2010s In Visual Kei – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
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The decade came and went, but perhaps due to the fact that a lot of us had been there and that many of the currents flowing through the decade have continued to flow into the present¹, I don't think we've yet rounded up the decade as we have the previous decades, 80s, 90s and the 2000s, and assigned it a specific character.
So I started this thread to just gather some observations of how the 2010s were. What happened in visual kei? Which trends came and went and what has left a lasting impact –- what characterizes the music of this period.
Something that was very significant to me was the conscious pivot back to the styles of the 2000s as a reaction to industry plant bands like ViViD, flagrant attempts of selling out of bigger acts and the "americanization" of aesthetics. This often led to a kind of a fusion of early nu-metal visual kei and kote kei (best exemplified by a band like Grieva, who'd steal from Girugamesh one moment and from Gauze-era Dir en grey the next) and also arguably taking a step further in aestheticizing the themes of depression and self-harm which led to menhera's establishment as a specific term and an aesthetic.² Although early Under Code and Sherow Artist Society maintained a direct lineage from kote, labels like Ains and projects like Dezert might've been the first self-consciously retro wave in vk.
Another is art kei's establishment as a "thing". I'm kind of ambivalent on this term as it simultaneously draws the right connections between some predecessors of western alternative and progressive rock influenced acts like early Luna Sea and L'arc, but also obscures their connections to the wider scene. But either which way, bands like Moran, Amber Gris and later 9Goats were some of the highlights of the decade and a kind of a bulwark against the complete metalcoreization of the scene's DNA.
There's plenty of other stuff to go over, like the strange and untimely end of significant labels such as Peace and Smile Company and Under Code, tracing metalcore's slow ascendancy over nu metal and etc. and also the best records of this period. All in all, I don't think there's enough conversation online about assessing this period in visual kei as whole yet
¹Additionally, the change in the media landscape and sheer overabundance of news and stimulus have created a fragmentary cultural landscape despite the fact there's more archival information available than ever before.
²R-shitei is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Starting out as effectively a 00s nu-metal vkei band, a genre which in itself emphasizes personal vulnerability and exhibition from KoRn onwards, and combining this with aesthetics from early Gazette and Kagerou, honed a style of kitchen sink imagery of juvenile angst and rebellion whilst flip-flopping on musical genre on a regular basis.
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When I filter my music library by year and visual kei, the 2010s is my second most collected decade, with 2000-2009 being the number 1 and the 90s as the 3rd.
It's kinda wild to look back on the bands that were active during the decade, Mejibray was active for a good chunk of the 2010s. I used to be a humongous hater until I picked up that they are actually kinda like a metalcore Penicillin and then I got hooked. I think they're a good example of that shift towards metalcore in the scene along with others like DELUHI, D.I.D. and another core band I can't remember.
I wasn't too big into the core bands because I'm an old school kote snob but the 2010s was good for all those worship Ains bands like you mentioned. We also had Run:atic active at the start of the 2010s before disbanding into obscurity and later La'veil Mizeria starting up in the late 2010s.
D, another favourite of mine that I followed had some of their best releases (Vampire Saga and Kingdom) and some of their worst releases (Wonderland Savior) in the 2010s. That's also when Asagi would try incorporating more screams into his music (7th Rose), whether it was numetal or core influence, something was influencing them to incorporate more modern/popular styles in their music. Later releases they found a middle ground that worked for Asagi but I just put on 7th Rose and his screaming in that song still makes me laugh.
The 2010s is when Kiryu thrived the most, I know they started activity a few yeas before 2010 but that's the decade they played Budokon for the first time. I wouldn't credit Kiryu as the ones to popularize Wafuu but I do think they influenced other bands during that decade like Memento Mori and Zin/Yusai.
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I think the 2010’s were contentious for me. While it’s probably also my most collected (physical or otherwise) timeframe, as that’s when I started buying CDs frequently, I definitely remember having a love-hate relationship with it.
A lot of “THE Visual-kei” of the era didn’t really jive with me (Mejibray, ViViD, Royz, Lycaon etc), but I am an edgelord so I really enjoy the rise of homage-kei ripoffs. In general, it seemed like a period that was trying to grow and blossom into its own identity but was also combating a number of factors working against it; vkei’s tremendous drop in popularity domestically, its drop in popularity globally after download blogs got nuked and lastfm kept making the worst decisions it could in the face of K-pop’s wake, and the scene at odds with itself over “do we innovate” vs “well, it worked in the 90s so why don’t we just kinda do that again”. This definitely came to a head with COVID, which saw a lot of the scene evaporate with venues and specialty stores closing. Silver lining, though, is that the scene at large had to stop pretending digital consumption was something you could ignore.
