We're on our way this time around

The post Albertane Tour years were the turning point in Hanson's career and in the lives of their fans.  There was a period of time before This Time Around came out where the music business began to change.  The boy band epidemic really took off all over the world.  We have the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, 98degrees, Five, Westlife, Boyzone, No Authority, really, the list goes on and on. We had the Britney Spears' and Christina Aguilera's and we had the beginning of the downfall of hip hop (at least in terms of authenticity and originality).  The music business became very watered down with happy pop music.  As Isaac, Taylor, and Zac continued growing as artists, the music industry was stagnant.  I don't think anyone was ready for their creativity.  So in 2000, This Time Around was released.  In my mind, this album as a significant change from Middle Of Nowhere.  Obviously at 11, 13, and 16, writing Middle Nowhere was a different experience to being 14, 16, and 19 and writing This Time Around.  As we all know, Hanson had already differentiated themselves as artists because they were musicians in the true essence of the word.  They wrote their music, played it, produced, it, the whole enchilada.  So with This Time Around, we were really able to see how much they had grown musically because the record was much more mature in terms of the content, vocals, and ability.  With songs like Dying to Be Alive and A Song to Sing and If Only, we saw so and felt so many more dynamics than we did with Middle of Nowhere.  Hanson once again went on tour in 2000, except this time the venues were much smaller.  August 8, 2000 i dragged my dad and my sister 3 hours out of our way to LA to see Hanson perform live once again.  These were still seated concerts so we couldn't fight our way to the front (but i still had awesome seats from being a MOE member). The show was great but the difference in crowd size was definitely surprising.  While the album was received well by the critics, fans seemed to fade away.  I cannot to this day figure out why.  The music was evolving yes, but that's what you want, isn't it? You want your favorite artist to get better and continue to impress you.  Maybe it was the 3 years in between albums? Unlike most of the other artists at the time, Ike, Tay, and Zac had to take time to write and record everything; other artists had other people write the songs for them, how much easier would that be! I really cannot think of any other explanations for the drop off. Nevertheless, This Time Around surprised us and I was happy with it. This is still long before I joined the insanity of their tours though.  And I havent heard too many stories about the first two tours as I have heard about the rest, granted we were all teenagers at the time.  So I guess this is really where the story begins.