DIR EN GREY - The Devil In Me

I’ll say this, the song is more bearable to me coupled with the video. Expected worse.

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I think they’re trying to say that people who rely on genAI to create visuals are no better than serial killers.

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I think the song is good. The video is bad, but it makes more sense to me in context now.

To me, it looks like they’re inside John Wayne Gacy’s brain, hence all the pink (flesh).

One of my biggest problems with all this AI Pepto Bismol diarrhea is that, no matter how intricate the scenes/imagery are, it can never create the same scene in context. Like, you couldn’t have it generate another ‘view’ or the same room for example. So it always ends up looking disjointed and messy without any continuity, despite its detail.

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I wonder if people will look back at this era of AI as SOUL just like how we view bad 90s CGI as SOUL

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I like that they actually tied the AI use into the video’s theme, but like most AI stuff it still looks weird and bad

Meh PV is Meh. Not enough shots of the boys playing. I’ll live though. I need that live version pronto.

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they could have built just one or two rooms filled with crazy props, little babby dolls, etc., and thrown a bunch of actors in fuchsia satan outfits, since money needed for this will be covered by PV BR sales sales anyway, and watching the low-effort AI swill just feels so disappointing.

there were some shots that had a brief wow factor happening and they could be kept since this shit is the thing for now, but for the most part watching that stuff was so boring.

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Despite the excessive use of AI, i find the PV rather coherent with the song which is ultimately not so bad with a deep listening. I really like the bass playing of Toshiya and the vocal performance of Kyo.

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Not at all bothered about the video when the song is actually that good. Another solid single imo. Love all the layers and how dynamic the song is in general. Top stuff lads.

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Totally, would’ve been so easy to do.

Hell, they could’ve dusted Sustain the Un-Ape off and had him prance around naked and it would’ve been more enjoyable than this.

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Do you find it cool that they focused on a serial killer in the pv or a bit cringy/edgelord-ish.

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A bit edgelordish only because it was John Wayne Gacy. He’s a very overplayed serial killer ala Bundy and Zodiac.

I’d prefer it focused on an original fictional character, sort of similar to the Revelation Of Mankind video and Saku.

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Yeah this definitely makes more sense with the video alongside for context. Honestly, on my first watch, I didn’t find any AI “mistakes” that I clocked as obvious errors as opposed to just being part of the intended weirdness. With the story of the video in mind, the choice to use AI to create a computer-generated pink Hieronymus Bosch-esque hell makes a LOT more sense. It’s literally a plot point in the video, so I feel like this is the ONE case where the use of AI art is justified.

I don’t particularly like the result, because the pink got old super fast and the plot generally isn’t very interesting to me, but that’s probably because, as an American, I’m so familiar with John Wayne Gacy and true crime overall. I imagine it’s fairly unknown territory for Japanese audiences, so it probably works better for them.

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Just got around to watching the video and your comment was exactly my read on the video’s story as well. I got the sense that the viewer is meant to be made uncomfortable by the way AI is used.

I agree the subject matter is very edgelord/cringy but the messaging is clear and I would argue the cringe factor makes the story being told more believable.

The song itself is okay…certainly a slow burn but I don’t dislike it.

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I’d love that too actually. The last Haken record sounds fantastic, something like that would do wonders as a Diru mix

Is it ok that DeG made Wayne Gacy “alive”? Is it a controversy? Is it insulting to the victims and their families?

Honestly? Whatever.

I would not expect good taste from the band that gave us poetry so beautiful and sensible like Agitated Screams of Maggots. Despite the avant garde facade, they still are shock value edgelords

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The PV looks expensive or modern? Not sure which terms fits the vibe best. I am surprised I felt the pink worked. At first I didn’t get the pink and the new appearance. Kyo is giving Lime. There’s some cross over and I’m not surprised. I hope they collab or Kizu has a solo with Kyo soon. TDIM is like this weird hybrid child that sounds like arche and Phalaris. I need diru to dig into Macabre and Kisou albums because these albums in addition to the marrow of a bone are some of the most experimental yet iconic sounds. I knew they made the albums based on riding their trending name and touring in America (TMOAB), but I think they need as a band to be exposed to different bands.

Cage = at first I was like “is this Yokan?” And quickly realized it was cage lol at first I hated it but then it grew on me. Very different but fits into what their sound is which simple but complex. I remember seeing interview or internet news that diru doesn’t play any gauze or anything from their demo days like garden because it’s too “simple” like it must be boring? Imagine if you knew how to play a game and were so good that you knew every step and movement. You love it, but after awhile it get boring and you start to hate the game. It’s a classic, but you need to move on or you will hate the game forever. When the beats hit at 3:15 :pinched_fingers: and Kyo’s voice shines in this bridge before the song ends. I’m surprised he didn’t scream right before the songs hits like the final soft chorus where the song focuses on his vocals again.

