Visual Kei - The Inconvenient Truth

[Nokutetsu]

I'm amused you find this as a suprise. I'm very sorry dear, but that's life. Being a musician is a JOB not matter how much you enjoy it. You need to make money to survive and life comfortably.

As a musician myself, I can also say you don't realise how much things cost. For a good band, to have the instruments and amps they need, you're looking at around $30,000+. This does NOT include the rent for a rehersal studio, renting live halls, and paying their managers, managing company, make up artists, technicians and other staff.

Once you have what's left of your profit, you have to devide that by (average of) 5 members. This has to pay for their rent (which is HIGH in Tokyo), food, living expenses, car/transport, flights and travel expenses to go on tour, tourbusses, translators for abroad......the list goes on. It is very, very expensive.

They need to charge the prices for things they do in order to thrive as a band and survive as human beings.



Also.....If you think these people are bad, you should see some of the American artists.

[TheCrimson]

Originally Posted by PockyMePink

I like how you think this is some super big surprise no one else knows about

ok. people. i am not surprised. i found this and was like "FINALLY!! some proof!" i just wanted to share. blooooody hell.
i knew this a while ago O_o
i knew the fuckedness.
and Nyororin. yep yep. so i'm wrong, you're right. so in saying all that - contracts, that's how the system is, yaddi yadda.
let's make a comparison. you say it's just a product.
so are soccer balls. or shoes.
being put together by 8 year old boys in china.
does that make it ok? well i'm guessing to you it does, cause it's just a product and that's how businesses are run, right? right.
and with those soccerballs/shoes, do they get advertised as "SHOES & SOCCERBALLS, MADE BY 8 YEAR OLDS!" no. so it's a bit of a false advertisement, no?
like what the article mentions. in the CDs they write "written by this band member, yaddi yadda." and in most cases its not true. false advertisement.

also what i'm trying to get at is these band guys might not have wanted to do things that way. it defeats the purpose of making music if you make it by a certain guideline or get someone else to make it for you.

that's fine, continue being ignorant. i suppose no one wants to accept the fact that a world they put up on a pedestal is all fake.

and Noketsu - I know. my fiance is a musician, i live with him. I know how hard it is, some days we don't have money to eat, but he has a day job, and it's not prostitution like those VK artists, and living in Australia, we're given a much better chance at surviving cause here isn't as effed as Japan - we can actually afford rent on a working class man's salary.

[MMM]

Just the nature of VK itself implies that what you are buying into is a fantasy. This is much like the Johnny's Entertainment prefab groups like SMAP and V6, etc.

I am not sure why you are attacking Nyororin.

Music is art, but the music business is an industry. Musicians are artists, but successful musicians also have to be businessmen (and businesswomen).

You can't have that kind of continued success and not have some degree of business savvy.

Those that feel the business reduces their integrity can and do choose to bail out. For many it is worth some of the sacrifices that have to be made in order to be heard by a larger audience.

For many it's all about the music. I don't think this is true of VK artists.

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by TheCrimson

let's make a comparison. you say it's just a product.
so are soccer balls. or shoes.
being put together by 8 year old boys in china.
does that make it ok? well i'm guessing to you it does, cause it's just a product and that's how businesses are run, right? right.
and with those soccerballs/shoes, do they get advertised as "SHOES & SOCCERBALLS, MADE BY 8 YEAR OLDS!" no. so it's a bit of a false advertisement, no?
like what the article mentions. in the CDs they write "written by this band member, yaddi yadda." and in most cases its not true. false advertisement

How do the actions of consenting adults have anything to do with children in forced labor? That comparison only works if 1) 8 year olds working was an accepted thing, and some makers were advertising their shoes as "made by 8 year olds!" or 2) if singing something written by someone else was on the same level of international scorn as child labor. Neither of those are true.
If a company uses child labor and advertises that they do not, the consumer is hurt by this as they are being directly deceived - unlikely to have bought the product if they`d known this... And so are the children being forced into labor.
With a song heavily arranged and made commercially viable by someone other than the band - who is being hurt? Would you not buy something by a band or like some song just because it was written with the help of someone else? You could argue that you are hurt by the deception... But unlike the child labor example the band is not being hurt.

also what i'm trying to get at is these band guys might not have wanted to do things that way. it defeats the purpose of making music if you make it by a certain guideline or get someone else to make it for you.

But they are consenting adults and could leave the system if they wanted. There is no one who will come in and stop them. They could leave and start some indies band with no connection to any of these groups. Some people do - unfortunately without a support network they hardly ever make it big.

that's fine, continue being ignorant. i suppose no one wants to accept the fact that a world they put up on a pedestal is all fake.

