Do you hate certain prog because of popularity?

While I concur that it is difficult to argue over the merits of one piece of music over the other, it is also much easier to establish a point in a face to face discussion than online.  The anonymity of the internet forces a leveling of the views of an 'experienced' listener who is able to articulate his impressions about music very well with that of a kid listening to his first rock song or something like that.  However much this sentence may sound condescending, in a face to face discussion, this would simply not be the case and the kid would find it very difficult to keep up the bluff for long. This is not to say that the experienced listener is always going to right or that he is not prone to bias at all but he is likely to be right more often than the kid.  I should know; I recently had to put my li'l cousin sis in her place because she was getting annoying in a music discussion, presuming to know everything I do without much 'validation', didn't take very long though I didn't enjoy it.   The internet artificially forces a status quo between such polar opposites, which is preposterous but nothing can be done about it and thus the push towards an illusion of complete subjectivity.  I think complete subjectivity would only exist if two people, having paid equal attention to a piece of music and understood it equally well, would still disagree on each and every possible aspect about it.  This doesn't happen, needless to say, so there are things on which people do agree, even those who have widely divergent views. The problems usually are more to do with articulation of views (which is difficult and so I am sympathetic to this problem) and reluctance to admit to bias or ignorance about a subject.  

About "I like what I like", my chief objection to it is that it renders music discussions desultory and dull, which can otherwise be enriching and informative.  As long as people don't get emotions into it, there's nothing wrong with disagreeing and moving on, but to swing to simply making lists of what one likes would not serve much purpose because even as a recommendation, you have no clue then to what extent it might work for you. On the other hand, if someone describes some aspects of the music and especially if he can do so reliably, it gives you a good idea of what might be in store based on which you can make up your mind.  I have learnt so much about music just through discussions with people who I don't know at all otherwise, so it would be a shame if people clam up and descend to list-mania.   

It's a good question - the division is analytical, and in reality "experience" and "attitude" is closely related, no doubt.

What I'm basically addressing is a certain kind of attitude that gets revealed in claims of the sort: Band A doesn't get the deserved respect, band B is underrated, band C is good because this and that. Such claims will require justification beyond the scope of personal taste and 'subjectivity', unless it's taken that because some person thinks so, it must be so - which is ridiculous. 

Conversely, I take a scepticist and ultimate subjectivist stand, where I don't believe that what I happen to think, like or enjoy in any way can be justified, argued or discussed. This entails that I don't engage in actual discussions about music, I only find personal and idiosyncratic accounts interesting and the premises for any talk about music must be that it can't be said that band A is better/worse than band B. This I take to be sympathetic and engaging, and thus an attitude I'd endorse.

The problem, though, is that this attitude doesn't address a fundamental intuition, namely that there must be something that makes some music better than other music - but since this can't be argued for convincingly and the attitudes underlying such an 'objective' assumption is an danger of being manifested in expressions like "I know better/I have good taste" without reasonable back-up,  I - primarily for that reason - deny it. 

Basically - I don't care - I like what I like, I have no interest  in making people like the music I do, and the worst question I know is "what kind of music do you like?" it's completely unanswerable - I have no knowledge about about my taste in music and any attempt at classifying and categorizing music is pointless.

When we compare let's say Lil' Wayne's 'Lollipop' to Pink Floyd's 'Wish you Were Here' singles, there are certain things, in both songs, that has strength over the other.  Most people, I would think, would have an easier time dancing to the former over the latter, and I'm sure there are other things the former is better at, but I think when we're talking about 'better' or 'worse' here it's to imply things like philosophical impact, unique structure, individuality, and execution of expression. For some that is not all the things they are looking for, and for some they are looking for more; however, I think there are certain things that we can say with objectivity about these two songs.

One of these songs, if both songs are accepted for their intended purposes, is meant to pull on more negative emotions seeing as though one is mostly about a girl offering fellatio put in a positive context, and the other is mostly about how we cope with the harsh realities of life by withdrawing ourselves from the world, which was inspired by a dear friend battling schizophrenia, which is put in a negative context.

Yes, it would take pages upon pages of threads to define any logical objectivity into making a song good or bad, but it does exist from certain viewpoints if you define those viewpoints when you're talking about what makes them good or bad.

As far as an overall 'good' or 'bad', I have not gotten far enough to decide.  Anyone here have a PhD. in logic studies or philosophy?