New Music on the way!

Actually the discussion is NOT the same bc there are many theories here, more or less plausible/ridiculous and it's interesting to some. Personally, when I don't find something that speaks to me, I just ignore it and that's it. If there are people who want to analyse the lyrics to the songs, speculate about the setlists or come up with the possible reasons why Jon can't sing the way he used to or why Richie left, then this is the place to do so! I just don't understand those who take one stance and want others to adopt it or get out/shut up. It's in human nature to question things and be curious so please, don't take the joy of discussing things out of this place. The Internet is so full of sh*t that once you find a place that actually makes sense, you want to share and there's nothing wrong with looking for answers if you think there's more to it. I'm rarely satisfied with simple answers because life is damn messy and complicated and thank God, it's never boring

I don't get the connection between discussing what happened and not enjoying the band the way that it is. I think the majority of people involved in these discussions don't have a problem with the music the band is producing now; and as far as I'm personally concerned, I think it's great that people are still enjoying the band.

I might see it differently if it was always the same people who bring Richie into the current discussions; but it's not. Often it's those people who don't care whether he comes back or those who actively wish he would stay away who introduce the subject. So, apparently there's still some interest whether people want to acknowledge that or not.

It does seem to me that it's the direction the conversation is flowing that determines if people see it as an issue or not. As long as it sticks to Richie's addictions and how unreliable he is or how he flaked or bailed on the band, the discussion can go on for pages with no complaints. But when people start questioning if things actually happened the way it's been presented, suddenly it's time to move on. IIRC, there was a totally different attitude about discussing Richie and the past on the Richie and Ori New Music thread until Captain Jovi threatened to shut it down over the conflicts caused by those discussions.

Keep discussing it. Just, kindly don’t take over unrelated threads with it. This thread is supposed to be about new music. Now it’s going in circles about Richie.

You can be scrolling through a show thread. Richie isn’t even at the show, but suddenly it’s a debate on why he’s not there.

The answer hadn’t changed and it hasn’t been discovered either.

If it was that simple, Jackie, that Richie woke up one day with a big hangover and said to himself "Screw the band, now I can freely drink and jam in obscure bars every single day, how fun!" but hey, nobody would buy it lol Same with Jon's voice. Some say it's purely age and fatigue and smoking, some others that it's mental and it's most probably a mixture of both. Music is criticised too but as long as it's constructive, it's perfect! So WWWU has good lyrics but the production is lazy while Walls sounds better but the video sucks. See? There's not a thing that everybody will be OK with and it's only natural. Some board users get deeply offended at the slightest attempt to say something is little less that 100% but it's childish imho. Even Jon could acknowledge his limitations in GBTM and the world didn't end ;]

How so? Nobody expects the band to give us a definite answer because we're discussuing this stuff here. Nobody expects the "brick wall" to get knocked down because of what we're doing.

How? Because, after 5 years, no progress has been made. Still the same rehashed ideas and theories with people using whatever they can to support what they want the answer to be, or whatever it is in their own mind. New song? Dissect the lyrics to make it about Richie to fit your narrative that hasn’t changed in five years.

I’m using “you” as a general, not addressing any specific individual.

Which is exactly why the discussion keeps coming up. Precisely because people have different points of view or theories about what happened. The fact is, no matter how willing or excited people are about moving forward with the band, Richie, as a subject, isn't going to go away. He was way too much a part of the band's history and it's hard to discuss any aspect of the band - music, shows, band chemistry, roles people play, Jon's voice, any of it - without Richie's name coming up because he was that integral to the band. When his name comes up, one person says something, somebody responds, and before you know it, it's 6 pages down the road. I frankly don't see that changing.

When Jon is asked by a fan in a Q&A, "What question would you like to ask the fans?" and his immediate response, out of the blue and after five years, is "Are we over the Richie thing yet?" it's pretty obvious that he hasn't moved on, regardless of what he might say in interviews or from the stage. It's also pretty obvious that he knows the answer to that question is no, and it's likely that "we" probably never will be.

You're also not answering the question at all. People still discuss it because they're still thinking about it. Doesn't mean they expect it to ammount to anything. You were the one to enjoy life, right? If people feel like discussing this stuff, get it off their chests, vent - what's the harm? Nobody's doing this to spoil your fun with the band's recent output.

If you're referring to my response to jon-flp, I was just reminding him that the 'Jon fired Richie because of substance abuse' rumors had been leaked. I didn't buy it then and I still don't; but the rumors were out there. I agree with you that Richie looked healthier in 2012/2013 than he had since the LH tour or than he's looked since late 2014. It's hard for me to believe that he came home from a vacation where he still seemed to be perfectly in control and a day later he was supposedly so drunk or stoned that he would walk away from something he had been committed to his entire adult life. It might be more believable if, for the rest of that year, he hadn't seemed to be fine again. The way it happened, I just can't see it.

Still, stranger things have happened, and it's not totally beyond the realm of possibility that Richie could have fallen off the wagon one time too many, and that it happened at a time when there was no way to keep it from being public, so Jon said, "That's it. I'm done." It's something to think about; so it goes into the hopper with all the other bits and pieces of information.

But there's been a request to return the thread to topic, so that's it for me. At least until the subject comes up again.

If anybody wants to continue the discussion, feel free to PM me.

I have answered your question. The harm is in turning every discussion into the same discussion. Different threads are here to provide boundaries. If there’s no respect for staying on topic, why even have different threads? We could just have one massive mishmash of randomness. It’s not unusual to go a little off topic every once in a while, but it’s common courtesy to acknowledge the derailment and take it elsewhere.

There exists a thread about Richie leaving that’s about 16,000 pages long. By all means, bump it up if that’s what you want to talk about.