Some reflections on Jrock/Visual Kei from an old timer.. am I just an old fart?

@violetchain You got a point there with unhinged fans. Altough i have seen the crazy behaviour also under bandmembers posts that was unprovoked.

By the way, for some of the bands i listen to, they have some unhinged members too. (Members of the JRO Discord will probably agree with that) But sure that doesnt go for the whole JRock scene.

I would suspect that ghostwriting is more common in the VK scene by now than it ever was before.
Using ghostwriter for songs is always frowned upon , but if it helps them to keep stuff interesting and they play at least their instruments then i personally can look past it. I just would wish bands would try to be a bit more open about it.
But hey i listen to pop music and that stuff is completly normal there.

Sometimes i also wonder if some fans wanted to rebel.
I mean, what in the 00s was there you could have rebeled with against your parents? Oh wait, Emoā€™s was there. But Emos had a surprising feeling of mainstream during that time.

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This is what I am talking about. I think in a way, visual kei was to Japan just what emo (or whatever you wanna call pop punk from Green Day and Simple Plan to Linkin Park to Blink to Sum 41 to FOB and other actual-mall-emo bands) was to the west around the same era. And of course you had people in the west who enjoyed vk and people in Japan who enjoyed emo etc. Around that time, gOtH WeIrDoS went mainstream everywhere for whatever reason but then by the end of the 00s it was over everywhere too. Thereā€™s also an interesting parallel of eras to be drawn between oshare(/kirakira/etc) and scene(/hyperpop/etc) if we must. And in the same vein, emo/vk bands/artists were called sellouts, etc. when they chose to distance themselves from the label in order to remain mainstream (source: I love FOB and Miyavi lol) . Not to sound like ā€œvk and emo are one and the same!!ā€ no, all I am saying is that for whatever social / cultural / commercial reasons teens everywhere were like that smh

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there are some similarities, you could look at 80s as kind of ramones and toydolls era, 90s vk as tropes established punk era, 00s as kind of a mix of both pop punk and emo era and 10s on as basically everything just fell off.

I was super drunk once with REM from Yokosuka Saver Tiger something along the lines of ā€œcurrent vk has forgotten the punk spirit.ā€ and he actually got really surprised and had a light in his eyes agreeing. maybe it was just the booze haha but seemed there was drunken wisdom there.

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I do actually kinda agree with that. Sound too. Like there were a lotta early 00s bands that had a bit of punk sound mixed into everything else, and itā€™s pretty much gone now sadly. Maybe Iā€™m listening to the wrong bands though

Least we still got the crazy mofo Kenzi I guess

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There are two types of vk fans.
Thos who get out before itā€™s too late and those who are too far gone.

Anyway Iā€™ve heard that vk fanclubs and forums are toxic and elitist in a lot of places and itā€™s not like that at all at least in here in my experience.

Iā€™m actually surprised Iā€™ve lasted this long here, the people are mature enough to just mute me and the mods are the same too with their warnings I havenā€™t seen any of them power tripping or be a general dick.

Nothing fucks you harder then time and the people I was friends with turn to biggots and assholes in the span of 20 years just tells me that this place is good you know people treating like humans to each other. I see a lot of people trying to get in what others are in on and yeah itā€™s hard for people like that but to oneā€™s who flail and complain bickering like children and wonder why theyā€™re getting flamed and goes to bitch on others websites itā€™s no ones but your fault even I know that I canā€™t recall I have made any coherent post in this site and still it amazes I have lasted this long people bearing with me.

Huh to think I was so prejudiced and yeah I am an asshole I know that (still havenā€™t forgotten about kryr_66) I just canā€™t seem to lie. But now I feel sympathy for others more then Iā€™ve ever did elsewhere even though its completely unrelated to this topic.

Oh are we talking about music?
Then I guess itā€™s a guilty pleasure of mine and I will never be viewed the same if anyone knew I listened to boys who look prettier then girls.

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If you think that Kizu is typical vk you didnā€™t listen to them enough orā€¦ I donā€™t know. If you listened to something like Kizuato or Steroid, you could get a wrong impression. Good songs, but ā€œsayā€ nothing about them. Itā€™s one of the best bands not just in our days, but ever. And itā€™s very popular opinion among people who already didā€™t have hopes on vk. Lime is really great composer and vocalist. I even canā€™t call someone else with such a really good and versatile vocals.
Jigoku, Juusei, Kawazu, Oshimai, Heisei, Hato, Little girl wa yandeiru, Strawberry blue, Tsumi, Ame otokoā€¦ So many cool and absolutely different songs! They even more out of vk sound frames than many old and considered as not typical bands.
I have very short list of favorite vk bands, they are just one band formed after 2010, and their mind blowing live perfomances made them number one for me.

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I think onther thing that lead to the decline of the oversea scene is not so much the decline of the japanese scene.

It is two factors. A lot of fans from the boom era (2005-2010) grew out of it. Most people donā€™t stay edgy teenagers forever. And the potentiel new fans found something else: K-pop

Now you might say they are very diffrent in terms of music. Sure but letā€™s be honest here. A big part of the appeal of vk is pretty boys you can obsess over and thatā€™s what k-pop has to offer. And you donā€™t have to be into dark or hard music to like k-pop.

I saw it happen here. Suddenly everybody who was into Vk before was into k-pop.

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This is an older thread so Iā€™m sorry in advance, but I think a lot of the issues attributed to Visual Kei are well established across the broader rock scene. When I was younger, we had the emo, alt rock, nu metal and hardcore scenes, while those before me may have had punk and classic rock. These genres were defined by their angst, anger, and a sense of rebellion, a defiance against popular culture. When I was 15 I discovered VK and to me it felt familiar to what Iā€™d already liked but better.

Nowadays, that dynamic I described feels fundamentally altered. The raw emotion, weirdness, and diversity that once made many bands feel unique (I mean for goodness sake there were like 10 different VK subgenres) has increasingly shifted toward a sound thatā€™s more commercially friendly, catchy, and digitized, the opposite of what much of the music I grew up represented.

This has influenced Visual Kei to a degree, but Iā€™m unbothered; I have hundreds of older bands to enjoy.

What I donā€™t really get is the common idea that most indie bands, even back then, were terrible lol. I never saw it that way. It feels like the biggest haters of VK are other VK fans at times. A band can have a somewhat lackluster singer and overly familiar guitar riffs and still kick ass because the purpose of music is how it makes you feel, and Iā€™m proud I can appreciate all of the artists that I do, not because it makes me less of a grouch but because it makes me a much happier person lol.

I recognize that Iā€™m nowhere near being the target audience for modern VK, not even close. I obviously didnā€™t grow up with the same music and cultural influences, and thatā€™s perfectly fine with me.

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