Yumeleep, they made actually some good tracks.
But this way how they try to mix cuteness with themes about dead, it just doesn’t work. and the vocalist voice is honestly pretty annoying
4 Likes
So, for a more serious answer…
I think overall VK is pretty mediocre or at least dominated by bands that are talentless hacks. Sure, you’ve got a few pearls that are outstandingly good and the musicians are pretty skilled, but most bands in the scene aren’t. They often can hide their shortcomings on studio recordings with the help of sound engineering magic, but it’s pretty evident when they play live. Just watch enough indies live footages and you’ll see how bad most of them truly are. That being said, VK being not dominated by virtuosic instrument players and amazing singers is probably part of the charme and while many people (including myself) like it.
It was already brought up in another thread, but VK def shares many similarities with Punk and Hardcore music. Imo the Hardrock and Metal root is often overemphasized when VK history is brought up - sure, it plays an important role and many current VK bands try to have a Metallic sound. But when you look at the origin of most Proto-VK they often tended to lie in Japanese Punk and Alternative Rock. And bands in those scenes are generally not concerned with being the best at their craft - they just want to get out there and make music, regardless how much it ends up sucking.
VK then has the added element of bandomen only doing music to get easy access to girls. Who cares if you can tune your guitar and hit your notes while singing when you are so hawt and kewl that all the young girls are throwing themselves at you willingly?
Anyway, when we were kiddos we still used to think that no1curr indies band with 15 Fans in Japan were making the greatest music since Bach and Mozart. You’ll find plenty of bands that were strangely overhyped bak in the 2000s. I’d say Kote Kei often automatically falls into this “usually bad, but people love it”-category. Look at Deshabillz, who were even quite influential and big names in the 90s scene: Shun couldn’t hold a single tone even if his life depends on it. Instrumentals are really good though, but Shun’s singing can be grating and ruin an otherwise decent song:
A lot of the neo Kote bands also fall into this. Marvelous Cruelty for example - I get their charme (and love some of their songs), but truthfully, their vocalist sucks ass. And sometimes their music writing (and awful guitar tones) too. Similar story with La’veil Mizeria who also sadly happen to be produced by Kiwamu (who has no understanding of how mixing works).
Before someone thinks I hate VK: I don’t, it’s my nr.1 guilty pleasure. But it’s important to stay realistic about it after the mid 2ks experience of fans being delusionally defensive about their fave bands being crap and praising it up to the heavens.
I also want to bring up DazzlingBad, because I feel they are these day’s Mejibray or “shitty indies band that all gaijin love”. I think MH had a thread about crappy indies VK and some of their material would fit neatly there.
14 Likes
DazzlingBad are genuinely one of the worst visual kei bands I’ve ever heard (among the ones relatively popular with overseas fans, at least). I physically recoiled the first time I heard a song from them.
12 Likes
Shun getting the confidence to sing more in later Deshabillz really made that part of their discography harder to listen to. He’s a lot more tolerable on earlier stuff like Shinjuusha, which is pretty much garden variety bad kote vocals. On that note, I think it adds to the charm of Marvelous Cruelty and La’veil MizeriA that they faithfully recreate that aspect of the earlier scenes, whether they mean to or not.
But yeah, while the bar is pretty low for kote vocalists (the instrumentals are usually worth tolerating it), it drops off fast with below-average vocalists making their bands nearly unlistenable. And it only makes bands with good vocalists that much more special.
7 Likes
Expect the real trash VK/jrock I would say that I have never liked Alice Nine, mainly because of the poor vocalist. People will hate me for this.
1 Like
I cant stand bands with aesthetics like Babykingdom, Vivarush and PoIdol. The lame image is enough to put me off even wanting to try the music.
9 Likes
this thread is a fuse waiting to go off…
anyway mine are mainstream bands I juxtapose from one song I heard
Dir en grey, mejibray, the gazete, kizu, nocturnal bloodlust, kaya, r-shitty man so much to name too bad they arent memorable only reason I know these are because no one would stfu about it back in 2014, I never understood what was so special about these fucking bands it was like christian rock level of composition and being japanese equally edgy lyrics and coupled with mindless lunatic screaming is the frosting on a shit cake.
3 Likes
most accurate description of dir en grey’s music
2 Likes
Lol, I’m not even a fan, but I have no idea what you’re thinking putting Kaya on the same list as those bands dude.
You’re telling me you listened to this man’s music and thought “he’s just like Dir en grey”?
8 Likes
I was going to post this earlier, but the guy memory-holed his existence just about everywhere, including SNS and YT. Close to the worst thing I’ve ever listened to.
*nvm, thanks bilibili netizen
It would’ve made more sense if I hadn’t cut the rest of the post. For the sake of clarity I won’t justify being prejudiced with bullshit like ‘‘repetitive eye candy is an excuse for ko-gals to go to concerts’’ It’s your life, people who have no control over it will sway you with words, sparking even more repetitive arguments, who the fuck cares what anyone else says? if you’re having fun then that’s all that matters.
I’m not saying you can’t hate his music, I just find it odd that you would put Kaya on a list with those particular bands since he really doesn’t have much in common with any of them aside from also being VK and fairly popular with overseas fans. Musically, the few songs I’ve heard from him are not similar at all.
1 Like
For you only, I’ll say this the third time, I haven’t listened to the girl, I have no idea how she sounds like, I listened to these a decade ago, I don’t knoooooow don’t take my words at
I got some pretty bad bands in my back pocket oh man I’ll probably post more later 
Koyori (This probably is one of there more tolerable songs the band itself is bad extremely in my opinion some of thier songs have talking for half the track etc. )
Is not a band, buttt Maria Cross is just… i dont know, i dont wanna be rude, but its not good…
1 Like
Maria cross and dare I say yoshiki solo crap. Also baboos diaper kei shit
2 Likes
As a person who can see and actually knows the proper technique of the vocal style he’s attempting on Ackercock, his gutturals are pretty decent I guess but holy shit ur right, he does sound like Donald Duck when he tries to do the pig squeals.
As a person who absolutely adores Nokubura, ur right lmaoooo. But their music to me has that kind of Japanese A7X charm to me that’s just my absolute obsession. Y2K type shit to me if u can call it that.
1 Like
I looked up babykingdom
Great god