I feel so sorry for Amanda sometimes. She has to deal with such an emotional, needy audience at times. She can't even crack a joke on twitter without being blasted by the emo masses.
I hope she writes a country album full of fat jokes next. Won't y'all love that one!
What. No. I don't feel sorry for Amanda. Out of 73 replies on here, a whole 5? are straightforwardly anti-8 Hours Album, and maybe 10 are middling -- I wonder, what if, I hope this isn't -- statements. One of those 5 is a crazy, and 4 are long-time fans who have invested art, love, and most importantly dollars and time into seeing and purchasing and spreading the word of their favorite artist. The majority are positive, and then after the defensive blog came out so did the knights in shining armor. Defend her or your lack of emotional attachment to death, but understand that feeling sorry for an artist and posting on a fan community about it is a form of - yes - emotional attachment. Wondering about the stress and mental health involved in creating a new album is -- emotional attachment.
This is an artist who has ninja gigs at 6 AM and counts on the people reading her tweets about her illness to listening to her new song about Vegemite and Lady Gaga and sells off things in her apartment to make money. If there's an emotional needy audience, there's also also an emotionally needy artist who feels the need to defend herself to the naysayers before releasing the music that could be the defense in itself. Neither is a bad thing, but recognize the thing for what it is.
One of the SBx posts that Amanda misquoted said, not as Amanda suggested, "this undertaking... is 2. a joke", but rather, hoped, that the songs would not be jokey. Which is fair game after she released songs about pubic hair and Vegemite, and the album is being released with Ben Folds, who is know for his jokey songs as well.
If Amanda were a company, say, Apple, wouldn't people discuss how they hoped that the new iPhone didn't suck and that it resolved it's antenna issues and had those features that they had really really hoped for on the last phone?
If she were a director, say, Tim Burton, wouldn't people discuss they hope that the new film would be better than Alice in Wonderland and that he return to the form of Edward Scissorhands?
It happens all over the place. And while artists forever will be shrugging their shoulders and saying "the fans, can't please them all", I think it's worth it to recognize that this fan base is overwhelmingly kind, positive, and intelligent, and some of us (love you, yoshiki) are
fan(s) of this lady and if she decides to create music with the screaming of a dying pig I am probably going to buy it and listen to it.
and some of us are more discriminating and want to passionately argue about music we care/cared about deeply.
For Amanda to say
i’ve come to expect that level of criticism from the fan community, since it’s been like that from day one: i’ve often felt i’m either damned for putting out too much (or/and the “wrong kind of”) material, or damned for holding out on the fans for not releasing enough material.
is interesting because "the fan community" probably sends out 100x more love (much of it superficial) than criticism, and there aren't many left who can take the barrage of "too much needy fan" or "i love Amanda" in response to criticism and pondering about the success of new material.