I'm going to try to clear this up for you people who seem to be unable to grasp the concept:
the issue isn't one of criticism. Criticism is fine. The issue is that many, many people here are insulting rather than criticizing, and then trying to claim that their 'opinion' is somehow legitimate.
Look, somebody a few pages back said he HATES Rebecca Mayes. He thinks she isn't that creative, saying that her lyrics are weak, and her choruses are both redundant and grating as examples of why he doesn't like her music.
I'm fine with that. I don't agree, but that's just me.
andsoitgoes said above: "Egads... that song was terrible. No offense, is it okay? No way."
Now, to me, that's more of an opinion than a criticism, since it doesn't actually mention any specifics-- but still, this is an open forum, and people are entitled to their opinion, so I'm cool with it.
But the tone of those comments are unfortunately the exceptions, not the rule. I have seen far more people say stuff like "oh my God; that woman is a talentless *****" or calling her "an opinionated whore".
In Logic, it's called argumentum ad hominem, but I prefer to call it being an immature asshole. There is no justification for it; it simply is a person being insulting and degrading to another person because they enjoy the anonymity of the Internet and can be as rude and unpleasant as they wish without any repercussions. The only way to redress their actions is to confront them, which is what some of us are doing.
So NO, it's not about everybody being shiny, happy people and saying only nice things about everything. It's about maintaining a level of civility and reason in the subjects we discuss. Why is this important? Because if everyone is not held to this standard, every single dispute will devolve into name-calling, which gets tedious very rapidly. Every. Single. One.
So yeah, if you have a problem with me taking people to task about being immature and insulting, you'd better just put me on ignore right now, because I'm not going to stop.