Jrock Fans Revolution
First of all I'm going to state that this rant started because I believe it's not right to just blame fans around.
It often, if not always, takes out a lot of effort from us to support the bands we like.
So it's totally unfair to be threated in a bad way if other people are not good enough at making their job!!!.
Here we go...
*******
I don’t know how many of you got to read this -> (A message to visual kei fans).
If you didn’t, please do.
If you already did, then you know exactly what pissed me and other people off.
And now I’m going to write (with the support of other people) a reply to this guy who probably (and hopefully) forgot a couple of things.
First let me point out why what he said can be right, but in the end is just totally wrong
They [a band he mentioned] were really interested in getting their music out to fans outside of Japan and touring internationally. [...] Outside of Japan is normally intimidating and simply something they don’t understand.
First of all, those bands with a little intelligence know exactly that planning to go on an international tour even before they ever released something and no one knows who they are is something I cal totally insane.
Seriously, these guys haven’t even released their first single and they were already thinking “Oh let’s go and do some lives abroad...!”
Ehm excuse me, but... who the hell are you?
There are bigger (and way more famous) bands in Japan who didn’t go on an international tour, how could they actually believe it was going to be that easy?
And of course outside of Japan is intimidating, but it’s the same for american bands when they play lives in Asia and Europe.
First they should have a strong base of fans in their own country and then “spread the word” all around the world.
Obviously they don’t understand it.
Playing lives in Japan is not the same as doing it in Europe or in America. Even lives played in Europe are different from the american ones!!!
Just because they “play a live” doesn’t mean everything works the same way wherever you go.
The band members themselves spent over $10,000 US dollars preparing for their debut. What could possibly end up costing that much? Well being a visual kei band is the most expensive kind of band to be. Custom costumes alone cost a few thousand. They had to rent rehearsal space to practice many times a week costing 100 dollars each time. They had to pay money up front to play at various live houses in Japan. They had to lease a studio and hire a recording engineer to professionally record the three songs so you the listener would be happy with the quality. They had to get a photoshoot done and hire a professional photographer. For the photoshoot they need a makeup artist and need to buy all the makeup themselves. When you need to be in makeup more than a few times a week it begins to cost a lot of money! Any band in Japan has to pay a lot of money to be active, but visual kei bands have to pay the most, especially when their fans expect a new look with every other release.
This, especially last sentence, is what made me and mazohyst_ruki very mad.
First of all, real fans don’t expect looks but songs.
Custom costumes alone cost a few thousand. And who makes them? D&G? Versace? Considering the life of a costume is around 2-3 months (from the last single released to the new album/single), is it really worth to spend all that money just for it?
Band members prefer to spend more about equipment things than on clothes (if you read some blogs of various bands you’ll understand exactly what I mean).
If they don’t know how to organize their money, who’s fault is that?
When you need to be in makeup more than a few times a week it begins to cost a lot of money!
If you are a member of a Visual Kei band you know from the start you’re going to spend a lot of money....!
Would they stop acting like the victims of this situation?
Life is hard.
Getting to be recognized as a band is difficult, but that depends on the quality of music you are making.
Band members might be all good looking; but if their music is crap, they are not gonna last long in the music industry.
Finally there is irrefutable evidence that uploads of the album kill sales.
WRONG.
He added next that the music quality was good.... well, he definitely couldn’t say something different!!!
And even if a few people said it was good too, this doesn’t make it an absolute truth.
Not every people like all the sub genres of Visual Kei, so they can’t possibly expect everybody to like the song and go buy the album.
Shipping fees kills music, it’s different.
And since when good music and high sales are the same thing???
The price was also incredibly cheap and came with over 100 megabytes of bonus material to please the fans. What happened?
Read above.
CDs are majorly sold in Japan so please stop complaining about overseas fans “ruining their businness”.
The reason the sales didn’t do well was for one simple reason. One or more of the users uploaded the release to hosting sites and everyone else downloaded from there.
Read above again.
Did they even looked at themselves in the mirror and thought “Hmmm maybe not everybody liked our music”?
The answer: no.
Because obviously only the fans are the ones to blame, ne?
But my loss is insubstantial to the loss incurred on the band themselves.
