Just glanced at a review summary for some band I've never heard (it's irrelevant who) and the review's basically saying 'after years of making innaccesible music that was popular with a select audience, this band have now dropped some of the weirdness and made a more commercial record which is miles better'.

My question is WHY is this better? Why is it better to dilute what you've been doing for a long time into a more 'pop' format? irrespective of whether it's a commercial or artistic decision it's, frankly, inevitable that 'more pop' means 'less distinctive'.

So, um, discussion... erm....

Exmaples of good crossover records and bad crossover records?

Records where the band 'went pop' and genuinely didn't lose what made them great to start with?

Explanation of why the media will react positively to a band going 'pop' despite the number of times that the halfway house between originality/accessibility is so unsatisfying that they lose their old fans and gain no new ones?