I'll warn you, this is going to be a long post and it will probably make me look quite petty and nitpicky. (and if this turns out to be an elaborate trolling attempt or something (unlikely, but still...) then I will look like a total fool as well)
I saw this a couple of days ago. Considered posting it here but didn't because I had suspicions it would start an argument.
Visual Kei is a dodgy topic at the best of times, and I didn't want a flame war on my hands.
Me... I'm committing it to memory but ignoring it for now. I've read comments by some people discarding the entire interview as lies and other by people who assume it's all true, and I'm not sure who's being more daft. Yes, it's pretty convincing and a lot of it makes sense, but I don't feel it can stand as concrete fact on it's own merits for a few reasons...
1) Probably the most important thing is that this is an anonymous interview. We have no idea who 'Mr Satoh' is- he didn't name the company he supposedly belonged to and he gave away no other personal details. There is no way we can check this guy's legit. And even assuming he is who he says he is... what are his motives for doing this? He may be 100% genuine, or he may have an agenda the size of the moon. How do we know either way?
2) He claims to be risking his life/health (it's never made completely clear) to whistle-blow. This is a bit suspicious for two reasons. Firstly, the claim "They'll harm me if they find out about this" sets off my alarm bells because, unless you're calling out a dictator's corrupt regime or giving away classified government information, I don't buy it. Companies can be corrupt as sin, but I find it a big stretch to believe that it's par the course for them to kill or injure anyone who falls out with them.
The other point is that if we assume Mr. Satoh is completely honest, it begs the question as to why he's spilling all this out in some random blog- a blog which just
sat on his information for nearly 2 years, as it happens. If I was going to risk my health to whistle-blow, then I would want to make sure it was worth my while. I can give him the benefit of the doubt with regards to going foriegn (according to him, ALL Japanese media is equally corrupt) but... why not talk to a foriegn newspaper, or at least a tabloid or magazine? Why not talk where you know you'll be heard by loads of people who care about what you have to say? Why choose an obscure online blog? It doesn't make much sense.
3) One of the strangest things about it is that it is both detailed and vague. Mr. Satoh seems very clear about
what happened, but he doesn't say very much at all about when it happened, how often it happened and who in particular was involved. He drops names all over the place, but if you look you'll see that, usually, whenever he mentions specific people it's either to tell you an established fact you knew anyway or to give you some pointless trivia that is in no way relevant.
The weird thing about this though is that when he
does name names, it's well... a bit random. First of all, he comes very close indeed to dropping Yoshiki Hayashi and Dynamite Tommy- two people who could probably sue him to hell and back if they wanted to- in it up to their necks, yet refuses to talk about a specific case relating to an unnamed band in case he gets hurt. Also, on the one occasion he does make a clear accusation towards a specific person (Kamijo), he falls flat on his face. If you're trying to back up your point by pointing out how every artist on Sherow sounds like Malice Mizer then excuse me if I begin to doubt you, because
no artists on Sherow sound like Malice Mizer. A couple of them take influences from Malice Mizer in terms of visuals, but all bands take influence from other bands so that means nothing.
Apparently bloody
Chariots had a short stint with Sherow, for crying out loud, and if you think they sound like MM you would be best off investing in a pair of ears.
To be fair though, I blame the interviewer for this more than Mr. Satoh. It wasn't Satoh's fault that the interviewer didn't even try to press him for names and dates, never attempted to trip him up and rarely pointed out claims that sounded dodgy. Now it's fine to be casual and chatty and joke about jockeys and marmots in a casual interview- but this is quite a revelation Satoh has here, and the interviewer should have made an effort to prove to the audience that he was telling the truth- especially as it was an anon interview, and therefore less reliable.
4) MM and Midi:nette. Yeah, this is random, but this article seems to suggest that nobody can start their own record label in the VK scene without a bigger label taking partial control of it. Nowhere can I find any evidence that Midi:nette has anything to do with either Extasy or Free Will (the two companies which apparently own everything), so it clearly
can be done. Also Malice Mizer themselves... now maybe it's just me, but they, with their numerous genre changes, were way too elaborate to be a band just churned out for money, especially if the person writing for them was also writing for tons of other bands. Also, if you've got a cash-cow bands to write for and market to the lowest common denominator (in this case, fangirlies) then why would you make them more complicated than necessary? Why change their genre or give them over-elaborate concepts when you don't have to? Think about it.
Also I've looked, and I can't find anything about Columbia having anything to do with Free Will or Extasy Records either. Just to say before someone asks.'
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5) How exactly do you go about blacklisting someone from music? If they choose to start again with a different band and under a different name then how do you stop them? Also I can't see any evidence of people being prevented from leaving companies by choice. PSC are clearly corporate as sin (there isn't much said in this interview that I wouldn't believe of them- they recycle stage costumes and don't even bother trying to hide it) and Miyavi managed to leave them in one piece. If you can get out of PSC you can probably get out of anywhere without having people stand in your way too much.
6) Not a criticism, but Mr. Satoh doesn't seem to deny that some bands don't all fall into these label traps (apparently some people get violent over head-hunting attempts, for example), and I would be very interested to know who.
For the sake of fairness, here are some of the things I do believe- often because they're as good as stating the obvious.
1) The part about headhunting needn't even have been mentioned. Everyone knows
that happens- and not always by companies. Sometimes yes, it's professional talent scouts, sometimes it's bandleaders from rival bands. But it goes on. Nobody can question it.
I'd also say that this is, indeed, a possible reason for a lot of the fickleness in the VK scene.
2) There is corruption in all industries, not just media related ones and certainly not just in Japan, although the East Asian music industries are pretty notorious. Look at Korean pop labels- some of them are known to have slave contracts similar to what is outlined in this interview. And practically all major record companies are known to be corporate-minded and disliking of creativity. Is it really so much of a stretch to think that some niche or indie companies have the same sort of mindset? I don't think so.
3) Some of the points made in the interview do make sense. For example, the idea that bands get forcibly broken up after a few years if they don't do well enough does make sense, because a lot of bands do break up soon and reform. The lack of personal information that gets given away also matches up.
So yeah, I'm not discarding it by any means, but I'm going to forget about it until/unless someone else comes forward and makes the same claim, because this interview could add credit to that. But as it stands, it's not solid enough to be taken seriously by itself. You get anonymous people making claims based on supposed 'inside knowledge' all the time, and half of them contradict the other half. The only difference between those people and this man is that this man is more elaborate and has managed to secure an interview. He isn't inherently any more reliable, I'm afraid.
Oh well. All I have left to say is that in one of the many Repo!The Genetic Opera backstage clips, Yoshiki was labelled as 'Evil Mastermind'. Hmm...
Just a thought to leave you with.
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