Tears of Ash

Visual Kei is Japanese term meaning "Visual Style". It originated in the early 1980s with the band X Japan. X Japan looked very punk-rockish in their day, but they're music was metal. However, X Japan was one of the first bands in Japan to really have focused on visuals moreso than other traditional music where groups would dress up in normal attire or kimonos.




X Japan - 1987

Later on, more and more bands began to incorporate visuals into their music. Bands such as Penicillin, L'arc~en~Ciel, and Dir en Grey. During the nineties Visual Kei peaked in Japan. Being the equivalent to boy-bands most concerts consisted of a female audience. The female crowd adores the way the members are dressed up.

It would seem, that a band could rely on looks and not have to worry exactly about playing good music. Plenty of more recent bands have played on this with basically the same kinds of chords, gargling Japanese growling amongst other things.

One facet of Visual Kei is the androgynous behaviour and the frequent cross-dressing. Somewhat shocking to most people, this can easily be explained as one could argue that Visual Kei has its influences from the Edo period. A period in which males would dress up as women because the women were not allowed to. They would dress up a women only to portray the female character in their shows. This is just another aspect of the visual "show", the pleasure-to-the-eyes "music" that these VK bands produce.

As I've said before, Visual Kei mainly has a female audience. This being the case groups who wish to step beyond this demographic often drop the visual kei image and concentrate more on their music. Bands such as Pierrot and Dir en Grey have done exactly that.

I've talked about how Visual Kei "looks", but I've only treaded water concerning the subject of how Visual Kei sounds. Most people assume that Visual Kei is the same as J-Rock (Japanese Rock), but this is not true. Visual Kei bands come in an array of different styles and has two subgenres itself. First I shall discuss the three styles of normal VK.

Normal Visual Kei bands will most likely sound like either plain Rock, Goth Rock, or Industrial. Some bands have added french pop and classical twists on their songs (Most notably Malice Mizer, Klein Klaiser, and Moi Dix Mois). You may see some hardcore, deathmetal, metalcore Japanese bands dressed up closely vk but it is highly unlikely.

The two subgenres are eroguro nonsense and Angura kei. Firstly, Angura Kei is basically indie-VK. Bands that experiment with their sounds, with their looks, with everything. Inugami Circus-dan who has lyrics of cannibalism and dresses like something from an old movie can still rock hard regardless of what they sing about or what they look like. Noir Fleurir is a great example of Angura Kei because they incorporate folk-spanish tunes into their music and their cheerful vocalists have that flamenco rhythm melded together to make dark, melodic, but happy and catchy songs. Angura Kei comes sort of derives itself from the English word "underground"

Eroguro Nonsense is short for Erotic Grotesque Nonsense. Bands such as Mucc, Merry, or cali≠gari are good examples of this subgenre. True, they inject a great amount of time and effort into their visuals, but they're visuals reflect the subject matter. So far "out there" and mind-bending. cali≠gari can be psychadelic and can be just plain random. Hence, the "nonsense". Often times a dark, but humorous take on things. Eroguro Nonsense is a respectful nod towards the cultural movement of Japan in the 1920s -1930s when they were having censorship dillemas. Some of these bands have been obfuscated as simply Angura Kei, when they are not.

Visual Indies refers to all kinds of Visual Kei. However most Visual Indies bands are short lived as they are often performing and going separate ways. Often times fragments of former bands will join with something else and slowly emerge out of the erratic Visual Indies scene.

There are plenty more variations on Visual Kei such as Oshare Kei which is basically fashion-conscious bands.

Below are some pictures of visual kei groups, and some mp3s. I'll even throw in a music video.

Images:

Luci'fer Luscious Violenoue - This is actually a girl. Yes there are girl VK groups sometimes. This particular act is very ambient and gothic.

Ayabie Often times just another generic band, but sometimes they'll have cool keyboards and unique sounds.

+D'espairsRay+ This band actually has some good riffs and reasonably attractive vocals.

Panic*Ch

Rentrer en Soi Interesting group.

if you go to my rotation page http://blackflowermusic.com/influence.html you can find many good j rock and vk bands.

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gabrielzero

Nice article. Hey Tears do you like L'arc en ciel . I love the songs they did for Kenshin . I just bought a cd made by the pillows. Not sure If I like it yet.

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Tears of Ash

I've seen L'arc en Ciel in concert.

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gabrielzero

Do you have the Best of L'arc en Ciel collection ? I'm looking for a song they made. I think it's called heart of sword. @_@

It's one of the ending theme songs to Kenshin. I think it's the '04 collection. Do you have idea what I'm talking about ? @_@

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Tears of Ash

I only have one song from L'arc, and it sounds strange and hawaiian.

