What's with all the Anata hate?

^ This is only 1/2 of posts I wrote in this thread, I explained it further in second one.

Torodd, you know that I usually agree with you. Of course, we write reviews (and I know this very well, after all, I write reviews too because I want them to be read). But many people simply follow rating system, because it's less time consuming. They believe our opinion and our choice of stars. So when they see 2.2 rating, they (and I already wrote this) won't be interested in this album. They won't read reviews (often), they just won't look at it.

Technical Death Metal is good example actually. Everyone loves symphonic. Or at least most of people here. But I met many, really many people who hated Death Metal because of how it sounds. That it's too harsh, too unfriendly, unpleasant, whatever you call it.

It's just for fans of this genre.

But such album gets 4.1 average rating, because a lot of our collaborators / reviewers are fans of Technical Death Metal genre.

I'm not happy about using this old example, because I don't have anything against this genre at all, but it should serve its purpose.

^ Even in thread about Anata, I'm not talking just about Anata. In general, this is huge issue that not everyone realizes. Look on this Pineapple Thief new album. It was in top5 briefly, on first place I think. Just for few days, but it was there. This is because fanboys worked here, gave it good reviews. Than came regular, old school reviewers and gave it rather sober ratings.

Regulars and fanboys are both important, because they make fine average. Otherwise, when album is reviewed just by those whom I call regulars, this album is doomed by extremely low rating.

And that's not fair, because when compared to album when ALSO fanboys worked, this album fails in charts.

Even I respect other's opinion in reviews, having all four albums with average of 2.2 ratings, that's not good and almost everyone will turn away without interesting in this band when seeing this. Why to go for 2.2 album, when there is far more of 4.2 albums to taste :-/

Where are fanboys, when one needs them ? They usually counterweights more "professional" opinion of Prog Reviewers who are used to review (left column).

An interview with Anata is coming up, btw.

My rating of Anata is simply due to the small issue that I have simply changed my musical preferences during the last ten years. Less Anata, more Soft Machine. Neither do I find Anata as exciting as I did ten years ago when I gave their first albums four and five stars.

But I would still recommend Anata to all metalheads. In this respect, I agree with your views.