something having a following is always a non-factor
otherwise you have no sense of personal identity

Then why are you on a site that tracks other people’s opinions???
Collects other people’s ratings?
Catalogs reviews written by people who are very much not you?

to shitpost and make dweebs like you uncomfortable

For fucks sake, if you truly didn’t care what ANYONE else thought about music, you wouldn’t listen to music! Every song you’ve ever heard is someone else’s interpretation of what a song should sound like!

Following does not necessarily have a bearing on quality, and nor does it mean an album must be liked if it is popular. If a lot of people I know who I respect/share a similar taste with follow a band, THAT may mean something. A large mass of people enjoying a Weeknd record doesn't mean anything to me in terms of whether i would like it or not.

Similarly, if I dislike such a record, it is because I do not enjoy it for various reasons outside of whether many others love it. Disliking a popular thing is not a contrarian action in of itself because subjectivity is a thing that happens

i don't care what the artist thinks
i listen to music and then decide if i enjoy it or not
shit ain't fuckin hard lmao

Tell that to rabid who shits on everything popular ever.

I'm telling it to the posting you made earlier, which is an argument I personally dislike seeing in music. That's all.

Like it or not, you are appreciating someone else’s taste in music when you like their song.

lmao bruh you have no idea
rabid's got pretty decent taste
he just doesn't like a lot of this watered down pop shit
who can blame him

no you're not lmao
chief keef literally only ever listens to his own music
solipsism overloooooaaaaaad

It’s an argument that needs to be made. It’s an old one, that’s true too.
There’s also something to be said for the amount of money you can spend on your music when you have a following that large.

Okay? So then I share someone else's taste. That's not what I've been saying. There's nothing wrong with that. My issue is with the assumption that popular = must like because followers, and disliking popular = contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

And following is still not a necessary factor.

Album Rating: 2.5

I do hate crowds. Still, your argument is a logical fallacy, also known as "authority of the many". You havent given reasonable argument as to why this is good or better than his other stuff.

Chance the Rapper last year was a disaster, but he had the money. WRVTH was an obscure deathcore band turned atmo-black metal. Much less cash, much better album.

Not always about money; rather, it matters what you're able to make with the resources you have.

it's a self-serving notion anyways
the definition of "the many" is often derived from the number of people in immediate social circles... i.e. unless your friend circle has a radius approaching infinity, you're realistically going to have an incomplete picture

some of the best mixtapes are made with stolen beats tbh

Other factors still apply, as I said. Are you going to argue money also is a non-factor? My broke-ass would disagree.

Album Rating: 2.5

i do enjoy some popular/conventional stufff, i just dont see the need to over hype stuff, also its fun to antagonize people on petty shit like this lol

money acts as a ceiling, but having lots of money doesn't raise the floor
most of it is still about how you use the instruments