Who is this L'Arc~en~Ciel you've been so adamantly going on about? Why are they so special that you decided to make a whole
site dedicated to them? Why should I give them a try?
L'Arc~en~Ciel are a Japanese band. Not to be confused with Visual Kei, because they are definately not that. And
because Tetsu might just come after me were I to say so! :O They consist currently of four members: Hideto Takarai (Hyde)
on vocals, Ken Kitamura (Just Ken) on Guitar, Tetsuya Ogawa (Tetsu) on bass, and Yukihiro Awaji (Yuki) on Drums. There is
also an old drummer named Sakurasawa Yatsunori (Sakura), who I still full-heartedly consider an important part of Laruku.
In my opinion, it is hard to catagorize Laruku's sound. Sure, you can lump them into the genre of just plain 'rock' if you feel the
need to catagorize them, but I think it's much better if you just say they make "music", instead of "rock music" or "pop music", etc. Once
you listen to a vast majority of L'Arc~en~Ciel songs, you realize just how different one song can be from another. Ranging from Pop to
Rock, Metal to Ballads to Punk, Techno to Jazz. If you like music, I'm almost positive there's a Laruku song you'll like. However,
I think most of their more popular songs seem to be in the "Pop-rock" catagory, or "Soft-rock", if you wish. That said, I think that's why
people write them off as simply a Soft-rock band, when if you listened to some other songs which aren't as easy to find, you may be
surprised.
People like to call Ken the main songwriter of the band, though I personally do not like saying that. Yes, Ken has written the majority of
the songs, but his majority is not by a whole lot. The diversity has to do with the way they share the responsibility of writing music
for their songs. Every member has tried his hand at writing songs, and when you have five different people writing different songs,
you've got the makings for a genre-breaking band. Hyde seems to favor slower, more romantic songs, but don't think that's all he can
write, for he wrote "All Dead" as well: A song the complete opposite of romantic, with Hyde asking you, "Who stole my freedom? Why
won't my pain go away? This never-ending homicidal feeling torments me." Ken likes to write fun, guitar-driven songs, but
that doesn't mean he can't write beautiful ballads: "A Silent Letter", in my opinion, is most beautiful song ever written. Tetsu likes the
upbeat, toe-tapping catchy songs, but he also wrote the calming, almost Hawaiian-sounding "Perfect Blue." Yukihiro loves to write
harder rock songs, but he is also the one who remixes all the songs into completely different versions, giving you a whole new
perspective on the same old song. He also wrote the haunting, hard to catagorize "L'heure." Sakura didn't write many songs in
his time with Laruku, but what he did write was varied as well: he wrote the music to "Inner Core," which has a great guitar riff - and, in a
rare occasion where Hyde gave up his lyric-writing responsibilities, Sakura wrote the lyrics to "Good Morning Hide."
As stated above, Hyde writes the lyrics to 99% of Laruku songs. But there is that other 1%: Tetsu wrote the lyrics for Bravey, Milky
Way, and Perfect Blue, and Yukihiro wrote the lyrics for L'heure and Trick. (And, as stated above, Sakura wrote some lyrics
too.) Ken has never written the lyrics to a song for Laruku, but maybe someday he will try his hand at it!
More in-depth information about the band can be found in the 'History' section, and more in-depth information about the members can be
found in the 'Members' section.