I have so many things to say about this, but I’d really like to ask a quesiton to this guy: how much you take from an album’s sale and how much is given to the band (who, then, have to split the money among them)?
“For the band that I worked with, we tried to bring them overseas, but no one would pay for the music….. we lost a lot of money.”
Reading various posts I came to realize that 90% of the time fans stated the lives to be of a... crappy quality... Not for the band itself, but for the organization.
Again, who’s fault is that?
Ours?
Pfft
From a band manager’s perspective, “the only way we could sell copies of our CD was to coerce the fans into buying it. I couldn’t believe it. That is unheard of in Japan and an additional stress for a band that is already stressed out from preparing for this for a long time.”
EXCUSE ME?!?!
Who the hell are you to force me buying a CD?
Do you wonder why this is unheard in Japan? Simple! They can actually go to CD shops and buy it while overseas fans can’t and have to spend a real fortune to get the CD to their home country!!!
For some reason paying $40 to a convention plus another $30 for a close seat is ok, but paying directly to the band is extortion. Why do most bands who come over once don’t come back for many more years? It’s simple, if you lose a lot of money going abroad, and you want to go abroad again you have to raise the money from Japanese fans to go over again.
If they asked Aoi (The GazettE) why he stated he doesn’t want to come back in Europe (or go back to the States) is pretty simple: the organization sucked and they didn’t even get fed!!!
Sorry, what????
I live in Italy. Miyavi will come here in October and I’m gonna spend about 200 euros just to see a 2-hrs concert. Why?
100 euros for the travelling (4 & ½ hours by traing one way -> 9 hrs in total)
50 euros for a hotel room to stay for the night.
25 euros for the ticket concert.
The rest for living expensive for that day I’m gonna spend in Milan.
How come Miyavi is doing a world tour again (considering the previous one was last year)?
How come Kagrra, DIO, An Cafe and other bands are doing the same?
No offense to Kagrra, but The GazettE sells more than them; still Kagrra are the ones on tour. How’s that?
Maybe, and just maybe, Gazette’s managers are not good enough to plan even just 5-6 concerts outside Japan....
No, of course it’s not their fault.... it’s because of fans.......
One often cited example is that it’s too expensive. Was 428 yen too expensive?
No dear, 428 yen is not too expensive.
But paying $25 to $40 to get a CDjust because of shipping fees is really expensive!
However, the biggest excuse I hear for why this isn’t a problem is, “I’m introducing the band to more and more fans. I’m helping the band by creating more friends.” This is merely a half truth. All the downloads I see being passed around are from jrock fans to jrock fans.
I mean, hellooooo....!!!!
First of all no one forces us to introduce VK to our friends and when we do, often the reactions are not good ones (many of you know what I’m talking about).
If I have just a small amount of money and really want the latest album of my fav band, what should I do? Starve to death?
Many, many, many people in my f-list said similar things.
The majority of jrock fans are student (many of them underaged) meaning no personal income.
And those of us who get some money every month, have to spend it on way more important things like food, bills, university/college/school fees.
But labels don’t care.
They just say “if you want it, buy it”.
We are not that rich to buy the latest release everytime (burn1ngcha0s agrees with me).
Plus, why do they have to come out with 3-4 different versions of the same thing???
Don’t they realize that when people buy a version, is going to download the other and not buying it?
Because, honestly, what fans are not willing to do is buy the same damn CD twice just because there’s a different song in “version B”.
The only thing that is happening is that you are killing any chance the band has of seeing any money from the album they worked so hard to make because every existing fan of the band can get it for free and does.
Cut off your income to give part of it to the band you are working with/for.
Make new deals and contracts to have CDs being sold in CD shops outside Japan instead of letting them being shipped by third party companies.
If you are willing to do that, I’m more than willing to pay more.ù
If you want to introduce someone to a band they have never heard of before, simply send them a song or link them to a YouTube clip.
LIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you guys know that once in a while labels like PSC or Avex do a check on YouTube and delete/take down clips about their bands?
If this happens how are we supposed to show them to our friends?
I’m ending this here and let you continue.
The more suggestions I get, the better.
Once it’s done, I’m gonna send this msg and try to spread it all over the net.
Being a paying fan I’m not willing to get shit from someone who, low sales or high sales, still takes his money at home every week/month, unlike many of us.
