The album on the 15th is one of the few things to look forward to in July, aside from after work and weekends.
I ordered a physical album and initially didn't plan to buy the digital version, intending to "pirate" it first, and I would likely export the digital album to play on other players. When the songs were released early on the night of the 15th, I couldn't wait that long and bought the digital album at nine twenty-eight. When the interface of the album showed a few new songs available for playback, I hesitated a lot, unsure of where to start, and ultimately chose to listen in order.
I am an old music fan but can't do professional music reviews. During the half month of waiting for the "work," I spent time in forums and fan groups observing things outside the album.
This half month has been quite "story-rich." First, there was the news that the album would include a few old songs, which sparked some big controversy. After the songs were released, the expected lack of surprises and the declining quality of reviews were also disappointing. Then there was the topic of album sales and the "number one" competition with a certain Xiao, which was quite a hot topic.
Recently, I've been obsessed with Sekiro, and for that, I downloaded some meme images and newbie live-stream posts from forums. I casually checked out the Sekiro forum and found an interesting phenomenon: in this forum primarily focused on "playing games," the atmosphere is surprisingly good, with patient answers to newbie questions and active help in analyzing problems, rarely any low-quality comments. In contrast, in the other forum, discussions around voice, skill level, sincerity, and other keywords often lead to unproductive arguments spanning dozens of posts, endlessly arranging and combining right and wrong.
My thought is that the difference in atmosphere and discussion relates to emotional output, and on another level, it reflects the basic qualities required for the content being discussed.
On the first level, in the 🐺 forum, posts mainly consist of newbie questions, memes, and experience sharing. The biggest controversy that might arise is which technique is better, usually with objective results; even if there aren't any, discussions can end based on habits or personal preferences. However, discussing whether music works are "good or bad" cannot be "debated"; it simply becomes a matter of subjective emotional output, leading to inevitable unfriendly dialogues.
The so-called second level is actually related to the above. As mentioned earlier, the inability to discuss the "good and bad" of music works isn't absolute. If a few friends have a solid foundation in music theory, they can engage in in-depth discussions about the style, arrangement, and melody of music works, but such discussions are unlikely to appear in forums. In contrast, for specific games, after dozens of hours, one can become an "expert," and in game forums, there is rarely any horizontal comparison of multiple games, which reduces the emergence of conflicts. Simply put, discussing music quality has a higher threshold, and lacking this foundation easily leads to falling into the "good-bad trap." One difference between games and music is that, aside from the high-threshold discussions about quality, players can discuss more objectively based topics like game skills and route strategies, creating a more pleasant communication atmosphere.