Anyone got more information on the dissolution of KEY PARTY?

[zeus]

It may not be common knowledge, but I got into the scene around the end of the kote kei style. In my mind, the decline of the kote kei style is intertwined with the dissolution of the KEY PARTY label. But today I noticed something in the vk.gy pages that I never put together before.

It seemed like KEY PARTY was one of the most successful indie labels by 1998. But fast forward to 2001 and they were struggling. A memorial live was held in 2005. What happened?

As best as I can tell, a lot of bands jumped ship around the same time. I first noticed this going through Kagrra,'s page, but I’ll make this easier to follow by going in chronological order.

Rapture is a band that was originally known as LSD. They disbanded twice - once in 1997 and once in 2000. They must have been one of the earliest bands signed to KEY PARTY.

NéiL left KEY PARTY in 1999 and went major with NIPPON COLUMBIA.

La fẽerie left KEY PARTY in 1999 to do little else before disbanding.

Noi’X was one of the earliest KEY PARTY bands, forming in 1997 and disbanding by the beginning of 2000.

When they were known as CROW, Kagrra, left KEY PARTY in 2000 and joined PS Company.

Missalina Rei never left the label, but they did disband around 2000.

Another KEY PARTY associated band, Eliphas Levi, broke up around the end of 2000.

CROW/Kagrra,'s sister band, Lar~mia, left around 2001 as well.

Aliene Ma’riage disbands in the middle of 2001 too.

DEFLOWER/Noir fleurir hijacks Aliene’s last live to tell people they’re disbanding as well. They were always a part of KEY PARTY as far as I can tell.

SPEED-iD is the earliest band to form out of all of these, starting in 1992 and also ending…in 2001. They did have another run from 2005 to 2022, but we aren’t analyzing that section right now.

So what the hell happened? Why did almost every single band either leave the label, disband, or both by 2001? I find this so interesting. There’s a story here. Anyone got details?

[nekkichi]

they were a freewill affiliate, and, I would guess, papaw tommy shifted his funding, prioritizing PS Company - for bands with major label and western touring appeal - and UnderCode - to preserve domestic-first, darker and edgier bands.

I would love to hear a different opinion, but I would guess they simply hit a wall, while Tomomi knew how to navigate the scene better, and Kisaki - being in a highly successful band himself - simply pulled over the next wave of talent that would have otherwise signed up on that label first.

[suji]

I think this probably had more to do with the decline of vkei back in 2000~2001. A lot of popular vkei bands around that time outside the label were either disbanding or dropping those kinds of visuals entirely, namely Madeth gray’ll (1997~2001), Mirage (1997~2000), Luna Sea (their original run from 1986~2000), VellaDonna (1997~2001), etc.

edit: how the fuck did i forget malice mizer pausing in 2001? that was vk’s 9/11 tbh

[zeus]

@nekkichi

I would love to hear a different opinion, but I would guess they simply hit a wall, while Tomomi knew how to navigate the scene better, and Kisaki - being in a highly successful band himself - simply pulled over the next wave of talent that would have otherwise signed up on that label first.

This is pretty interesting in it’s own right actually. Label politics is something we don’t get a lot of insight into, but arguably affects the scene a lot. I wonder if KEY PARTY lost the politics struggle. Them not signing new talent after 1999 does no favors either. I sense that they overspecialized into a style of visual kei that petered out after 1999, and every band that was signed to them either made it (Kagrra, SPEED-iD) or disbanded.

They signed nine bands really quick and put on a ton of promotional events in a short time. I wonder if there’s a component of burn out to it too.

I know vk.gy are covering the origins of visual kei. I’m very curious as to whether they’ll cover this in one of their articles. I think analyzing which record labels signed which bands at which times will more clearly paint a picture of when some styles peaked.

I also don’t understand why some bands in particular have horrific production quality during KEY PARTY’s peak, while other bands sound rather decent. Aliene Ma’riage is a good example of how their early songs sound terrible but their omnibus contributions are a bit better.

[nekkichi]

@zeus

I wonder if KEY PARTY lost the politics struggle.

their founder might either lose interest in the scene (it happens, I guess?) or he lost same chunk of gya & fresh hires to matina (est. 1997, disbanded 12/2002, allegedly due to ksk’s health issues) picking up steam and immediately picked up by under code (est. 03/2003)

@robkun any insight?

[robkun]

I’ve unfortunately got nothing concrete, but I’ve heard a possible theory being bad finances. But yeah, Idunno. It is pretty amazing how KEY PARTY folded so quickly despite its massive success.

