D’espairsRay just posted a new video message on their Facebook page. They (being Tsukasa) addressed the fact that they have just finished shooting the new PV, which is, according to Karyu, the most aggressive PV ever filmed on the face of the earth.
“The guys recorded one video in which they looked VERY tired… and so they tried to “take it up a notch” and that’s why you get to hear HIZUMI’s creepy voice.” – Video caption
Honestly, I don’t think they looked any less tired in this video. Zero looks about to collapse at any minute, and I can’t tell if Karyu is wearing white contacts, or if his eyes are perpetually rolled into the back of his head. Hizumi, on the other hand, exhibited obvious signs of ADD.
Tsukasa pretty much takes over the whole message, and you can practically see him jabbing the other members in the ribs whenever he’s like “And then….Zero, what about you?”
It’s no surprise, though. The band has surely been hustling to get the album finished up, PVs shot, and get everything prepared for the US tour– which can’t be a walk in the park. Speaking of which, if you haven’t got your tickets yet, I recommend doing so as quickly as possible, as shows are already starting to sell out.
Note to everyone in the US – new studio album Monsters will be available for digital download via all major MP3 stores, including AmazonMP3 and iTunes. The band will post links to where you can buy the album digitally. Monsters goes on sales on July 28th.The physical album will be available at all the usual hubs, so if you want all the plastic trimmings, or need to sleep with it on your pillow, pre-order it at CDJapan to ensure it gets to you in a timely fashion.
Yes, I know everyone who follows me on Twitter thinks that I’ve been being mischievous all day. After posting that faux KAT-TUN banner I just know we’re going to have trust issues. The purpose of this post is to inform you all, if you’re reading this, that all of my Tweets from this afternoon were entirely genuine. This is my new favorite song…
Ah ah ah, wait, wait, not yet….
A little backstory: I was killing time when I had no time to kill, watching a bunch of completely random VK videos that I found on this website through this PV bot that I follow on Twitter. (First of all, I was appalled at my own snobbishness. I think the sheer weight of my sighs stopped half the videos 53 seconds in…). This is how I used to discover most of the music I listen to, after all, so it’s not the uncommon to find me immersed in the endless oceans of Visual Kei PVs. In fact, sometimes I end up doing it without even thinking about it. Usually when I have something important to do, like composing important emails or writing business plans, or reorganizing my Netflix queue, I just sort of “come-to” on Youtube, clicking through suggested videos and playlists of the low-budget PVs of the lesser minions of avex’s ‘happy family’- well, if avex’s family is happy, then these guys must be the black sheep. The importance of how exactly I ended up there is always determined by the quality of the videos I discovered. On a scale of 1-5 (1 being the lowest) the quality of the discoveries made in the forty minutes I spent between writing non-diatonic chord progressions in the key of G and making dinner would have to be….wait for it. 5.
First of all, I thought it was from the ’80s. I had no idea PVs made in the ’90s were such poor quality… I mean, this is really…So yeah, anyway. The actual quality of the PV aside, it’s the content that we care about anyway. And I would watch this ten times in a row even if they took it back in time and remade it in 1948.
The artist is Chisato [千聖], the guitarist for ’90s VK band Penicillin. I’m not much of a Penicillin fan, and that’s my excuse for how I’ve been in the dark for so long. Initially, I heard Wake Up!, which was ok, but then scrolled down a little bit, and, like a young beggar on a cold night in the middle of the desert clinking two pieces of a jeweled scarab together, I parted the sands and there it was- the diamond in the rough. Chisato’s Cyber Rose.
Electronica that should only have existed in the 1980′s. Latin influences. The type of soaring melodies that laid the foundation for anime theme songs as a whole– the kind of melodies that, if we were Power Rangers, we would Mighty Morph and fight badly to-, and one of those voices that we stopped hearing after GACKT made the tenor go out of style in the year 2000.
