I don’t know if this counts as a hot take, but I think people are way too hard on Max. I’m listening to the acoustic S/T right and I enjoy it. It’s not reinventing the wheel or anything, but I think it’s cool hearing the album stripped down and kind-of-lo-fi in contrast with the very electric and cleanly produced original. I also totally understand why he didn’t do Property for it, even if that song is like, dark satire.
I think it's fair to say you enjoy the recordings but the lack of a cover art, wrongly named songs and just hurried approach to something that took an extra 1 year to deliver on just come off as a lacking effort. This isn't some bonus freebie it's part of a project that he received $120K to deliver.
I get that to a degree. I honestly didn’t expect the album to be too drastically different from this, though. I don’t mind him giving songs their original titles, it’s easy enough to change. The album art thing I get, but honestly, I think all of that stuff is a little nit picky (not judging anyone who disagrees, though). I definitely get the disappointment that this isn’t as much as it could have been. But as someone who also has bipolar, I also feel for Max because I know that even on medication, a lot of stress hits harder than it does on more neurotypical people.
I'm actually more interested in these than the Max ones. Hope these at least have some effort put into them.
I'm just glad they're wrapping this up so they can hopefully get back to releasing normal new music at some point.
Well...I watched that whole thing I guess. Cliff notes: -he goes through each “era” of say anything with the intent of clarifying what kind of mental state he was in during that time -way too much detail about his sex life specifically during this time (like max I don’t need to know the exact number of partners you had been with before writing IARB, thanks) -gets into a period that seems to have happened in the last 2-3 years (idk, timeline is weird, he sometimes says last 5 years) where he was smoking a lot of pot and became manic again -during this time he reconnected with someone who he met while working with Kanye that was pushing him to break up say anything and focus on writing/other pursuits. this person was verbally and emotionally abusive which only drove max to become more manic, this was around the birth of his 3rd child -eventually cut off contact with this person but it led him to an episode where he didn’t talk to anyone for about 6 months, causing him to lose his gig writing at marvel -this is what eventually led to the Kickstarter, they needed a way to support themselves -now he is launching a new website that is going to be some combination of song shop-like guest vocal orders, live streams/performances, and other content from him and Sherri -mentions that while he’s not focusing on say anything right now it’s probably not as definitive of a breakup as he originally said So uh...it’s a lot!
My general takeaway from watching him for 48 minutes is that he does seem to currently be in a better place than what he publicly appeared to be for the last several years. So I’m happy for him in that sense.
I'm glad he's in a better place, but damn his mental health has really fucked him over. I feel bad about his Marvel job. :( I think he's a well intentioned person and generally a good guy, but his constant shifts between mental states really really fucks up his life and that's really saddening. He's clearly insanely talented and such, but you've got to wonder what his life would be like without all the drugs and fame and such. I wish him the best.
He seems to keep repeating the same mistakes. This sounds like kickstarter 2.0. Hey, if people will pay then good for him. If he's going to do the custom stuff, he should put serious effort in. I've heard a few really good personal tracks but the overwhelming amount of stuff I heard is straight trash. There are very few people in the real world who know who Say Anything is and I feel like he's been harmed by the cult status some of his fans have given him over the years. They use to be my favorite band. I thought Hebrews acknowledged a lot of these things and that was cool, but since then it's been a weird ride. New music that he tried to make sound good would be wonderful, but I just want to know the guy's happy and living good. A lot of what plagues us bipolar-ites is a consummate benevolent narcissism that makes us give too much of a shit about things that we can't control. I work hard on that, I hope Max can grasp things in the future cause it sounds like his pseudo-fame enabled him, as I think it would to a lot of people. The stuff from his twitter is generally unnecessary and while it earns him cred from his twitter army, most of us are like dude, just stop. I'd love a happy max singing manifestos just enjoying himself.
Like I’ll never be a big SA fan like I used to. Though I absolutely wish Max the best, and his family/mental health are number one. Glad he seems to be doing better. If he never makes any music under SA again I’ll be fine. Just want him to be happy.
Also again while the subject matter/purpose of OA is questionable at best.....great album. I’m fine with that being the last SA material.
Gonna watch the video all the way through tomorrow. Just hope max is doing well as always and hope he’s really in a better spot. I’ll always have nothing but love for Max though and still look forward to more great music (which I truly believe will come)
It was an interesting video and I am glad he appears to be doing well. Interested to see what they new project is. Sounds like the song shop isn’t coming back soon. One of my favourite song shops i have heard online “Mood Swings”: