What a "surprising" development!

[Stratzrus]

Haha! Even Bob had his issues, though. His biggest fans damn near burnt him alive when
he went "electric" with a band.

Electric Dylan controversy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Highway 51 Revisited caused a tsunami in the world of Folk music,

The Best 100 Albums of All Time book ranked Highway 61 Revisited as the greatest album of all time.

The influence of the songs on Highway 61 Revisited can be heard in many cover versions. "Like a Rolling Stone" has been recorded by artists including the Rolling Stones, on their live album Stripped,[128] David Bowie and Mick Ronson on Heaven and Hull,[129] Johnny Winter on Raisin' Cain,[130] and Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival.[131] My Chemical Romance's version of "Desolation Row" was featured in the film Watchmen in 2009.[132] The song has also been covered by the Grateful Dead on their album Postcards of the Hanging.[133] "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" has been recorded by Judy Collins, Linda Ronstadt, Nina Simone and Neil Young.[74] The title track was covered by PJ Harvey,[134] Karen O[135] and Billy Joel.[136]

Track listing​

All songs written by Bob Dylan. The timings are for the stereo mix – the mono mix totals nearly 3 minutes less, with most of the difference accounted for by A3, B1 and B3.


Side one

No.	Title	Recorded	Length
1.	"Like a Rolling Stone"	June 16, 1965	6:13
2.	"Tombstone Blues"	July 29, 1965	5:56
3.	"It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"	July 29, 1965	4:09
4.	"From a Buick 6"	July 30, 1965	3:19
5.	"Ballad of a Thin Man"	August 2, 1965	5:58
Total length:	25:35

Side two

No.	Title	Recorded	Length
1.	"Queen Jane Approximately"	August 2, 1965	5:31
2.	"Highway 61 Revisited"	August 2, 1965	3:30
3.	"Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"	August 2, 1965	5:32
4.	"Desolation Row"	August 4, 1965	11:21
Total length:	25:54

Personnel​

Musicians​

• Bob Dylan – vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano, Acme siren
• Mike Bloomfield – electric guitar
• Charlie McCoy – guitar ("Desolation Row")
• Al Kooper – organ, piano
• Paul Griffin – piano, organ
• Frank Owens – piano

 

[la szum]

The true artist always knows better.

 

[ejecta]

Social media has pretty much ruined everything. The dream was that the "common man" could interact with like-minded individuals and share experiences.

Unfortunately the dream has been perverted and paid salesmen masquerading as average Joes have commandeered the platforms and use them as just another thinly veiled billboard.

Well, that, and calling anyone who disagrees with them a Nazi.

Ironically if weren’t for social media, ie guitar forums, I would have have never had heard of your product, listened to other’s reviews and clips of it…. let alone buy the Standard and later Fractal models.

 

[Hapless]

Ironically if weren’t for social media, ie guitar forums, I would have have never had heard of your product, listened to other’s reviews and clips of it…. let alone buy the Standard I bought.

Same.

 

[Stratzrus]

Social media has pretty much ruined everything. The dream was that the "common man" could interact with like-minded individuals and share experiences.

Unfortunately the dream has been perverted and paid salesmen masquerading as average Joes have commandeered the platforms and use them as just another thinly veiled billboard.

Ironically if weren’t for social media, ie guitar forums, I would have have never had heard of your product, listened to other’s reviews and clips of it…. let alone buy the Standard and later Fractal models.

I learned about Fractal's products on a gear forum as well but that was years ago when the phenomenon Cliff is talking about wasn't the issue it is today. I've posted about the limited value of YouTube clips when evaluating gear for years. Shills have only made things worse.

 

[ejecta]

I learned about Fractal's products on a gear forum as well but that was years ago when the phenomenon Cliff is talking about wasn't the issue it is today. I've posted about the limited value of YouTube clips when evaluating gear for years. Shills have only made things worse.

Yeah, there weren’t “shills” on forums or YouTube back in the “good ol’ days”.

In all seriousness I understand to a degree what he’s talking about with some YouTubers because nothing is perfect but the bemoaning the very thing that has helped, and still does, to become a very successful business is a bit weird to be accused of “totally ruined everything”.

 

[Los-D]

I think the social media “influencer” role was non-existent or at least not as prominent. But I do think things have gotten out of hand:

 

[DrewJD82]

Yeah, there weren’t “shills” on forums back then.

Suppose it depends which forum. I first heard about the Fractal stuff via HRI where I can’t say any shills popped up and if they did, they were outed and ran away by the members. I’d imagine HC was full of them around that time, though.

I’d also argue that there’s a bit of a difference between focused areas of social media, like forums, and places like FB/Twitter/IG, simply for the fact that forums are much more like involved conversations as where those other three are more like drive-by ”communicating”, which is why you see people gripe about spammers on forums, or the guys who only come in to post when they’re promoting a new video but it’s pretty much an accepted occurrence/the main theme on those other three places.

I mean, I opened Twitter for 3 minutes last night and it took me all of 10 seconds to find people posting the most inflammatory BS they could within 140 characters. Those other platforms tend to have a lot of people who use them as some kind of pedestal to talk AT people rather than talking to them.

 

[la szum]

Yeah, the argument that Fractal owes its business to social media is a little off the rails to me. How did Charvel
exist? How did anything ever get off the ground before? It's shocking a business was ever able to survive before
this instant access to everything all the time everywhere came to be.

Those of us who recall catalogues and mail-order newsletters and trade rags understand that if you had something
that was legitimate then people would find out. I have had a private business for 30 years based entirely on "word
of mouth" alone. It happens.

 

[Stratzrus]

I have had a private business for 30 years based entirely on "word of mouth" alone. It happens.

I learned about Fractal gear reading Scott Peterson's posts a decade ago. It sounded interesting so I picked up an Ultra to check it out. As far as I'm concerned, shills and influencers were not a factor, just a gigging musician enthusiastically talking about gear that worked for him.

I've repeatedly posted how silly it is when I see a forum member who, after reading one negative review from someone who they don't know and who may hear things entirely differently than they do says "That does it, I'm not getting one". I've seen this over and over.

I'm also very skeptical of positive reviews where a piece of gear sounds great on a YouTube video because due to personal experience I've found that there's no guarantee that it will sound the same in my hands with my gear.

But sure, if I'm really interested in buying a piece of gear I'll still listen to a bunch of YouTube videos but I try to balance that with posts by forum members whose tastes in music and gear choices I'm familiar with, take it all into account, and then if I decide to purchase, make sure it's from a vendor with a liberal return policy so that if it doesn't work for me I can send it back.

Yes, shills are a thing but it's folly to base purchasing decisions on what they say alone.