So there is a phenomena occurring in the fandom of Alejandro Aranda. There is a definitive split between the American Idol audience and the SPP STANS (thank you to BOB FM for that gem). There is an ongoing disconnect between the fans. On one hand, Alejandro has fans that are drawn to his acoustic music, he is an extremely talented musician and songwriter. On the other hand, he has fans that seem to follow whatever he does, including his harder edge alternative music.
While this has happened to previous artists for crossing the genre lines, I'm not sure that it has ever been this much of a divide for the reason that while artists have crossed this line one album to another, SPP does this on a show by show basis. It is shocking to some fans and the feedback seems to be distressing to him as an artist. It's distressing to me as a fan to watch performances where he feels the need to explain himself or his process of playing music.
We need to understand, as a collective fan base, that it is not up to us to define him as an artist. He's different in the way that he is truly an artist. He's not trying to make money, he doesn't care about fame, and he doesn't care if he's playing for two people or three thousand. While I'm sure that playing for three thousand people is more exciting for the fans, I suspect that for him, because it is his form of self-expression, that he wouldn't care how many people he was playing for. Controlling his artistic expression, would be parallel to saying to Beethoven, "we only want one part of your brilliance". Or saying to Bach, "only do your music this way". That isn't up to us. His inspiration is not up to us to define or control.
My fear is that this will start affecting him in the way that he does not want to play publicly. The pressure to only play this, or only play that or not play with the band (who by the way are every bit as talented as he is) has to be causing some stress in his world and the way that he approaches his live shows. Not to mention that it's just wrong to try to control an artists' self expression. I really hope people adjust to these many styles and sides of Alejandro. You don't have to like every side, but please respect his artistic vision.
Rant over.
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