(Not Very) Brief VK Related Rant.
Alright, here's the thing. I've been feeling down a lot over the past... I don't know year or two or even more because I feel like there's a gaping hole in me that nothing can really fill. If I'm being honest, there really is two totally sides to this... thing, this personality that is SV. This pseudonym I made for myself started out as just a username on a website, but it grew to more than that... Ever since then I gained some pretty good friends and contacts in the VK scene and that's great and it makes me happy, but things now are not like they used to be... In my life or in the scene. Let me explain.
In high school, life wasn't very complicated. People always like to say how stressful and messed up their high school careers were... Mine really wasn't. I had a lot of friends, made a lot of enemies, but all the while there was only one side of me. It was an outwardly dark and expressive person who was rarely ever MEAN to people, but the way I dressed sort of expressed my idea, my... vision if you will, of what TRUE beauty is. Darkness. Not evil, take-over-the-world darkness... Just absence of light. To this day, I still feel that way. I still feel that true beauty is expressed only with darker and/or monochromatic colors. Only problem is somewhere along the line I was bitten by the designer label bug... Nowadays I don't really wear shirts that show my interests in the way I used to (anime shirts, band tees and jackets), I now wear pricier clothing by major designers and companies that most people in the "in-crowd" wear. Sell out? Probably. But these clothes are frigging fabulous and they make me look GOOD.
Thus developed the side of SV that was into fashion, who constantly talked about and promoted new collections of Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Burberry. But really, the clothes you wear in the day isn't what is going to help you sleep at night. It's your actual values and emotions that ease your soul. Music always did that for me.
But then we get back into the shallow side of SV that doesn't appreciate well composed music with powerful guitar arpeggios and sick bass lines and overwhelming lyrics and melodies... The guy that really only appreciates overproduced pop music has come to the surface now more than ever and it's hard to get away from something that literally is addicting.
However, I try to steer myself to the more socially conscious pop-stars which is my way of justifying my being a total sell-out.
In any case, there is still a soft spot in me that loves and respects the VK scene more than anything else in the world. Mainly, my love is retrospect meaning that I love what the scene was rather than what it is now... The only easy way to tell you what I mean is by a chart-like series of small words.
VK scene when I entered it in 2002:
-Dacniest music was Schwarz Stein
-Dark music was not pointless screaming and growling... E.g. Moi dix Mois writing powerful melodies and really beautiful lyrics set to music styled after the Baroque period with Juka on vocals with that very deep, sensual voice rather than Seth's ridiculous growls and screams and lyrics that seem like they're now trying too hard. Yes, there's a soft spot in my heart for Seth and his evil sort-of voice. Nonetheless, Juka>Seth.
-Further more, regarding Juka, these were the days when Juka was either in MdM or he was in Hizaki's band as the vocalist. His voice sounded so crisp and pure and wonderful it was hard to imagine that he was ever going to leave us. His solo project ultimately flopped, but he had some really good songs that could have been hits... E.g. Saint Croix, however he had to stop for health reasons. His subsequent ambitions? XOVER and VII-Sense... Are not very good.
-The actual STYLE of Visual Kei has always been something that's been debated about whether or not it is truly important, but to be sincere: it is. If a band doesn't have a good look in this scene it's probably going to fail. Shallow? Yes. True? Yes. Let me just give one of my all time favorites as an example: D'espairsRay. They started out as a very dark, very Gothic band. Coll:Set to this day is listed as the best JRock album of the decade, or something like that. Since then they went downhill in respect to their visuals. They always looked the same... They just started doing what any American rock band was doing and became... Normal. This isn't cool to someone who admired them for being so ridiculously Gothic and perfect back in the day.
Today in the scene all the bands that are trying to be visual are just that... TRYING. I feel as though they aren't letting any sort of inspiration come to them, but instead are just dressing fancy and saying it's VK.
My brain hurts again from too many thoughts. Gotta end it here.
In high school, life wasn't very complicated. People always like to say how stressful and messed up their high school careers were... Mine really wasn't. I had a lot of friends, made a lot of enemies, but all the while there was only one side of me. It was an outwardly dark and expressive person who was rarely ever MEAN to people, but the way I dressed sort of expressed my idea, my... vision if you will, of what TRUE beauty is. Darkness. Not evil, take-over-the-world darkness... Just absence of light. To this day, I still feel that way. I still feel that true beauty is expressed only with darker and/or monochromatic colors. Only problem is somewhere along the line I was bitten by the designer label bug... Nowadays I don't really wear shirts that show my interests in the way I used to (anime shirts, band tees and jackets), I now wear pricier clothing by major designers and companies that most people in the "in-crowd" wear. Sell out? Probably. But these clothes are frigging fabulous and they make me look GOOD.
Thus developed the side of SV that was into fashion, who constantly talked about and promoted new collections of Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Burberry. But really, the clothes you wear in the day isn't what is going to help you sleep at night. It's your actual values and emotions that ease your soul. Music always did that for me.
But then we get back into the shallow side of SV that doesn't appreciate well composed music with powerful guitar arpeggios and sick bass lines and overwhelming lyrics and melodies... The guy that really only appreciates overproduced pop music has come to the surface now more than ever and it's hard to get away from something that literally is addicting.
However, I try to steer myself to the more socially conscious pop-stars which is my way of justifying my being a total sell-out.
In any case, there is still a soft spot in me that loves and respects the VK scene more than anything else in the world. Mainly, my love is retrospect meaning that I love what the scene was rather than what it is now... The only easy way to tell you what I mean is by a chart-like series of small words.
VK scene when I entered it in 2002:
-Dacniest music was Schwarz Stein
-Dark music was not pointless screaming and growling... E.g. Moi dix Mois writing powerful melodies and really beautiful lyrics set to music styled after the Baroque period with Juka on vocals with that very deep, sensual voice rather than Seth's ridiculous growls and screams and lyrics that seem like they're now trying too hard. Yes, there's a soft spot in my heart for Seth and his evil sort-of voice. Nonetheless, Juka>Seth.
-Further more, regarding Juka, these were the days when Juka was either in MdM or he was in Hizaki's band as the vocalist. His voice sounded so crisp and pure and wonderful it was hard to imagine that he was ever going to leave us. His solo project ultimately flopped, but he had some really good songs that could have been hits... E.g. Saint Croix, however he had to stop for health reasons. His subsequent ambitions? XOVER and VII-Sense... Are not very good.
-The actual STYLE of Visual Kei has always been something that's been debated about whether or not it is truly important, but to be sincere: it is. If a band doesn't have a good look in this scene it's probably going to fail. Shallow? Yes. True? Yes. Let me just give one of my all time favorites as an example: D'espairsRay. They started out as a very dark, very Gothic band. Coll:Set to this day is listed as the best JRock album of the decade, or something like that. Since then they went downhill in respect to their visuals. They always looked the same... They just started doing what any American rock band was doing and became... Normal. This isn't cool to someone who admired them for being so ridiculously Gothic and perfect back in the day.
Today in the scene all the bands that are trying to be visual are just that... TRYING. I feel as though they aren't letting any sort of inspiration come to them, but instead are just dressing fancy and saying it's VK.
My brain hurts again from too many thoughts. Gotta end it here.