Originally Posted by TheUsedToolguy

I have to agree w/ pape on this one. There are a few main critics in the media who pretty much every other critics listen to and say exactly what they say, that's why you don't see much variation from one critique to another. One critic gives an album 7/10, another might give it 8/10. Same goes for movies. Of course how well an album is critiqued also doesn't always correlate w/ sales. I'll put it this way, bands who play what's popular at the time are most likely to get signed. That doesn't necessarily mean they started playing that just to catch on to the trend, they could have been playing it for years before it became popular. Once a band gets in the studio, I think it really shows on the record how much the band influenced it, or some poppy producer influenced it, and a lot of times, albums that were really overproduced, and really fake sounding sell pretty well.

Originally Posted by Shooting Star

Remember kids: It's only real metal if the vocalist sounds like he's vomiting up a fetus. \m/