BTBAM’s Reaction to “Mockery” Claims
In a recent review of Between the Buried and Me‘s The Parallax ii: Future Sequence, a reviewer claimed that BTBAM was “making a mockery…of the very concept of music.”
Of course, instead of calmly resolving this situation, BTBAM fans lunged straight at the reviewer calling him “full of it.”
Now, being a supposedly unbiased music critic, he shouldn’t have made claims to that extent. But, at the same time, Between the Buried and Me’s music certainly isn’t for everyone. Either you love it or you hate it (personally, I’m freakin’ obsessed with it.)
Recently, Tommy Rogers and Paul Waggoner (of BTBAM) appeared in an interview for Great New Metal Artist’s Profile where they spoke about the mockery claims.
Here’s what Tommy Rogers had to say about the situation:
“…the music we write, we have to expect it. It’s not for everyone and I think we understand that for the most part. Even though it sometimes hurts a little bit, it’s okay if people don’t like us. Obviously everyone doesn’t or we would be living a lot more comfortably. Everybody is obviously entitled to their own opinion and, especially with this, we’re gonna look odd to a lot of people and…I’m prepared for that.”
Its great to see that Tommy is so comfortable with the music that he writes. He accepts the fact that a lot of people dislike their music; It doesn’t matter, he obviously loves the music he writes (a lot of other people do too.)
Here’s Paul Waggoner’s input:
“It doesn’t come as a shock at all that people feel that way. The thing about it is for us is that often times when you see a review like that when they criticize elements of our music, most often it’s things that we’re intentionally doing anyway. The guy’s saying “well, they scream one minute and sing the next” and it’s like, well, yeah we do that. He’s saying truthful things, he just doesn’t like it…which is totally fine.”
The most important thing about reviewing a band or release that people don’t realize is that you must take your own personal opinions about the band or release out of the picture. You have to give facts about the album that rely on the band’s own sound, their previous releases, and fan reactions to the music. Basically, what the reviewer said was unprofessional and uncalled for. If he doesn’t like the music, he can listen to something else rather than wasting everyone’s time by calling them a “mockery.”
If you’d like to see the rest of the interview, you can do so here:
