I'm not sure if I'm one of the "others" mentioned here, but I feel compelled to point out that I merely asked who this guy was (yesterday afternoon) and then (this morning, after a whole bunch of comments by others) explained why it matters to me who he is and why his status as a "super-shredder" makes his opinion less meaningful to me. Honestly
Anyway...this is why I usually avoid these album build-up discussions, so I'll go back to doing so.
Maybe it's not what you intended, but "Is he someone who's opinion should matter to anyone?" came off like a pretty dismissive comment right from the outset, as opposed to something like "Haven't heard of him, what's he been involved in? Am curious what point of view he's coming from". Plus, not to be condescending but... Google and YouTube exist. It would take the same amount of effort as questioning whether his opinion is worth anything in the first place before even knowing who he is. Even then, something like "Not personally a big fan of his music, so am not sure what this means for the album's quality, though glad he likes it and I respect his talent." would've came off less judgemental.
I don't mean to language police, but sometimes a simple shift in phrasing can change the atmosphere of a conversation considerably.
I read this for information, not the hype. I can be excited, too. This is the second record in the Mangini era that I am actually VERY excited for. This is the conversation about the new album, so I would offer that I'm in the exact right conversation.
I should clarify that by conversation, I didn't mean to imply the thread as a whole, I simply meant this specific tangent about a dude who heard it and is hyped about it.
But for better or worse, I have a decidedly different viewpoint than, it seems, many people. I actually trust my ears, and like what I like, whether it's DT, or country, or Taylor Swift, or even some Justin Beiber.
But you really don't, though... as others have said, we all trust our own opinions on the music. Having that characteristic doesn't make you unique. Just because someone is hyped by what someone else says even if it lacks concrete information, it doesn't mean that they'll be beholden to that. All it does is just set expectations, which may either be met or missed, such as in Ben_Jamin's example ("That guy was wrong. This is not badass. This is shit.").
It's not that I don't care for his opinion, it's just that it's meaningless to me as anything BUT his opinion; yet it's offered here as if it DOES matter.
...Except it wasn't? All MarkFitDT did was literally just
quote him. He didn't spotlight it like "guys, look at this! new news!", just a little tidbit.
FOR ME, I'm not a kid anymore, I have thousands of CDs, and tens of thousands of songs on my iPod. A "20 minute song" means NOTHING to me; I have probably 50 songs of that length that kick ass on my iPod, and 50 more that suck balls. People here seem to jazzed about that.
Alright? Not sure what relevance not being a kid anymore has to this.
I'm not here to shit on that, but I don't see why putting it out there that it's not a factor for me is "raining on anyone's parade". You like what you like, so own it. Same with 7, 8, and more string guitar; I have songs with that onistrument that are amazing, and songs that bite it with the same instrument. if you like that, cool! Own it! And same with some dude that's amazing on guitar loving it. As was said, it's not that hard to grasp.
Honestly, if it was just you (and it wasn't), I don't think me and others would be quite as fed up with that kind of thing. I haven't really minded it when you've expressed disinterest at long songs before, for instance. It was more that it was a loop of people just saying (paraphrasing of course) "why should I take this guy seriously?", "is it just me that doesn't care?" "I trust my own ears, thank you very much" that it just kinda became a noise of apathy and perhaps it kind of became the final straw, as such. I wouldn't take it personally, it just kind of collectively became annoying.