The steady beat of the song could potentially be annoying after two minutes, but the chorus is killer, and I was totally digging the random (intentional?) Fur Elise clip that just sort of happens. The construction of the song is awesome, the licks are totally catchy, and the whole thing is just exuding raw character. The acoustic salsa-esque guitar solo steals the whole show…well, it might, were it not for the fact that Chisato is wearing a cowboy hat, which is so ’90s Jrock, isn’t it?
Cybernetic Axeman. I couldn't have put it better myself.
I’m not a fan of anime conventions anymore. I used to watch tons of anime– I was never that into popular stuff like Bleach or Naruto, but there were some great series that I devoured, from Samurai-spirit-imbued street racers Initial D to classic space-ified epic vengeance via Gankutsuou ~The Count of Monte Cristo. I think a lot of people discover Japan through anime, and that’s awesome. I discovered Japan through music first, but anime came close behind, and really helped to further my friendship with Jrock. It was, after all, through anime that I first heard songs like BUCK-TICK‘s Dress.
I’ve been to one anime con in the town where I currently reside, about 3 times consecutively. But then things started happening- like how they obliterated any reference to Jrock. There was a Jpop dance, and they also had an “intro to Jrock” panel, which I absolutely could not stand, but nonetheless my irritation with the panelist’s incompetence really inspired me to do a better job at introducing people to (actually good) Jrock and VK.
On that note, I would just like to say that despite my indifference to anime cons at large, I would have absolutely zero resistance to attending Japan’s Animelo event!
Animelo is Japan’s largest anime-song concert. Artists who have worked on anime theme songs, or seiyuu (voice-actors) who specialize in singing, perform. In this case, our focus is obvious. GACKT performed three songs, ranging from new, to newish, to classic. Animelo was held at the Saitama Super Arena on August 22-23, 2009. GACKT performed on the second day, along with notable artists such as m.o.v.e, Nana Mizuki, Suara, and many others.
See for yourself:
This is the first time that I’ve seen a proper arena Ai Senshi live like this (although there is at least one other live performance of the song), and it’s awesome. One of my favorite pieces off the Gundam-dedicated 0079-0088 album, along with the exquisite Meguriai. Personally, I thought the best part was the extra-manly shouts of Gakuto!! coming from the audience.
More extra-manly screams, this time in call-and-response style MC. After his customary shouting, GACKT says “This next song is, from us, to you, The Next Decade.”
This is honestly the first time that this song has really brought out my fighting-spirit. It’s an incredibly bad-ass performance, and GACKT’s headbanging, shouting, and general energy fire the whole thing up, plus the crowd is going wild, and it’s impossible to resist the amount of energy flying around.
Redemption will always be one of my favorite GACKT songs. It particularly hits home in this set-list as it’s paired with his new-generation piece The Next Decade, and then, before that, a cover song.
WARNING: This post may contain content inappropriate for some readers. I will not require you to confirm your age before reading the insights of a jaded Visualist and their opinions about the feisty side of Visual Kei, but I would like to make it clear that you read at your own risk, and I will not be held responsible for your corruption in any way.
Today I was surfing Youtube and went to watch the newly released PV for VAMPS‘ Devil Side single that’s coming out next month. As I clicked on the link, it seriously took me to a page that said something along the lines of “this video has been flagged inappropriate for some viewing audiences by the Youtube community. Please confirm your age to continue.”
Being a long time viewer of Visual Kei and Jrock PVs and live footage, and having enough comprehension of Japanese to understand lyrics, I’m no stranger to the casual trashiness of some Visual Kei and Jrock. It can be kind of shocking if you’re not used to it, probably because the Japanese don’t have the serious hang-ups around sexuality that Puritan-based western cultures do, so in order to be really trashy and shocking, you have to get kind of ridiculous. Blatant raciness became standard fare in Visual Kei in the late ’80s and early ’90s, with leaders like BUCK-TICK, who filled their live performances with all the sensuality and raunchiness of the lyrics– with that in mind, however, it was all in good taste. At least, I don’t think that’s my visualist dementia speaking for me. Fan-service was usually enacted by vocalist Atsushi, the god-father of on-stage sensuality, who romped around the stage drawing on monitors with crimson lipstick, and pole-dancing with his microphone stand bound with roses. It didn’t stop there, though. The late ’90s and early ’00s saw the rise of GACKT and his solo shockers.