It often, if not always, takes out a lot of effort from us to support the bands we like.
So it's totally unfair to be threated in a bad way if other people are not good enough at making their job!!!.
Here we go...
*******
I don’t know how many of you got to read this -> (A message to visual kei fans).
If you didn’t, please do.
If you already did, then you know exactly what pissed me and other people off.
And now I’m going to write (with the support of other people) a reply to this guy who probably (and hopefully) forgot a couple of things.
First let me point out why what he said can be right, but in the end is just totally wrong
They [a band he mentioned] were really interested in getting their music out to fans outside of Japan and touring internationally. [...] Outside of Japan is normally intimidating and simply something they don’t understand.
First of all, those bands with a little intelligence know exactly that planning to go on an international tour even before they ever released something and no one knows who they are is something I cal totally insane.
Seriously, these guys haven’t even released their first single and they were already thinking “Oh let’s go and do some lives abroad...!”
Ehm excuse me, but... who the hell are you?
There are bigger (and way more famous) bands in Japan who didn’t go on an international tour, how could they actually believe it was going to be that easy?
And of course outside of Japan is intimidating, but it’s the same for american bands when they play lives in Asia and Europe.
First they should have a strong base of fans in their own country and then “spread the word” all around the world.
Obviously they don’t understand it.
Playing lives in Japan is not the same as doing it in Europe or in America. Even lives played in Europe are different from the american ones!!!
Just because they “play a live” doesn’t mean everything works the same way wherever you go.
The band members themselves spent over $10,000 US dollars preparing for their debut. What could possibly end up costing that much? Well being a visual kei band is the most expensive kind of band to be. Custom costumes alone cost a few thousand. They had to rent rehearsal space to practice many times a week costing 100 dollars each time. They had to pay money up front to play at various live houses in Japan. They had to lease a studio and hire a recording engineer to professionally record the three songs so you the listener would be happy with the quality. They had to get a photoshoot done and hire a professional photographer. For the photoshoot they need a makeup artist and need to buy all the makeup themselves. When you need to be in makeup more than a few times a week it begins to cost a lot of money! Any band in Japan has to pay a lot of money to be active, but visual kei bands have to pay the most, especially when their fans expect a new look with every other release.
This, especially last sentence, is what made me and mazohyst_ruki very mad.
First of all, real fans don’t expect looks but songs.
Custom costumes alone cost a few thousand. And who makes them? D&G? Versace? Considering the life of a costume is around 2-3 months (from the last single released to the new album/single), is it really worth to spend all that money just for it?
Band members prefer to spend more about equipment things than on clothes (if you read some blogs of various bands you’ll understand exactly what I mean).
If they don’t know how to organize their money, who’s fault is that?
When you need to be in makeup more than a few times a week it begins to cost a lot of money!
If you are a member of a Visual Kei band you know from the start you’re going to spend a lot of money....!
Would they stop acting like the victims of this situation?
Life is hard.
Getting to be recognized as a band is difficult, but that depends on the quality of music you are making.
Band members might be all good looking; but if their music is crap, they are not gonna last long in the music industry.
Finally there is irrefutable evidence that uploads of the album kill sales.
WRONG.
He added next that the music quality was good.... well, he definitely couldn’t say something different!!!
And even if a few people said it was good too, this doesn’t make it an absolute truth.
Not every people like all the sub genres of Visual Kei, so they can’t possibly expect everybody to like the song and go buy the album.
Shipping fees kills music, it’s different.
And since when good music and high sales are the same thing???
The price was also incredibly cheap and came with over 100 megabytes of bonus material to please the fans. What happened?
Read above.
CDs are majorly sold in Japan so please stop complaining about overseas fans “ruining their businness”.
The reason the sales didn’t do well was for one simple reason. One or more of the users uploaded the release to hosting sites and everyone else downloaded from there.
Read above again.
Did they even looked at themselves in the mirror and thought “Hmmm maybe not everybody liked our music”?
The answer: no.
Because obviously only the fans are the ones to blame, ne?
But my loss is insubstantial to the loss incurred on the band themselves.
I have so many things to say about this, but I’d really like to ask a quesiton to this guy: how much you take from an album’s sale and how much is given to the band (who, then, have to split the money among them)?