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Antaeus

Ey, good article about the Visual Kei bands. It covers most of it(or maybe it only covers the bands I know). I discovered Visual Kei a few months ago when I was in a "Japanese metal bands"-mood. Probably because I really enjoy Sigh. Anyway, I discovered X-Japan because of that. Since then I'm exploring the scene a bit.

X-Japan is definitely the best band what I've heard so far. Some of their songs are a bit too "poppy" for my taste, but they've some great songs. Especially their album "Blue Blood" is remarkable. An excellent release. Dir En Grey is also very good. However, I only enjoyed half of their releases. L'Arc en ciel is mediocre IMO.



This is the only part I don't agree with. Can you mention one Visual Kei band that sounds like a Goth Rock band? If you can, then I'm highly interested in this band. Also, you forgot the term metal in this part. X-Japan is pure heavy metal(and maybe with some progressive influences on a few albums). Anyway, your explanation about the image and development is really good. Well done.

Tears of Ash

I don't mean Goth rock as in the goth rock/post-punk from the early 70s I mean like dark stuff. Which isn't necessarily goth rock, but many people wrongly associate it with that anyways.

As far as naming one, I suppose that Lucifer Luscious Violenoue, and her other band Fiction come pretty close as lots of their influences are american goth bands. Fiction has covered two Bauhaus songs, which should mean something about the nature of the band, IMO.

To be honest, I have never listened to X Japan. All the information I put in that article is from wikipedia and I thought that X Japan being the pioneers in the visual kei community.

Anyways, Visual Kei may have metal elements, but none of it is really true visual kei. Like X Japan started it, but they were never really solid visual kei, they just kind of started the genre but they aren't necessarily the best example of what Visual Kei is, and what it has blossomed into since they started it. Things change. Once what was considered vk is no longer considered as such. Like Sex Machineguns are metal, but not vk. and they're visuals are pretty much like xjapan.

But there's metal bands like, Onmyouza that dress up in old-fashioned garb and play. Even though they're metal, they still fancy a certain 'look' to go along with their music.

So I left out 'metal' because nowadays most metal bands are not visual kei. Except maybe for onmyouza and deathgaze.

And lots of people mistake certain hard rock vk bands for metal, when they shouldn't. Also, Japan labels genres differently than other places. If you think it sounds like a genre, it might be, but remember they're different. Things like Dir en Grey and Moi dix Mois would be considered metal by certain westerners, but in japan it's just hard rock.

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Antaeus

Ah I see. However, darkness has been used in many genres. Not just goth rock.(For example, the metal or industrial scene). Maybe it is better to avoid the word "goth rock". Especially when you try to use the term on Visual Kei bands.

Ah, they covered Bauhaus? That's interesting. They don't have mp3-files online? I cannot find any mp3s on the pages you posted in your first post. But I will try to find an album of them.



Well, I don't think they are just pioneers. They created Visual Kei. A lot of bands followed with a similar image after X-Japan. Their image has everything that a Visual kei band needs. Shocky, rebellious, a bit of cross-dressing etc. I can advice you to try X-Japan. They are really good.



Well, this question is very difficult to answer: "What kind of music do Visual Kei bands make?". Because it is very varied. For example. L'Arc en Ciel sounds like (pop) rock music when X-Japan's or Dir En Grey's sound is quite aggresive. I just think (Heavy)Metal influenced the Visual Kei movement. Also, Glam Metal and Visual Kei have some similarities. Yup, things do change. I've never heard Sex Machineguns, but I do know how they look like. There is a similarity.



I understand. I personally think metal should be added. Mainly because of X-Japan, but maybe also the bands you've mentioned. Most of the Japanese metal bands aren't Visual Kei. Japanese Metal bands are more influenced by the western metal trend.(Examples: Sigh with corpsepaint, or Sabbat singing about blasphemous things). Visual Kei is really varied. That's why it is very difficult to catogorize the music into a genre. Let's just say it depends on the band, but there are definitely Visual Kei bands that make metal music.



Well, I agree about that. I have seen several times that people call bands such as Dir En Grey metal. When they are hard rock. The labels are different in Japan, but I think there is not a big difference. Labels are misused most of the times because of ignorance, or even simplier, a listener who doesn't have a trained ear.

Tears of Ash

X-Japan doesn't count because they are not visual kei by today's standards. They were proto-visual kei.

They pioneered it, but did not create it. The origins of visual kei is very debateable because there are a number of other bands that had the visuals and such, but did not make the scene as large as X Japan did. X Japan didn't 'create' it, they just made it more famous, and allowed for others to branch off into what we consider as Visual Kei today.

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Tears of Ash

if you go to luciferluscious.com and join the forum, they give you access to all the videos and all the albums done by Luci'fer's three different bands.

I'm Andrew at the forums.

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Antaeus

Hm okay, but can you name a few of those unknown bands? The bands before X-Japan who also had the visuals(or were mainly focused on their image). You said "by today's standards". So they were Visual Kei by the "old/different" standards? Because I think that is a bit strange. X-Japan has everything that a Visual Kei band needs. Personally I think the term "proto-visual kei" is a bit vague. You are right that X-Japan made it more famous. People started to notice Visual Kei because of X-Japan. It was very unknown before X-Japan was formed.



I joined the forum and I've downloaded the Fiction album. I enjoy two tracks of Fiction. "Akuma No Koi -Dizziness Of Lucifer-" and "Towararete....". The other songs are also quite good, but those two songs really stand out. Now I understand what you mean with influence of goth rock. Especially in "Akuma No Koi..." you can hear a clear influence of the goth rock bands. It even reminded me of the dutch dark wave/goth rock band Clan of Xymox. Anyway, currently I'm downloading an album of Lucifer Luscious Violenue. I will tell you my opinion about it later.

Tears of Ash

I couldn't find the pages where it listed the two bands that started whole visual kei look, before X Japan. However, most things that you read on websites will almost always say, "X Japan almost singlehandedly started vk" and you'll also read that lots of bands after X Japan that were called VK did not follow their style.

And as far as goth/industrial goes, you could try Schwarz Stein, Eve of Destiny, Blam Honey, art marju duchain, and velvet eden.

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Antaeus

Well, the pages I've read all said X-Japan started Visual Kei. However, it wouldn't suprise me if you are right. It happens quite often that this happen. Mostly because people spread wrong information. Yup that's true. But Visual Kei is very varied. It would be wrong if every Visual Kei band copied X-Japan. It's good that a lot of bands tried to get their own style. A genre evolves, and Visual Kei is no exception to this rule.

Thank you, I will give them a try(If I can find some mp3s of them). I'm familair with the goth/industrial scene from Europe. But it is interesting to see this genre of music from a different place of the world. I've tried Lucifer Luscious Violenoue. The music was fine, but I liked Fiction better. Maybe my opinion will change later. Because I've to listen to both CDs a few more times. By the way, thank you very much for the links and the mp3.

Fire~Mustang

Here is a great article about visual kei that was overlooked: http://www.proxemics.net/honyaku/history.html

You are right that many subgenres of visual kei exist. But let's go over a little more about the sound of VK.

You see, there are 2 definitions of VK among japanese, the type of band and the type of music.

Musically, Visual Kei is seen by most japanese to be goth rock. The lyrics and the themes of most VK songs and albums are usually in the gothic vein.

While many forms of VK exist today, there did, at one point (recall the article above) exist a primary, dominant, definitive style of VK music that was mostly associated with the image. The goth/metal/punk hybrid is evident in a large majority of the 2nd wave (early-mid 90s) VK bands, manifesting in early incarnations of Shazna, Penicillin, Pierrot, Baiser, Malice Mizer, L'arc~en~Ciel (Dune-era), Luna Sea, D'erlanger, ZI:KILL, Dir en Grey, Rouage, Due'le Quartz, Da'vid Shito:aL, Deshabillz, Lareine, Laputa, etc, etc. and much of it (the later stuff moreso) was majorly influenced by early Kuroyume (no one ever succeeded in duplicating the style of more sophisticated bands like Luna Sea and L'arc). Their first full indies release, Nakigara Wo (a highly reccomended work of VK music) helped give rise to the dark underground culture of VK. Yet, many of these co-existing bands each had their own style done within the common elements of what was then the typical VK style (now known as the traditional form) up until it's death in 1999-2000. Less-typical bands were groups like Velvet Eden, or Fiction but they were the exception and not the rule. X Japan's first release may serve some relevance as well, but it did not shape the majority of what followed. GLAY represents the so-called 'pop side of visual kei', yet, at the same time, GLAY did not and still does not have a strong influence on the VK scene, neither do most of the exceptional 'poppy' groups. These groups are more influential to mainstream or non-VK groups but have never had much impact in defining VK's primarily gothic culture.
Many offshoots of the traditional form exist, but artistically it is mostly a deceased genre.

The online japan-based shop Third Stage refers to VK primarily as "Japanese Gothic Rock". Several other major stores do the same thing when you search the database.

http://www.vkdb.jp <- The japanese visual kei database. Good page to see what many would classify as visual kei.

By the way, I have on my harddrive literally hundreds of VK albums and singles. If you're looking for one, I may have it. Both first, second, and third wave bands.