Any standard GACKT fans will probably be at least relatively familiar with his long line of major-hit-atrocities such as Vanilla, Papa Lapped a Pap Lopped, Dispar and Koakuma Heaven. The earlier pieces like Vanilla and Papa Lapped created the friction that set off a spark in J-music genre-wide, but which particularly set fire to the edgier Visual Kei groups. I think every self-respecting Jrock fan has witnessed his 2004 live footage of the hip-thrusting classic, Vanilla.
And that was the tame version.
Within Western music we have raunchiness, yes, but it has such a profoundly different feeling. It’s practically seething shock-value; if so-and-so can have a more inappropriate video than who-and-who, then they’ll most likely have a greater sales spike. In Jrock the same applies, I think, but there’s also a different attitude around sexually themed music. As I already mentioned, there aren’t the same hang-ups around sexuality in general that there are in our so-easily-shocked culture.
There’s also a bit of a misconception about the lyrical content, though. Many of the above-mentioned GACKT songs have pretty dirty lyrics when translated, but actually have a wide range of innuendo and implication involved in the word-choice and kanji use. His Koakuma Heaven, which deals with the theme of host-girls, is packed with the female innuendo that trickles out of the Japanese “water-trade”. Therefore a lot of it isn’t as brutally obvious as the translations sound.
In any case, now that we’ve had “the talk”, today I want to showcase some of the trashiest PVs in Jrock and Visual Kei. These videos may offend you.
DIRTIEST PV: 19sai (Ju-Kyuu-Sai)/ Suga Shikao
I give this award to Suga Shikao’s [スガ シカオ] 19-sai [１９才], which was used as the opening theme to the anime XXXHOLIC (which actually wasn’t XXX at all, except for maybe the theme song). Although there are plenty of trashier songs lyrically, it takes a lot of guts to actually show enough that the video has to be censored. Plus, the whole energy of the song and the characters is so depressing, it’s all a bit disturbing. Awesome song, though.
MOST BLATANTLY XXX: Gather Roses / SCREW
Pretty self-explanatory, really. One of the raunchiest VK PVs on the ‘net.
Rated PG for Thematic Content and Some Sexuality…except I don’t actually recommend you have ‘parental guidance’ for this one. I wouldn’t show it to my parents, and probably, neither should you: Devil Side /VAMPS
And despite the two above, I actually had to confirm my age before viewing. Hyde is really turning into a horrible influence on Visualists. Setting the stage for your PV in a nightclub complete with scantily clad poledancers is sort of inappropriate, I guess, but VAMPS never pretended to be tame. Probably this was flagged by a frustrated fangirl when she got to there scene where…well, I won’t spoil it for you.
The full PV for D’espairsRay new single LOVE IS DEAD hit youtube a few hours ago. I have to admit, I haven’t listened to these guys in ages, and I’ve basically only heard clips of most of their new stuff. Seeing this video definitely inspired me to get back into D’espairs‘ stuff, so for that I’m glad.
The video is pretty cool. Note how the band-members don’t actually wear the bird-masks, but pass them off to backup people. You also hardly see anyone but Hizumi, though, and a few glimpses of Tsukasa rockin’ out. Maybe Zero is embarrassed about the hash his makeup person made of his innocent eyebrows.
I’m not sure where this electronica/dance Visual Kei trend is coming from, but, as I already mentioned the other day, it’s hitting quite a few releases this quarter. We all know PSC boys alice nine. have always done this stuff, but lately it’s been the vets, like BUCK-TICK and now D’espairsRay. Which seems sort of strange. I’m not complaining, though. I find it really refreshing, especially since I am not the kind of person who uses “different” synonymously with “bad”. I say keep it coming, it’s about time people started branching out and doing some fun and different things.
And that was the tame version.