Yokan was fine. That fact that Kyo wasn’t chatting with us at the end with his famous monologue was disappointing but I love how his voice sounds in this version. It gives me Candis vibes but still diru with toshiya, shinya and kaoru stringing melodies that is their current sound.

The single isnt terrible but it’s not amazing but I need to listen to it more before making up my mind up completely. Diru needs to expose themselves to other artists as a group. I think everyone doing their own thing is great. It kept the band together for so long, but now I think they need to create their sound together as one voice and combine from start to finish rather than continue things separately. So far since 2014, nothing has been amazing. Everything sounds good but even I can feel like they are bored lol

I love The Devil In Me so much I can’t stop listening to it. I love how sludgy the guitars are, how instruments and vocals sound like they’re on the same level. Kyo’s dynamic vocals shake me too my core on this one. I love his jarring gurgling screaming morphing into his angelic singing voice lol.

Upon first viewing I just thought JWG was laughably cringe, but then I looked into everything a bit more and watched the video several more times. I have to say, it’s seriously a work of art. There seem to be a lot of references and layers. In terms of the video the lyrics seem to be from the perspective of the AI, or perhaps the sentiment that drives people towards AI. Maybe both. This is a lot lol and maybe not “correct” because my thoughts on it are evolving but thought I would share.

The video opens with a chat with a Mycroft Holmes chatGPT. (There is a Mycroft Holmes chatGPT so I asked it the same questions and it was not the same bot) Observer is engaging the AI. This may suggest an experiment is being conducted. In information theory an observer is any system which receives information from an object.

For anyone unfamiliar, the character Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes’ older brother, has greater powers of deduction and is more intelligent than Sherlock. However he’s unambitious and so cynical he founded a social club for cynics named for the Greek philosopher who founded cynicism as a school of thought. As described in one SH story, “He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right. Again and again I have taken a problem to him, and have received an explanation which has afterwards proved to be the correct one. And yet he was absolutely incapable of working out the practical points”.
The character was at times a pivotal figure in the British government in an omniscient capacity.

So if there were a chat based on this character what would its mind look like? Because ultimately when the Observer asks what’s inside Gacy’s mind they’re actually asking Mycroft Holmes AI to emulate it. If this AI were sentient would it want to replicate what’s inside Gacy’s mind? Humans as the creators of AI adopt the role of gods or even parents and the AI did not ask to be brought into this world. “Tell me how to live” could come from the position of the created to the creator. Or it could come from the creator developing a greater intelligence to which it can relinquish its intellectual superiority.

I also thought about the popularity of true crime and so many people’s fascination with trying to understand the minds of serial killers. Observer says, “I dislike documentary films of the deceased because they only trace their words and deeds but do not show what was in their head”. So perhaps we’re to consider the ways in which AI can be misused and misleading. The mistakes we make with it and how scary ir can be (JWG). Everything the AI replicates are distorted anthropomorphic figures and objects.
Someone in another comment section pointed out the AI sequences are all in Baker-Miller pink, a shade of pink that was used in correctional facilities under the notion that it reduced violent behavior.

There’s a book by physicist Paul Davies called The Demon In The Machine: How Hidden Webs Of Information Are Solving The Mystery Of Life. I can’t help but think “The Devil In Me” might be referencing it as well. In the book Davies says that what distinguishes life from the non-living is information. Information being the building blocks of life. It dictates everything about us- we are created by genetic information but new information can genetically alter us such as with childhood trauma. Our brains and many biological functions run on Maxwell demons- machines that use information as fuel opposed to energy. An example is the voltage gated ion channel in our brains. Maxwell demons have been replicated by scientists on a nanoscale but in order to scale them up they would continuously need to be brainwashed to not be overloaded by information.

Anyways, I think it’s an effective work of art because it is so thought provoking and self aware. I’m so ready for them to release more new tracks. As for the re-recordings it’s just a fucking treat to hear their take on songs they released 25 years ago. The guitars in particular have so much more texture in the new versions. Kyo is probably my favorite vocalist of all time but I like him in the mix as though his voice is considered one of the instruments rather than laid on top of the others. Like so many here Cage was their first song I heard like 23 years ago quickly followed by everything else they’d released. I’ll always love the originals but we still have them plus new recordings. I feel like fans who think they’re “over it” are projecting their bias a bit. Perhaps I’m biased in thinking they just keep getting better, their growth throughout the years has been phenomenal.

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I have to say that the song is a grower.
Not something you can recommend someone to get into DeG with, but it indeed grows on you. I still wish the chorus was a bit better tho, just a biiit catchier and more impactful.

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