Pleasure Principled

Revealingly Articulate Idol Worship

Starting from the day that music was presented through videos on television, people all around the world began to establish a visual connection to what they were listening to. In the minds of their fans, bands began to grow from “Listen! There’s this great riff!” to “I love how he plays that riff with that smirk!”

In turn, band members began to not only think about their musical impression on listeners, but also how they themselves were seen by their fans. PR became a big thing and single band members suddenly became special celebrities, got interviewed and stalked by obsessive fans. Japan’s music industry, as usual, has just taken it to another level.

Most popular Japanese rock artists and groups heavily rely on their created images, their attractivity, and their potential for visual controversy. This isn’t surprising and certainly not a Japan-only phenomenon. But while a certain visual element often also accompanies Western bands, many Japanese bands go for a rather unique style with elaborate make-up and often theme-based outfits, ranging from lavish baroque costumes to cute schoolgirl uniforms. Now, why is that?

Well, take Ayabie, for example. If you don’t know how they look, picture-google them. Then YouTube ‘em and you’ll see how they sound. Let Ayabie be your average visual kei band, both in terms of musical output and visual ingredients, for the moment.

First of all, you have to see that a band like Ayabie isn’t formed of pretty boys cast for some sugary video clips to seduce teenies into spending their money, even if you may get the impression. In fact, many visual kei band members are probably better on their instruments than your favorite Western band’s favorite member, and they met their present colleagues through friends or some lucky strike of chance.

Ayabie’s former band leader Ryohei is a good example for an excellent guitarist and songwriter, notorious to hide his obvious talent beneath bunny ears and cheerleader outfits. It’s just a little sad that he took off to form Megamasso, an even poppier band which failed to show his talents so far.

If you take a closer look at Ayabie’s release catalogue, though, their musical range has always been pretty wide. While Western bands often settle for a certain genre and won’t take great leaps – take Metallica or whatever rock band you can think of right now – Ayabie have done pretty much everything from atmospherical synthie instrumentals to aggressive metal thrashers to piano ballads to progressive rock tunes. As you have to be a tolerant listener to fully enjoy such variety, you will probably never like more than 50% of your favorite visual kei band’s discography.

Many visual kei bands actually play a lot of different stuff, and I can only I guess it’s a) to show off their skills in pretty much every genre, or b) to look at what sells the best and stay with it. But let’s consider for a moment… what if visual kei weren’t that visual at all?

Take a second and think about the major ultra-success project that is Camui Gackt. Singer, songwriter, multi-musician, producer, orchestrator, actor, TV personality, and whatever you wish him to be. Would you believe he’d be as successful if he were a random guy with glasses, playing his well-composed, beautiful songs without people knowing him as the shamelessly perfect, stylish-to-the-max and in every way brilliant artist who could easily be suspected of spending more time with plastic surgery than private life? He’d probably be less popular than Mike Gormley.

The same with Ayabie. Now that you hopefully listened to them, you probably couldn’t imagine them without their cute outfits to sound like that. While their music is – in terms of strict quality – not bad at all, their sound just wouldn’t work with them looking like the dudes from Linkin Park. There has to be a fitting visual connection to connect with the music of the band, else you can’t really get a grab on it or understand why the musicians play low-tuned metal riffs while the singer seems to be on some kind of speed that makes you see flowers. It only works mutually.

Yet there are some former visual kei bands thatt have long and intentionally given up the masquerade and went for a more serious, everyday look. Their change in visuals was often accompanied by a strong change in musical output, which is especially noticeable with the popular J-rock, former visual kei band Dir en grey.

The band centering around the eccentric agitator Kyo grew to fame during a period when they dressed like visual kei veterans D’erlanger, but since they try to establish themselves on Western markets, they turned their back to shiny costumes and songs like “Yokan”. Instead they went for KoRn-influenced metal and more down-to-earth rock. They even went so far as to refusing to play their former hits and fan favorites at lives anymore.

Other bands who started in the more gothic, industrial pits of Japanese rock like 12012 or the even more popular D’espairsRay nowadays settle for a lighter, poppier sound and look more suitable for the mass, which could likely be a result of a more balladesque single selling strikingly well.

But then again, there are also genre veterans like Kagrra, who are famous for their “Japanesque” look and sound – meaning, they’re fit with traditional instruments like the Koto, and dress in kimonos and the like. Nowadays, they sort of switch between a Japanesque and casual style, and present their fans with traditional costumes at lives while appearing more modern in their video clips to attract a bigger audience.

But none of the above mentioned bands would have sparked even half of their flame without crashing into focus while being clad in heavy make-up and unique, flashy outfits.

The whole need to establish a visually delightful presence of yourself to kick off your career in the beginning bears some problems, of course. Just imagine you just put all your savings in your band’s demo recordings for some indie label, and now you only have to buy a whole load of stylish clothes, maintain a decent haircut and do regular photoshootings you can’t even afford. If you can’t obtain a decent image, your music likely won’t be enough to convince your target audience.

There is a spark of hope for low-budgeted bands, too, though. After the last few years have ignited such a major increase of visual kei bands growing out of nowhere, it’s no longer a surprise that even very low-profile bands like XodiacK or Deluhi reach a considerable internet fame, despite their overall rare visual presence. And so, the market has reached a level of saturation that takes your focus off all the extravagancy and links it back to where it finally belongs: the music.