Originally Posted by thegreatr1
I agree with this. To explain, let me walk you through my DMB experience...
I became a fan just before Crash came out. A friend of mine popped UTTAD into his car stereo and I fell in love with Warehouse. DMB, to me at the time, seemed like an awesome, new, up-and-coming group and I wanted to be in on the ground floor.
Then came Crash...and super-stardom. Crash had a ton of "traditional DMB," because quite a few of the songs were road-tested for years, but it also had elements of pop. The fear, at least for me, following this album was that they were going to go mainstream. Their next album was SURE to be even more mainstream, and the band that I had grown so attached to would be gone.
But it didn't happen. Instead, we were blessed with BTCS. If I remember correctly, fan opinion wavered on this one in the beginning. Some people were put off by the odd sounds and diversity of the album...but in time, we all seemed to grow to love it.
The next album was thought to be BTCS part 2. People knew Dave was getting depressed, and word was that the new songs were really dark, but rocking. The summer 2000 tour did nothing to let us down. Unfinished, but amazing versions of Grey Street, JTR, SUAD, GiG, etc rocked the stadiums night in and night out. During the winter 2000 tour, the boys started playing #41 with a new outro. Rumors spread that said outro was developing into the last song for the new album.
Two months later, Everyday was released. Long-time fans were shocked and appalled. We were expecting a dark, heart-wrenching disc, and instead got a album that sounded more like a Matchbox 20 release (and i mean no offense to MB20 fans).
A month later, in March 2001, the infamous LWS were leaked. Internet sites, P2P sharing systems, and even some radio stations (Y100 in Philly for one played them in their entirety) had these available. The reception was amazing, and fans actually begun to feel cheated.
The later release of BS was merely a consolation prize, filled with watered down versions of what we were expecting 18 months prior.
Since then, old-time DMB fans look back upon those years...1994-2000, as THE ERA OF DMB. Everything that has come since has been a disappointment.
I look at this album and I see quality tunes. Some better than others, of course, but for the most part, it's a very good album. for those of us who have been here since the beginning, though...these songs are still not OUR DMB. I don't see epic, life-altering songs on this album like the Ants, Two Steps, Nancies, and Halloweens of yesteryear. I see concert-fillers for the most part. These songs, for me, will provide better filler than those from ED and SU, but in reality, they're just going to fill the time before the boys get to another one of the songs that I really paid my $70 dollars to come see.
Who knows...maybe I'm wrong and 5 years from now, I'll be paying $100 to go see specifically these songs...I just don't see these songs filling that void for me because these are not the songs I fell in love with all those years ago. I apologize for the history lesson...but I think a lot of people on here would agree that the timeline retold here is a main reason that nothing will ever compare with the Big 3 (4 if you consider the mythical LWS).
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