recommended on there are really good.

Yeah I really dig their goth/symphonic approach, reminds me of the Castlevania soundtracks (IIRC Mana is a fan of the series).

I'm not too big into it but I know Dir en Grey was into it early on, same with X Japan, idk if you mean even earlier than them though (was there? I'm no expert)

I loved Dir en Grey's first few albums a ton while they still had that thing goin'

youtube.com/watch?v=vvXwF7zLONI

Early Dir en Grey's main musical influence was Kuroyume.

i'll check them out, a few years ago I was huge on them, still have some of their extremely limited fan club things etc, haven't heard of Kuroyume though so really appreciate the namedrop there.

Yeah, both Mana and Kozi are into Castlevania, which shows in their music. MM is on my top favorite VK really
Everything in between them.
Hotarubi is a nice song!
youtube.com/watch?v=QJAscaL9pJs
This is one of my favorites.
I know they basically copied Kuroyume, but I think there's still a lot of good stuff they put out over the years. And although they had a "dark age", I think they redeemed themselves with Uroboros, that album is fantastic.

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youtube.com/watch?v=V7Qbv7mzZdc
This thread is really nostalgic, listening to Baiser for the first time in what, 9 or 10 years

Where is that? It's really empty for DEG.

Baiser and Raphael give me the heaviest early 2000s fan community feels

>mfw pregnant women

This is insanely nostalgic too youtube.com/watch?v=IWJu2mSuLK8

Me too! VK already has a nostalgic sound to it, it's like a nostalgia vacuum.
Here's a real nostalgia bomb
youtube.com/watch?v=a1l3D620ga0

Je*Reviens has quite an exquisite melodic composition style. The songwriter, Shi-no, went on to become a goa trance producer/DJ.
Yuki from Raphael is one of my favorite VK vocalists.
I also really like Aki from Laputa. Haven't heard these guys in a while too.
youtube.com/watch?v=vJG5T2C6JsQ
Still great.

I can't write down the full link because it gets detected a spam but the "connection" section on roger666 dot narod dot ru is one of my favorite places for VK nostalgia. Make sure you check out their cosplay section as well

youtube.com/watch?v=Zf4uvhQadmg
Here's Laputa live. I wanted to check if Aki was as good live as it's on studio records. He's even better Iive.

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Maybe outside Japan. If yes, is that their latest concert outside Japan?

Laputa would shine so much more with a more fluid songwriting style, I always thought they had a bad habit of falling too rigidly in line with convential 4/4 song structure

Haha, the pictures are as early 00s as it gets.
i have a lot of nostalgia for the online community.
Where I live, I had a couple friends who liked some VK bands, but I was never in the local fandom per se.

Speaking of where am I supposed to start with Shizuku? I got interested in them again after seeing someone on 2ch say they reminded them of Resident Evil/Biohazard. None of their stuff ever managed to grab me but I feel like getting into them might just be a matter of paying attention to the right details

I'm fine with the conventional songwriting, it's very rich in its melody and execution.
Their harsher, more "kote kote" songs can be interesting though
youtube.com/watch?v=yKk77coMIB4
Not as great as their melodic, poppier stuff but still fun.

I'm on the same boat. I remember listening to them, thinking it was OK classic vk, but never cared much. Maybe I just didn't listen to the right releases.
>Apres Guerre
Is there any scans of these?

Damn Kill=Slayd are awesome, nothing like I expected. I always assumed they were a Free Will style band for some reason

The only issue available is from 2001 and most of pages are down. Scans are a lot harder to come by now than they used to which doesnt help

iirc Kill=slayd has connections with GLAY, Toki has worked with Takuro and Hisashi.
Very good band, I agree.
youtube.com/watch?v=mwfXp_j8ZNc

Where can I see the pages that are available?
It's a shame most scans are now lost. There used to be a huge community on LJ with lots of scans (mostly 2000s stuff but sometimes a few older issues appeared), now it's all gone.

Maybe you can contact those who downloaded these scans before.

Here's the LJ thats has them, theres some more interesting stuff on there

morgianasama.livejournal.com/73366.html

Here's another VK goldmine
network54.com/Forum/26694
Inertia's visual kei board (not simply "a visual kei board").
I remember at one point the Search option was removed, but thankfully it's still there. Seems like Inertia is still around (there's a post claiming it's her from last year).
You can find all sort of crazy discussions, sometimes there's some valious information in some of the posts.

I've never really considered Visual Kei a real genre since the music varies so much band to band. There's bands that aim to look and sound really cutesy and bands that sound hard as nails. There's probably sub genres to this music though.

Only annoying thing about the music I've noticed is that there is always some trend going. Like a bunch of clone bands of whatever is getting a lot of attention.

read this article posted here:
It explains visual kei at least until the early 2000s.

Thanks a lot, I'll see what's still up

Still doesn't mention sub genres or different sounds other than the early sound. I've heard certain parts of Japan had there own Visual Kei scenes.

I think the main big 3 scenes were Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, with Nagoya bands often being refered to as "nagoya kei". Kuroyume comes from Nagoya, same with Rouage.
For sub-genres, yeah, it doesn't mention angura or other more specific kind of scenes within (or interwined with) the vk scene, but it's a good description of what "vk" sound is like, at least old school.
It's true that a lot of what is VK was defined by bands like Luna Sea and Kuroyume. Copycats have always existed. First they copied Kuroyume, then dir en grey (who copied Kuroyume), then Gazette, now it's Mejibray. But the sound changed a lot over the decades.

Knowing I could have been part of this in its prime if I was born 5 years earlier is hitting so hard I feel like crying. I found out about VK in 2004 but by the time I was old enough to feel comfortable online the genre had become unsalvageable. All I got instead is alienation and the creeping sensation I missed the boat and my only way to cope is posting VK stuff here and there hoping someone will pick up on it

I lurked Inertia's visual board around 2004, it was still semi-active, although it seems a it was a lot more active in previous years.
I also remember mailing lists were a thing.