Curious if anyone who sees their name in this screenshot of the top posters on this thread are fake fans? - #1 fake fan
when new surrender was released, i was a freshman in college. i went to a super conservative christian school where we weren't allowed to listen to any "secular" music (basically couldn't listen to anything with drums in it automatically, lyrics had to be checked, etc). my girlfriend brought me the cd as a surprise when she came to visit, but took it back with her so i wouldn't be "tempted to sin and listen to it." so yeah i immediately left campus, got on limewire, and downloaded that shit.
I listened to half of the first song and it sounded fine to me too - if they had decided to just do the live thing with him and had been clear about it, it would have been fine. It’s fun hearing the music in the live setting. I can’t get with re-recording and I’ve been vocal on here before that I have no interest in the three no songs. Yay, I made the fake list!!! Sounds like a horrendous place to be. I’m trying to get my head around someone buying you a CD and then taking it away. She actually thought you would be doing something bad if you listened to it?!? I hope she found out you were tempted to sin to the point where you illegally downloaded it, which is breaking the law so significantly worse than just listening to an album, haha.
yeah i mean i think cognitive dissonance was a big part of that particular strain of christianity... like, we were also being gay but convinced ourselves it was just a "david-and-jonathan-type friendship." but "tempting someone to sin," or even knowing someone was "committing a sin" but failing to tell anyone in authority, was considered just as bad or worse than the actual "sin," so i think she just wanted her own hands clean.
I’m curious as to whether there’s anything Matty could do to win over holdouts. From what I gather, the chief criticisms against him are that his studio vocals are overproduced and his lyrics are less interesting than Stephen’s. He’s otherwise a capable vocalist and, to my ear, writes reasonably strong melodies. Could a lighter touch on production and a bit more thought with his lyrics elevate him to the realm of palatable?
Probably not. For some people it’s just never going to be good enough. But the key is to just let it go and roll with it. Keep the fans you have, try to get some new ones, and stop trying to force the ones that are holding out by putting them down. My take is he’s never gonna be Stephen, I like High Stakes, they don’t sound bad live, I don’t need the re-recorded versions but I’m not gonna complain as long as I can go back and listen to the originals, everyone in the band including Stephen is on board so fuck it move forward. Some people like David Lee Roth, some like Sammy Hagar.
Stephen just has such a unique vocal tone, Matty doesn't have the same sound. Matty has the vocal ability, but without an interesting voice, if that makes sense?
The whole consistently talking bad about fans who aren’t loving Marty is probably something they can never overcome. It’s been over a year and a half or whatever and they are still saying dumb shit. Not sure how you walk that back.
Matty’s voice is definitely more generic than Stephen’s, but unless he somehow forces a different affect or tone, I don’t know how that can be fixed. That’s why I’m only grading him on his ability to carry a tune/scream. It’s an overreaction to the people who are giving them endless shit for wanting to keep make a living without Stephen, which is then taken too personally by the people who aren’t the true intended targets, and so on and so forth. Asymmetrical discourse is the worst discourse.
Are these dudes grown men or teenagers? One group I would give a pass to, the other group doing it for over a year and half would make them clowns.
Those aren’t really clean metrics to work with, considering fairweather fans are the ones who’ve been heckling them on a daily basis for over a year and a half. The band has only responded to that heckling a handful of times in that same period, to my understanding. And do we really think they’re actually spiteful towards people for having mere preferences rather than wishing ill on the band? It’s not like they picked Matty over Stephen, so I can see them getting exasperated by a constant stream of negativity and am willing to afford them grace for being curt in response.