I feel ya. I think all the online questing is cool for their hardcore fans participating but I can’t imagine this roll out is doing them any favours in terms of building hype + growing a bigger audience. I even loved the singles and I feel burnt out caring anymore
I feel like the whole quest thing and “adventure” aspect of the rollout is mainly for the Patreon subscribers - they have the discord and are the “community” talking about the release and feverishly analyzing and solving the clues. That’s not a bad thing, obviously Foxing needs the money during this time and their fans will pay and play along, but I can see people not a part of the Patreon being not as hyped/into the whole rollout.
no yeah i thiink its super cool for those involved and i love that type of stuff. The only weird part is Foxing i feel have been always vocal with their frustration about not being bigger/having mainstream success/being stuck as an "EMO" band, and its like.... when all your marketing is purely focused on a small patreon community of hard core fans, that aint gonna change. They deserve to be the biggest band out there, i just dont see how any of this helps that cause
yup, and like, my favorite band is The 1975 so it’s not like I am a stranger to ridiculously long album rollouts but I barely tolerate it from them lol so a band like this that prob wouldn’t even crack a top 20 fav bands list for me doesn’t have a chance of keeping my ADHD ass invested.
I definitely agree. Also, we’re (hopefully) nearing the end of this pandemic, shows are starting to be announced for this fall, and things are looking a bit brighter. I’m not really sure a long rollout is necessary now. I think Patreon is good for posting covers, doing livestreams, special merch drops, etc. but for an album rollout (especially for a band that wants to be bigger) like you said that should include all your fans. Long rollouts are what they are but when this record hasn’t even been announced yet and it’s been about two months since the first song dropped, yeah that’s not going to help drum up anticipation. A release date would help with the long rollout date, at least a little bit.
I’m still super hyped for this record, but am completely removed from the rollout haha! I just listen when the songs come out and can’t wait to hear the whole thing.
The best album rollouts are when the album announcement is around a month or less than the album release.
I’m a big fan of the rollout. But I’m also a big fan of ARG type stuff with marketing. The original Cloverfield got me really into that shit.
look they havent even announced the album yet. let em have some fun with their hardcore fans. this band is pretty tiny in the grand scheme of things unfortunately so i do not fault them at all for creating something that keeps their patreon base entertained and slow-walking things until touring is safe again do I love long album rollouts? no I don't. but unless once they finally do officially announce the album it's like still six months away or something this hasn't bothered me, and I haven't really done the quests and stuff much
I really like the first one, even though it feels slightly like retreading Five Cups in some way. No comment on the second. Still have hope that I'll really like at least half the record.
no one here has any sort of tangible power over this band or how they do their shit so I don’t see how a few people expressing their grievances with the rollout is us “not letting them have fun” or whatever. and that they haven’t even announced the album yet is part of the whole thing for me; they’ve already released 2 songs off a record that could only be like 10 tracks long for all we know without even announcing when that record is coming or where those songs sit in the tracklist (if SWTD is the closer as was speculated I will be kind of annoyed that I listened to it out of context tbh). for me, it’s just not working in their favor. I think it’s perfectly okay to express such criticism constructively. as far as the songs go, they both have elements to them that I think are really cool and others that I am less excited about. I like them more than I dislike them but on their own I wasn’t blown away by them and have not felt compelled to return to them like I felt compelled to return to the singles from NMG or Dealer.
Also, while touring isn’t a thing *now*, it’s going to be as early as August which is only three months away. It’s not as if this is May 2020 and there’s truly no potential for touring anytime in the future.
I, personally, find the rollout annoying. I also realize that they’re executing a specific vision for the release of the album and, given how much music exists in the world, am fine with them doing their thing while I wait. This is far from the first time a band I like has made me roll my eyes with a rollout.
I love the band and love the singles but holy hell the rollout is tooooo looooong. I'm starting to think that the "album will come out in October" was not a joke at all.
So stoked on this band and the two songs, no matter when it is announced I will be buying it no matter what
Pretty sad (or at least strange) to me to see that people get annoyed by things like that - still works for the fans, the roll-out is exciting for some people, and then there's people like me and a few of us here; only listening whenever something comes out (though of course I am excited for the full record), I would have never thought it could actually hurt them in any way, but now I witness people getting less invested caue you're not told the exact date. Hopefully the songs will be so good that we'll just forget it ;D
Yeah. I mean, I'm bummed about a long roll out, but I just won't pay too much attention until there's a date. Best part about this approach is that one day I'll see the date on twitter or something and be like, "Whoa! Awesome!" Worst part about this approach is that on that same day I'll probably discover I've already missed out on some vinyl variant I would have liked to buy. All of this is just fine to me.
I can't fully explain why, but singles excite me a lot less when they are just thrown out there without any info about a forthcoming album.
These last two singles have been some of the best songs they've put out. I wish the rollout was a little faster, but going through the quests and such has been super rewarding and really fun. It would be nice if it was only a week or two wait between each quest, but I get this stuff is hard to come up with and plan. Either way, I'm stoked for the new album and I waaaaant new merch so bad as well.
I think the two of you hit the nail on the head - hard to imagine there won't be a broader outreach along with the album announcement aimed more towards new or returning fans and the patreon/ARG stuff is to keep existing fanbase engaged and getting word of mouth out.
Look even if you disagree with me and think the rollout is awful we just spent almost a page talking about it, so I think the hype for Foxing LP4 is alive and well