I took a look at that first post. If I pontificated, shame on me.
As I never pan a CD, in print, and as I was careful not to identify poorly produced recordings, I felt Ok about my comments. If I put some folks backs up, I am sorry.
But the message remains clear. Just because one can do something doesn't mean that one should. The field of songwriting is a good example of the bad driving out the good. Songwriting is easy but good songwriting, like every other art, takes special talent and time to develop. Not every songwriter is a W.S. Gilbert or a Cyril Tawney. The really good ones are few and far between but, because self recording is so easy and inexpensive, anyone can claim genius and muddy the waters for those truly gifted souls. Art is unfair and incredibly undemocratic. The most undeserving curs may be blessed with talent and the very finest folks may be cursed with mediocrity.
It is left to the critic, burdoned as he is with bias and intellectual limitation, to glean the wheat from the chaff. My fear is that inferior production may be clouding the picture painted by the really talented. Under the old system, the best of the writers and artists were signed by labels and professionally produced and presented. Now, with labels in decline, we have lost their jurying function and support and, as a resault, we have asthetic chaos.