Visual Kei - The Inconvenient Truth
 

Uhh.

Wow.

That's a lot to take in, yet really believable.

This is some sort of a surprise?

Get involved in any sort of business catering to the public. Everything is this way. That is just how the world works. It`s how businesses work. It`s pretty much common sense in a world where the goal is to make money.
You never hear about products, companies, artists, etc who are only in it for the action itself - and for a good reason.

Even if a someone comes out with a perfect product (this can be anything from soap to music) that everyone would want - unless they think of making money as number one... No one will ever know about their product because they`ll run out of money making the product and will never be able to promote it. Which means no one will know about it, and no one will buy it - the end result being that it will be gone before it even starts. It doesn`t really matter how wonderful the "product" is. What matters is the ability to make money off of the product.

People who are good at introducing products and selling them will be able to get a cut for themselves by finding others who are not good at selling their product and helping them out (in a business sense). Gather a number of these people who have ideas together, pay them some amount to work with you to produce better selling "products" and.... surprise! You`ve got a company, just like every other company for every other product. Having a wider network of connections with other companies selling other products, and you increase the whole network`s chance of making money.

There is nothing sinister or "yakuza" about the system. Making money doesn`t mean that a band is less of a band, or an artist less of an artist. You have to realize that nothing is free - a band not making money cannot afford to even buy instruments let alone rent halls for concerts... In fact, a band making no money cannot even afford to EAT.

ETA; After finishing reading the whole thing, I`d really like to see a NON-TRANSLATED version, as there are things said in there that I highly highly doubt would ever be said in Japanese. :P

I was thinking the same thing, Nyororin.

Welcome to the world haha :)

I'm sure many Visual kei artists enjoy what they do, but people can't do what they enjoy for a living unless it also makes them money.

Being aware of the way that business functions doesn`t make me heartless.

That`s what contracts are for.
You`re thinking of it in a very emotional way. Think of it this way;
Company A has a product similar to the product Company B and C offer. Customer A has a need for one of these products. Any of them will do. So Company A makes a deal with Customer A - If you only use our product, we`ll give you a discount and promise to always supply you with fresh refills. If Customer A agrees to this and then decides to just randomly ignore the agreement and use B or C - they`ve basically betrayed Company A. There is no reason for Company A to ever trust them to follow through on any agreement. Company A loses, Company A`s product loses, and there are a lot of bad feelings - especially if Company A worked hard to make their product perfect for Customer A.

Let me ask then - what would these people be doing if they hadn`t been invited into that system? They can say no anytime and leave. But being somewhat famous and having the chance to make it big generally outweighs any other opportunity.
Not EVERY person going into a band is uneducated. Not every one is from a poor background. It ends up being like any other business. There have to be people on the bottom working to support the top, which will possibly pull the bottom up later on. (The main reason the bottom works for them)

Substitute "VK" with any other media type out there. The same still applies.

The real artists DO express themselves (within reason), and the real artists DO write their own stuff. It`s the ones that are not, and would never be real artists without someone making everything for them that end up having everything made for them.
Basically the bottom works to hold up the top and the real artists, as art alone will not get you through life. If a label has 2 or 3 good and real bands, they still won`t make enough money to keep a label up and running... So there need to be at least twice that number of mediocre ones to provide the remaining money.

VK magazines always feature the same bands over and over again.

I am so not surprised that Kisaki is Yoshiki's bitch : P

The world is your bitch, nancakes : D

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. :mtongue:

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

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

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.

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.

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

don't be worried about it, like if you try to google for top 100 american songs you may get something like this Top 100 Songs

you got there ppl like Lady Gaga, JayZ, Rihanna, Eminem, Shakira, you know especially those who repeat frequently from top to bottom of the list

so i hope you do not consider these ppl to be artists :), and that their music has any better value than VK, they probably earn a bit more than VK cause they cover bigger market but they are equal crapsty inside ;)

this. i know, in western countries, people who like visual kei like it for the music (which is why only a handful of bands are actually popular), but if you have ever been to a vk show in japan, 99% of the audience are girls of ages 15-25. they like the band cuz they think they are hot. when you leave a show, they ply you with flyers of bands you have never heard about, in the hopes that if god-forbid you would think one of them is hot, you would look them up and maybe come to a live.

as a foreigner at vk shows in japan, i have often been asked at shows why i liked vk and received puzzled looks when i said i liked the music, which would usually followed by "ok, but which member is the coolest?"... so it definitely is ALL about the image. it's almost like the bands who do have talent kinda accidentally stumbled into it...

i read that article a while ago and although it is kinda depressing, it's not that surprising. i have no shame admitting that vk is just a cooler alternative to boybands, and i like their music and that's that ;) i do have a lot more respect for them than boybands though, because most of them really do like music.

I didn't realize there was a thread about this article here already, I almost started a thread for it a few weeks back.

It was originally posted on the Tokyo Damage Report website. It has been the most culturally informative website about Tokyo I've yet to find, certainly not mainstream but exactly the kind of stuff that peaks my interest. I was looking for reviews of off-the-beaten-path bands and found a whole lot more. I love his "writer's voice".

The Damage article about J-Punk Vs Western Punk is an interesting read too.

Sorry if this is too OT! :o

Who cares? If you like the band, then enjoy it. :)

Well, here's an entry from someone that proved that that Tokyo Damage Report article was incorrect and contradictory.

Flyingfoxbat - Lies, Damned Lies, and Tokyo Damage Report

I don't know about you, but it made me feel quite relieved.