“For the band that I worked with, we tried to bring them overseas, but no one would pay for the music….. we lost a lot of money.”
Reading various posts I came to realize that 90% of the time fans stated the lives to be of a... crappy quality... Not for the band itself, but for the organization.
Again, who’s fault is that?
Ours?
Pfft
From a band manager’s perspective, “the only way we could sell copies of our CD was to coerce the fans into buying it. I couldn’t believe it. That is unheard of in Japan and an additional stress for a band that is already stressed out from preparing for this for a long time.”
EXCUSE ME?!?!
Who the hell are you to force me buying a CD?
Do you wonder why this is unheard in Japan? Simple! They can actually go to CD shops and buy it while overseas fans can’t and have to spend a real fortune to get the CD to their home country!!!
For some reason paying $40 to a convention plus another $30 for a close seat is ok, but paying directly to the band is extortion. Why do most bands who come over once don’t come back for many more years? It’s simple, if you lose a lot of money going abroad, and you want to go abroad again you have to raise the money from Japanese fans to go over again.
If they asked Aoi (The GazettE) why he stated he doesn’t want to come back in Europe (or go back to the States) is pretty simple: the organization sucked and they didn’t even get fed!!!
Sorry, what????
I live in Italy. Miyavi will come here in October and I’m gonna spend about 200 euros just to see a 2-hrs concert. Why?
100 euros for the travelling (4 & ½ hours by traing one way -> 9 hrs in total)
50 euros for a hotel room to stay for the night.
25 euros for the ticket concert.
The rest for living expensive for that day I’m gonna spend in Milan.
How come Miyavi is doing a world tour again (considering the previous one was last year)?
How come Kagrra, DIO, An Cafe and other bands are doing the same?
No offense to Kagrra, but The GazettE sells more than them; still Kagrra are the ones on tour. How’s that?
Maybe, and just maybe, Gazette’s managers are not good enough to plan even just 5-6 concerts outside Japan....
No, of course it’s not their fault.... it’s because of fans.......
One often cited example is that it’s too expensive. Was 428 yen too expensive?
No dear, 428 yen is not too expensive.
But paying $25 to $40 to get a CDjust because of shipping fees is really expensive!
However, the biggest excuse I hear for why this isn’t a problem is, “I’m introducing the band to more and more fans. I’m helping the band by creating more friends.” This is merely a half truth. All the downloads I see being passed around are from jrock fans to jrock fans.
I mean, hellooooo....!!!!
First of all no one forces us to introduce VK to our friends and when we do, often the reactions are not good ones (many of you know what I’m talking about).
If I have just a small amount of money and really want the latest album of my fav band, what should I do? Starve to death?
Many, many, many people in my f-list said similar things.
The majority of jrock fans are student (many of them underaged) meaning no personal income.
And those of us who get some money every month, have to spend it on way more important things like food, bills, university/college/school fees.
But labels don’t care.
They just say “if you want it, buy it”.
We are not that rich to buy the latest release everytime (burn1ngcha0s agrees with me).
Plus, why do they have to come out with 3-4 different versions of the same thing???
Don’t they realize that when people buy a version, is going to download the other and not buying it?
Because, honestly, what fans are not willing to do is buy the same damn CD twice just because there’s a different song in “version B”.
The only thing that is happening is that you are killing any chance the band has of seeing any money from the album they worked so hard to make because every existing fan of the band can get it for free and does.
Cut off your income to give part of it to the band you are working with/for.
Make new deals and contracts to have CDs being sold in CD shops outside Japan instead of letting them being shipped by third party companies.
If you are willing to do that, I’m more than willing to pay more.ù
If you want to introduce someone to a band they have never heard of before, simply send them a song or link them to a YouTube clip.
LIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you guys know that once in a while labels like PSC or Avex do a check on YouTube and delete/take down clips about their bands?
If this happens how are we supposed to show them to our friends?
I’m ending this here and let you continue.
The more suggestions I get, the better.
Once it’s done, I’m gonna send this msg and try to spread it all over the net.
Being a paying fan I’m not willing to get shit from someone who, low sales or high sales, still takes his money at home every week/month, unlike many of us.