[member1]

I might be wrong, but I thought Key Party was under Tears Music and opposed to Free Will subsidiaries like Matina. I recall people mentioning how happy they are to be able to play gigs together now regardless of labels, as in the past Matina and Key Party bands were not allowed to be friends due to their parent companies being "rivals”.

I don’t think Key Party was that successful, though. While Matina is renowned for making money out of ridiculous budgets/crappy production, Key Party were the ones spending zillions on absurd costumes, TV appearances, concert halls and luxurious CD packages despite their bands struggling to play bigger venues. So it makes sense that they ran out of budget in a few years, with all the bands suddenly turning to a shabby look and production from 2000.

I dare to say Aliene were their only successful band, but the hype died quickly. All their other bands either got offers by bigger labels or kept playing at Cyber or Rockmaykan and eventually faded out. Neil might have gone major, but that was a time when labels would “sell” you a major distribution deal despite not having a big fanbase - think about Mirage, Baiser, etc. All suddenly had a mysterious major debut CD but kept playing small venues and nearly no change in their management/production.

It’s all about context, I think. The numbers that Matina and Key Party made back then would be a dream for the current indie scene, but at the time, rock bands were a trend and a big business in Japan, even the smallest bands were able to get an audience of sorts. Key Party was doing well for underground labels, but definitely not enough to pay for all the crazy expenses they had. A lot of their stuff might look cheap/amateurish now, but even the crappiest music video and recording studio would cost a fortune back then.

Matina was a very small subsidiary and mattered little within the Free Will group, but Kisaki (or whoever was pulling the strings behind him) did quite well spending as little as possible to match his potential income. He invested 20$ for a million bands and increased the expenses along with the growth in their fanbase. Unfortunately, this safer approach didn’t pay off either (no risk, no return, I guess) - but at least retained him the credibility/finances to try again with Under Code later on. The Key Party shady managers disappeared from the scene and I doubt they were even involved in any of the revivals.

[Disposan]

I will echo the statements above; contrary to retroactive online fame, the bands weren’t successful.

In addition to that, I’ve also been convinced that a bulk of the classic Key Party releases are essentially Shinovi and Henry Lee Euro productions without a spectacular amount of input from the bands themselves. This isn’t apparently only from the unusual musical and aesthetic stylistic synchronization of the bands, but also how drastic both the decline and discrepancy was in the releases that followed. After churning out the releases people remember the label by, many of the bands jumped into the Y2K wave in a variety of ways, or into obscurity, and all of them equally tragic; the late Noir Fleurir run, Aliene’s nu-metal experiment, the bulk of La Feerie and LarMia dissappearing into thin air, and not to mention that no one ever showed any of the promise or vision that was present in those releases ever again. Whether Key Party’s creatives got bored, gave free reign or were getting ready to pack it in anyway, I don’t know, but I am 110% confident that the Speed ID and Enamel guy were behind the creative impetus

tl;dr: big initial investment, went bankrupt, none of these guys were as talented as the label’s producers were to repeat the success

[nekkichi]

@member1

thought Key Party was under Tears Music and opposed to Free Will subsidiaries like Matina.

I couldn’t find anything in regards to the label itself (japanese wiki has nothing on them), but assuming they’re entirely revolving around speed-ID, they had a start on freewill around 1993/1994 -
https://www.discogs.com/artist/1057919-Speed-ID
they’re listed as participating on a freewill omnibus here around same year -

SPEED-iD

I didn’t really follow them too much, but they did make an impression of doing vastly better than anyone else in the scene at the time (which most of kisaki’s bands outside of like top-5 out of many dozens never really achieved) - - - so it’s interesting to look how retrospectively, the glam really did not last that long.

[member1]

Interesting - the Tears Music (Key Party parent label) Japanese Wikipedia page doesn’t mention any direct connection with Free Will, at least not at the time of Key Party and the visual kei boom. However, it seems they have produced some Dynamite Tommy stuff very late in the 2000s. It’s always the same guys moving around in the business I guess?

SPEED-iD seems to be the only loose connection between the two labels, but it looks like they were not part of the management/ownership of either. I suppose Euro was hired as a creative producer for Key Party after his deal with Free Will was off (I’m not very familiar with their history so I might be wrong).

[emmny]

chiming in just to say great thread, love seeing the OGs of this forum providing their insights/theories.

[nekkichi]

@member1

It’s always the same guys moving around in the business I guess?

VK seems to be very tight-knit, indeed.