[AndrewG]

It seems to me like many people do the same thing as Meat has always done here: Ignore the 99% positive reviews and only care about the 1% negative ones. This has been going down here since 2003/2004 I believe.

If you put yourself on a public platform you will get torn down at some point the more you go on I think, some people want to be heard with their negative opinions so they choose a perhaps not so tactful response to be heard. Does it make their opinion more valuable? Well no, but they are getting exactly what they are wanting by everyone making a fuss about it surely? You can't please everyone anyway.

I personally CAN see where some of this negativity is coming from over the last decade on here, or at least I can see why it is happening. Some of the gigs have been up and down in quality and some of the albums too in my opinion. It is a shame Meat and a lot of his current fans seem so hurt by it. But if I am being honest I doubt the negativity will stop any time soon as long as this is an open forum, people cross reference opinions from other platforms such as YouTube or music/concert reviews, the album releases continue, all sorts of collaborations continue and the touring continues. Some of the other artists I've followed/am following are getting the same shit as they are approaching/getting into their sixties or even beyond. "He is losing it / he can't sing anymore / the songs are not of the same quality as before." This is not just related to Meat Loaf in my opinion. At the end of the day I think people should mostly listen to music they enjoy and perhaps not focus so much on things they don't like. It's always disappointing when an artist doesn't do what you expect or want to hear or see (I have this with film makers too - movies by my long time idol Steven Spielberg for example have been mostly lacking since the early 1990s in my opinion for example) but I guess it's just a waste of time worrying too much about it.

I remember one fan forum that only ever seemed to have positive responses. Eventually it fell on its ass and disappeared for good.

Seeing more/only tactful criticism would be good but it really happening? No that's just utopia talk I think. People are far too easily offended by anything these days, as no doubt some will be at my post.

I've been "offended" many times on here as well. When I first joined I was super excited as I thought I'd seen one of the best gigs I'd ever been to and then I had a run in with some guy who was going to file a complaint at the venue because he thought it was so crap. Was I wrong, was he wrong? Was I right, was he right? Neither I think. It's just how you deal with it I guess that will determine if you enjoy your time on this forum or not. Being tactful, yes I think everyone should but you can have an ENDLESS debate about what being tactful means and again I don't think anyone will have the right answer.