Ignorant...? Of what exactly? Did you really believe that these guys lived in 18th century palaces or ran around killing people at night, etc? Of course not, right? It`s an image. It`s a dream. Sort of like reading a novel written in first person - the author isn`t speaking. It`s fiction. I don`t think that I`m ignorant of any of this.
I honestly think that there is far far more putting of these people and that world on a pedestal happens outside Japan than in. I am not some rabid fan, but I have been out to eat with and have talked with members of several different bands. (Probably introduced because I`m not some rabid fan, but that`s another story altogether.) Only some are what you consider "real" musicians. But they`re all real people and they all live real lives, and they all make their own choices in life.

I think the article is very misleading when it comes to the money aspect of things. A 100,000yen allowance in Tokyo IS a lot of money - even though they present it a "less than you`d make at 7/11". Sure, it`s less than you make working at a conbini, but that isn`t an "allowance". When involved with one of the labels that provide support, they get instruments, housing, promotion, clothing, transportation, recording, concerts, etc all taken care of. What they are paid in cash is basically for eating and fun. If you add all the things that are paid for, they make a whole lot more than most people.
As for music written by other people, it isn`t as clear cut as it would look. Most of the time a band has one or two great songs written totally by the band. But a couple songs don`t make an album, so they will tell a producer that they`ve got a few ideas - part of a melody, a set of lyrics they want to use, etc - and the producer will help them make that into a finished song that can be sold. Maybe 80% of it is written and arranged by someone else, but that song would never have come into existence without band input.

Originally Posted by MMM

For many it's all about the music. I don't think this is true of VK artists.

I don`t think this is true of many artists at all. VK is no exception. It is no worse nor better than any other genre.
It`s sort of along the lines of believing some cute 16 year old with extremely complex and wonderful songs just happened to be discovered and writes all her own music even though she can`t play any instruments and was never involved in music before.

[birthrites]

Honestly, how is this surprising? This is how the world works in general.

[TheCrimson]

ok. one last thing from me. i'm not attacking Nyororin MMM - just simply replying to his/her posts.
and i'm not going to go any further with this, as i still believe that this is my opinion, i'm here simply discussing, just one last thing. i'm not saying the whole "world" i mentioned in my previous post was one where they lived in 18th century palaces etc. i'm merely talking about the music aspect of it. people are made to believe these "musicians write their own stuff and are talented" sure they're talented, but they're not allowed to harness that talent due to the nature of the business.
and i'm done here, i only wanted to share an interesting article i found and my opinions on the matter. it was nice to actually have a long discussion with people who were giving replies that are longer than a line though kudos to all who replied.

[Tsuruneru]

Hahahaha i knew this from the start thats why i never listened to VK and put all my attention to other jrock bands.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

I don`t think this is true of many artists at all. VK is no exception. It is no worse nor better than any other genre.
It`s sort of along the lines of believing some cute 16 year old with extremely complex and wonderful songs just happened to be discovered and writes all her own music even though she can`t play any instruments and was never involved in music before.

Like some hair metal of the 80s, Johnny's bands, and Visual Kei, I think there are some genres that are more prefab than others.

I think there are bands on both sides of the Pacific that are less prefab. Raw talent goes a long way, and a band like ELT can kind of do its own thing because of it. A Perfume or AKB48 or Kanjani-8 is a different monster.

[Columbine]

Let's face it, if VK was all about the music and writing music and selling an image solely based on the music it'd be called Auditory Kei. Fact is, the lead singer's hair do and duds are probably just as important as the track. Sure a Jpop star has the same concern, but he can whack on the same shiny suit and floppy hair as everyone else in the business and pull it off; VK relies on some sort of original signature.

So why all the horror that they need help to write their songs? It's a disillusionment, sure, but I don't think the audiences are being as naively deceived as you think. We live in generation X factor- Everyone knows there's a whole kit and caboodle of artists who are utterly incapable of songwriting and yet are hitting it big in the charts, because the industry is a lot about look. So if the fans get indignant that a brand that is predominantly about look economizes on sound, should get a whap to the head, because surely that's bleeding obvious.

I think the main issue is that VK is supposed to be the trendy free-spirit alternative to mainstream and people get peeved that they've been suckered in on the exact same premise they were trying to avoid; they find out that their cool dark idols are just Girls Aloud gone goffick.

[Zombee]

uhh wow. It's very interesting. Good job (Y)