VISUAL KEI

Visual Kei?

• Brand of Japanese rock music where band members (mostly men) wear elaborate make up and stage costumes, much of the time cross-dressing. The "kei" is Japanese for style of type, meaning "visual style music" The music ranges from 80's-esque Goth rock, to heavy metal to punk and usually some combo of the 3. Most bands are indies (independent or on indies labels) but a few make it to major labels such as Malice Mizer, Raphael, and Dir En Grey. Also seen written "VK" or sometimes incorrectly lumped in with the catch all word "Jrock", meaning all Japanese rock music.

• Visual kei (ヴィジュアル系  vijuaru kei, lit. "visual style" or "visual system") is a movement among Japanese musicians,[ that is characterized by the use of varying levels of make-up, elaborate hair styles and flamboyant costumes, often, but not always, coupled with androgynous aesthetics. Some sources think that visual kei refers to a music genre, with its sound usually related to glam rock, punk rock and heavy metal.

• However, visual kei acts play various genres, including those considered by some as unrelated to rock such as electronic, pop, etc. Other sources, including members of the movement themselves, state that it is not a music genre and that the fashion and participation in the related subculture is what exemplifies the use of the term.

The Music of Visual KeiMany people debate over what is Visual Kei music? The true answer is that Visual Kei is not strictly a music genre, but more rather a movement amongst a familiar group of people that heavily use aesthetics within their videos. It exhibits signs of Bricolage as many genres make up Visual Kei, but those genre’s lose complete meaning when in a Visual Kei band. Considering Visual Kei is predominantly a musical term, and is only used by “Visual Kei” bands it should not be used outside of music. However, as stated before Visual Kei is not a genre of music itself but more rather a stylistic touch and hybrid between musical genre’s (Plus Visual intervention) to create this new medium which is known as Visual Kei. Visual Kei is made up of Electronic Pop and Heavy Metal (Most significantly Japanese Rock) thus it cannot be tied down to a specific musical type; However this allows Visual Kei bands to mix these genre’s up, plus use the Fashion of Visual Kei (Or the visual motifs and conventions typically found in Visual Kei) to emphasize and define what Visual Kei is.

The Style of Visual Kei? • The style of Visual Kei can often be a spectrum of

things rather one distinctive style, however the motif amongst all Visual Kei bands is the use of recognizable and eye-catching styles that represent them individually, ranging from bubbly light coloured hair dye to a complete extreme Gothic look. An example would be the band “Dir En Grey” who use complete extreme makeovers, originally having a more Glam kind of style which has now been replaced with more traditional and darker tones of clothing. However bands such as “Versailles” use lighter colour clothing, yet with the heavy use of French rococo clothing also giving this unique style. Fashion and Styling remain heavily on the genre of music they play as Visual Kei has various forms of music sub-genres that may fall into Visual Kei.