Undoubtedly as time goes on, bands genre’s evolve for the better or for the worst, so lets discuss some of the best and worst, this isn’t exclusive to visual kei either so throw in your J-indie opinions
Best genre change - Miyavi (MYV Pops)
Whilst there are a few tracks from his early stuff (gagaku to Miyavizm) that I like his switch to a more acoustic style as well as brighter persona really got me in to his music and was definitely one of my gateways in to VK, not only that but I felt the change in music really brought him a lot more popularity.
Worst genre change - The Gazette (Stacked Rubbish)
Sorry gazette fans but I adore Disorder and I felt they should’ve done a lot more in the style of that album . I feel bad because I know a lot of people love Stacked Rubbish and there is an argument to be made that it highlighted refinement in their compositional skills but it all felt a bit flat to me, songs never seemed to go anywhere, there were still heavy tracks but they didn’t have the same rawness that Disorder did.
Best genre change - Honestly, drawing a blank. But maybe Dir en grey (Dum Spiro Spero) for me.
I think Dir en grey’s shift to a more technical metal and avantegarde/experimental focus did them favors. I’ve fallen out of interest with vkei or jrock. But, with their continual embracing of western metal influences, albums like Uroboros and Dum Spiro Spero have still managed to stay interesting to me to this day. I hardly listen to albums like Gauze or Kisou anymore, but I’ll turn on the former 2 albums once in a while.
Worst genre change - Dezert (Today)
What the hell happened here. The band was making incredible music up to their second album staying true to their industrial and heavy sound. Then they pulled a complete 360 edit 180 and started down a indie pop rock path and it’s just not what most fans signed up for. Sure they had some pop rock songs in their discography but it was out of left field for them to lean that heavily into it.
idk about “worst” necessarily but Daizystripper is a big one for me… like imagine if they just kept developing the romantic jazz sound of Birth/Love/Bless instead the masculinity crisis they’ve been on since Siren
best maybe MeteoroiD or ペンタゴン? those two are maybe the only examples i have of bands whose music got hella more interesting & adventurous right before disbanding
honourable mention to i.D.A, who went from “not bad” to “pretty interesting actually” w/ their new EP
Worst: A little effect I like to call “going full goober” or “gooberfication” that happened to a lot of 90’s VK bands when they went major. Basically, it’s when they ditch their dark, often Gothic or post-punk sound to something more poppy and radio-friendly after getting picked up by a major label. Examples I can remember off the top of my head include Baiser, SHAZNA, and L’luvia. KAMAITACHI also went HARD goober, their Free Will stuff versus their Toy’s Factory stuff almost sounds like a different band (they went through a genre change from hardcore punk to like pop-punk)
Best: Hmm… Honestly can’t think of any but I did like it when Aliene Ma’riage went from Gothic metal to digital hardcore. I preferred the older Gothic stuff but I like digital hardcore so I enjoyed the fresh new sound. Kyouka returned to it in Insanity Injection and that was awesome, imo he’s really good at making music in that gene
I’ll just add I think it’s funny that Miyavi released MYV POPS a month before Miyabiuta -Dokusou-, which is an amazing album unlike any before.
Miyavi’s discography is a scrambled mess to me.
Miyavizm was a step backwards after Galyuu. Miyabiuta -Dokusou- a step forward.
Some of the kavki boiz stuff I wasn’t mature enough to get at the time, but now I think it’s GOAT.
What’s My Name was cool overall.