Bands from this era that are special to me: Versailles (technically a late 00’s band but by this decade they were already established as a big name globally), Grieva, Megaromania, Lin, Dezert, Lynch (similar to Versailles — the 10’s is when they exploded), Kiryu, Gossip, Liphlich, Litchi Hikari Club, and probably a few more who I’m not recalling at this moment between work tasks I’m ignoring.
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When I filter my music library by year and visual kei, the 2010s is my second most collected decade, with 2000-2009 being the number 1 and the 90s as the 3rd.
It's kinda wild to look back on the bands that were active during the decade, Mejibray was active for a good chunk of the 2010s. I used to be a humongous hater until I picked up that they are actually kinda like a metalcore Penicillin and then I got hooked. I think they're a good example of that shift towards metalcore in the scene along with others like DELUHI, D.I.D. and another core band I can't remember.
I wasn't too big into the core bands because I'm an old school kote snob but the 2010s was good for all those worship Ains bands like you mentioned. We also had Run:atic active at the start of the 2010s before disbanding into obscurity and later La'veil Mizeria starting up in the late 2010s.
D, another favourite of mine that I followed had some of their best releases (Vampire Saga and Kingdom) and some of their worst releases (Wonderland Savior) in the 2010s. That's also when Asagi would try incorporating more screams into his music (7th Rose), whether it was numetal or core influence, something was influencing them to incorporate more modern/popular styles in their music. Later releases they found a middle ground that worked for Asagi but I just put on 7th Rose and his screaming in that song still makes me laugh.
The 2010s is when Kiryu thrived the most, I know they started activity a few yeas before 2010 but that's the decade they played Budokon for the first time. I wouldn't credit Kiryu as the ones to popularize Wafuu but I do think they influenced other bands during that decade like Memento Mori and Zin/Yusai.
It's kinda wild to look back on the bands that were active during the decade, Mejibray was active for a good chunk of the 2010s. I used to be a humongous hater until I picked up that they are actually kinda like a metalcore Penicillin and then I got hooked. I think they're a good example of that shift towards metalcore in the scene along with others like DELUHI, D.I.D. and another core band I can't remember.
I remember Mejibray were levied the accusations of being "generic" for almost their entire run when that couldn't have been further from the truth. Especially MiA's guitar playing was this rather unusual amalgamation of the same metalcore and power metal influences someone like Deluhi was working with, but in addition to that they'd be hip to the vk tradition and lift from bands like Silver Rose, Sads... There's no one that sounds like them, even if there were a few attempts at it. The kind of flamboyance and extravagance they put into everything was remarkable, always straddling the line of good taste with just most things they did (especially when it came to Tsuzuku's performances).
I think with the sheer volume of releases they put out in about 6 years makes them one of the most prolific and significant bands of the decade. You're not going to be artistically batting a 100 when you've put out over a 100 songs in 6 years.
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It's kinda wild to look back on the bands that were active during the decade, Mejibray was active for a good chunk of the 2010s. I used to be a humongous hater until I picked up that they are actually kinda like a metalcore Penicillin and then I got hooked. I think they're a good example of that shift towards metalcore in the scene along with others like DELUHI, D.I.D. and another core band I can't remember.
I remember Mejibray were levied the accusations of being "generic" for almost their entire run when that couldn't have been further from the truth. Especially MiA's guitar playing was this rather unusual amalgamation of the same metalcore and power metal influences someone like Deluhi was working with, but in addition to that they'd be hip to the vk tradition and lift from bands like Silver Rose, Sads... There's no one that sounds like them, even if there were a few attempts at it. The kind of flamboyance and extravagance they put into everything was remarkable, always straddling the line of good taste with just most things they did (especially when it came to Tsuzuku's performances).
I think with the sheer volume of releases they put out in about 6 years makes them one of the most prolific and significant bands of the decade. You're not going to be artistically batting a 100 when you've put out over a 100 songs in 6 years.
@disposable My problem back in the day is I really latched onto accusing them of being unoriginal because of their song DIE KUSSE basically being a metalcore version of Filth in the Beauty. So everything else they did I just couldn't accept other than being some copy of something else and I was just really stuck up my butt about it. At the same time, I was really into Grieva and they are probably the most notorious about rippin on dir en grey so like, looking back, can't help but be like wow I was really pretentious and annoying huh? LOL!!
I don't really know when I got over myself but I got really into Penicillin and at some point I couldn't help but notice Tsuzuku's singing reminding me so much of Hakuei's singing. I was hooked after that, he's a fun and versatile singer.
Otherwise, Mejibray dominated and held everyone's attention for a reason and that's probably why they had so many haters lmao.
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