It’s happened to us all, hasn’t it? You find a band you love, a band you talk up to everyone you know and support loudly and proudly…and then they change completely. And it’s not a change that you totally love.
Now you’ve got a couple options:
- Continue supporting them. You’ve become part of a community that you’d hate to lose, and you love the band as people, so it feels cruel at this point to just say “right, don’t like the new music, I’m out. xoxo”.
- Quietly wait and see what happens. Will they continue in this direction? Is it just one song that kind of flew out of left field? Don’t run your mouth just yet and make it impossible to return to their loving arms.
- Become one of ~~those fans~~ who constantly says “yeah, they’re good, but it was all downhill after their first album/their fifth album/Ryan Ross left the band”. So pretentious, but sometimes…sometimes it’s true, y’know?
To be fair, it’s not always a bad thing. I never liked Bring Me The Horizon in the early days. It wasn’t my style of music and I couldn’t get past the sound to appreciate the lyrics. I’m super basic and jumped on board with Sempiternal. As of about 4 weeks ago, “That’s The Spirit” violently threw itself into my top albums of all time. Sometimes, change is good.
Then, you have The 1975’s new track “Love Me“. I don’t know how I feel about it. I’m gonna have to listen to it in the car to get a true assessment of my feelings. I think it might grow on me a bit…but still, I loved the lyrical content and sound from before and am really going to miss it. Even if I do end up liking their new direction, I’m going to be sad that I won’t have new songs that are similar to what I love. I imagine this is how original BMTH fans feel about their last 2 records.
At the other end of the spectrum from BMTH, you have…more bands than I wish I had there. All Time Low, Panic! At The Disco, Down With Webster, Fall Out Boy…all bands that I still support in some way, shape, or form that haven’t put out an album that I’ve truly loved in a while. I’ll still go to shows or buy their albums; I just will never get that same euphoric feeling like I did during the good days.
In the end, I guess it just comes down to which response works best for you. I wish you luck though, and I hope your favourite band never abandons you by accident by putting out what they like (which is perfectly respectable and in no way something I find issue with) and leaves behind what drew you in.