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Originally Posted by Lucem Ferre
B) Yes, popularity is a piece of validation for how good an artist is. No, it's not the end all be all absolute proof that an artist is good, but it is a talking point that you guys just don't want to accept because it contradicts your pretentious, self righteous views that you have better music taste or have a more valid musical pallet than the average person. Let me show why popularity is a good talking point for an artists validation. If an artist sucks then their popularity is short lived. Mike Jones was garbage so he died. Paul Wall was garbage. Tons of artists were hot garbage and they ended up losing steam because they couldn't keep people's attention. With Eminem, he's retained popularity through his whole career being praised as one of the best. He's still running off of MMLP fumes. That album was so great that it is still the album we remember him by despite him releasing so many lack luster projects like Encore or Recovery. That is a classic album. It wasn't just some stupid fad that people mindlessly stuck to, it is still as popular today as it was back then. Retaining popularity like that is not easy unless you have something. That album also gets praised by most of hip hop, artists, fans, people that definitely are not casual listeners. Most rappers with that level of popularity is typically recognized or praised by people that are not casual fans of music. We can play the lazy game about people just having terrible taste, but if we want to talk objectively about musical taste what is good or bad taste in music is decided by the masses, not you outcasts. Don't pussy out by pulling this 'my opinion' bull**** like you don't talk as if your opinion is the universally accepted fact. Having good taste is having a taste that appeals to most people. Objectively. Which means that if you're taste isn't in line with the 'normies' (you guys are on some rick and morty bull**** right there, you guys are the annoying rick and morty fans of music) than you have bad taste. So yeah, popularity does matter, people don't gain and retain popularity for no reason, it's not strictly album sales that measure an artists popularity I think you have to be in tune with the general consensus on an artist which would be that Eminem is one of the greatest to ever do it.
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It's a bad indicator of quality because it is not consistent for popular artists. Some great artists are certainly popular, but that only works in one direction since there are plenty of popular artists that are certainly not great.
Plus, talking about music from an "objective" point of view makes no sense because it's such a subjective medium. If you want to go more in depth into why you do or don't like them with specific reasons that can be identified or at least interpreted on a shared premise by anyone regardless of how they feel about the record, that would make more sense. But if you're going to go that deep and actually talk about the music, what's the point in resting on something as inconsistent and surface level as popularity?