I guess everything pre-the last decade is kind of sacred now. He’s so talented and I don’t understand why he keeps trying to be an Imagine Dragons competitor
various i say i agree early gazette was better before disorder im speaking about madara ep and wakremichi
i perosnally say stack rubbish and disorder where good i cant say same for NIL/toxic/dim/beautifuldeformity,division or ninth . dogma was soemthing else but in general way recorded before disorder like madara ep,miesen, the early eps sound raw and fine idk why change to clenaer tone ,mainstream i see studio may be over produces or focus to much effects or electronics after stacked rubbish but dogma is totlaly different like i say part 2 stacked rubbish i dont like how they prefer electronics now clean sound but overal lyrics gazette fine
another band possibly is dimlim the albums before misc sound better than any electronic release they did
another band ill add is
mejibray once band split and koichi and tzk went solo and formed also 8p-sbpeople always expect them to go back to there old sound when relaity possibly never will …even if not in mejibray .
music not bad but they better of in a band and play genre theyplayed years ago in mejibray
To be honest this is pretty much everything I wanted to say lol. Back in the day I regarded him as one of visual kei’s best composers, I feel now he’s reached this point where he’s happy to be a family man and just put out music to pay the bills.
Worst
• exist†trace going mainstream.
• Whatever the fuck happened to DIMLIM.
Best
• MALICE MIZER, who started with mostly light/cute French Baroque ditties and ended with full-on Funeral Gothic Opera. Post-Bara no Seidou material which combined that sound with the rock of merveilles was glorious.
• Dir en grey: GAUZE is a great album but they were still trying too hard to be VK at that point. MACABRE was where they began to truly spread their wings.
Best: Dragon Ash. The sound changes from their early days pretty much all the way to the “Freedom” album were all great, IMO.
I like that Kj started with a fairly logical progression, going from a punk-ish rock band to sort of tentatively rap-rock, then full-on nu-metal, and then he just kinda went all the way out of the box and decided he wanted to bring a bunch of Latin influences in towards the middle of their career.
I like pretty much every DA era, but the Latin-inspired-rap-rock DA from around the Rio de Emocion ~ Independiente albums has a special place in my heart.
None of my honmei have had super large changes, so I guess I’ll finally talk about my pre-gya intro to vkei period.
ナイトメア is a definite worst, especially looking back. I recently tried to rewatch my Beautiful Scums DVD (actually a Blu-ray for once笑) and had to stop two songs in. anima/the WORLD Ruler ナイトメア was their best period, but they were okay until they joined avex. Embarrassingly, SCUMS was actually my favorite album but in my defense, ナイトメア was the first time I ever properly listened to rock outside of the odd vocaloid song/utaite cover so I didn’t have a quality measure. I was still a RisingPro otaku when I started listening to them…あぁ懐かしすぎる
For other bands, exist trace basically slowly lost everything that made them interesting in the first place. I don’t remember the release, but MUCC lightening was pretty bad. 我、在ルベキ場所 was peak MUCC for me.
When tetsu and gackt left malice mizer and then klaha pulled a gackt and left after making lounge music that sounds like they licked the cd soundtrack of castlevania and went to party city’s halloween sale.
GOOD: Gyze: ok, their sound has always been fundamentally melodeath. But I see the latest additional of Japanese folk elements from Rising Dragon and above as a massive W!
Mad Capsule Markets: Although I like their early pure punk sound, I really thing P-A-R-K and above, after adding the electronic elements was when they began to spread their wings. They were like Crossfaith of their time. Such a shame we didn’t hear anything from Mad Caps for 15 years now.
Dir en Grey: I have nothing to hide, I love all of their eras. But eventhough Diru dropping VK after Withering to Death and changing style caused controversies, you can’t deny that Kyo’s vocal range has improved and expanded. That can be heard clearly if you listen to MOAB and Uroboros afterwards.
BAD:
THIS! So… much… THIS! In VK there had been disturbingly large amount of bands who had some interesting and defining factor for thier sound but ditched it in favour of generic radio-friendly pop-rock, with emphasis on pop. It’s not that a change is bad, but try making the new sound interesting at least. For not that old but not that recent examples I can think of Girugamesh when GO came out. Or D’espairsRay’s “Redeemer” which was a mixed bag, but the good & solid moments outnumbered the bad here. At least both bands came back to their senses after their bruh momentos.