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Old 06-23-2021, 02:34 PM   #3185
ElijahSoRight72
 
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Re: New Album Coming Soon?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carson31 View Post
That's a very interesting take. Here's my long winded take:

The Lillywhite Sessions / Everyday was a turning point, we all agree on that I think. By all accounts the band was in a shitty spot during the Lillywhite Sessions. I think the music had not as much to do with the decision to bail on the sessions as we might be led to believe. It seems apparent to me that someone had to be the fall guy in order for the band to move forward. Sort of like when a good team isn't playing well, someone has to take the fall so usually a coach or GM gets fired. It's harder to fire the players. Steve was the fall guy for sure. But perhaps he may have been part of what broke Dave? Maybe Steve was less the Captain he thought he was and more the tyrant? Maybe it was Steve's whip that broke an already fragile Dave Matthews, and pushed Dave to try writing with someone like Ballard, instead of giving up? If you were Bruce Flohr or RCA, you'd probably do whatever it took to save your star player from quitting the team and thus dissolving your own job/$$$. Ballard made Dave's job easier for sure and perhaps took enough pressure off Dave that Dave was then more willing to keep going with DMB instead of quitting altogether...?

If I'm rewriting history, I let Dave quit DMB. I let him walk away and do whatever he felt like he needed to do, even if it meant the risk of never hearing from him again or risk of something tragic. I'd have tried to treat him more like a human being and less like a coattail I was riding. But I'm not a guy who's paycheck depended on DMB continuing as a band, if I was that guy, I'd have done anything I could do to make Dave stay, and make his job easier. Which might have meant hiring one of the most successful song writers on the planet to pair with him.

Turning the discussion back to the new album again: Maybe the new album will be another turning point? And for Dave, maybe instead of hoping for him to "bounce back" as a songwriter it might be more worthwhile to be hopeful that he continues to evolve as a songwriter? That's what I get excited about whenever I think about whatever Dave might write next. The idea that there could still be something really special left in the tank that's waiting to come out. Even if it's far different than anything else he's previously done, when you're a freak talent like Dave, you can keep evolving and perhaps the stars align again.
In your opinion, when Dave mentions the freedom of songwriting for these sessions, do you think this album could actually be something pretty special for him?

My theory is Dave hasn't been very happy with either of the two albums after BW- now he seems to be really happy with the band's lineup and his own songwriting, so maybe this will be an album he's really proud of, like BW was to him. He seems to be obsessive when it comes to studio outings so my big hope is that this is finally the quality of album he's been itching to put out since BW.
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