I get you. But I am allowing for the fact that maybe that commenter likes Fleet Foxes and Radiohead more than Ted Nugent and Van Halen. To him/her, the bravado isn't a necessary ingredient of music, which would be the not-getting-it part. Seems like an defendable comment from my POV though.
I should probably just stop talking. Congrats on your record, BTW.
Naw, no need not to discuss it! Besides I'm a cranky ol' argumentative sort, I actually kinda like to argue. Or discuss. It's intellectually stimulating. It's fun! You're a smart guy and I've always liked discussing stuff with you.
Here's why you're wrong.
Valid criticism is of necessity highly contextual.
If one goes to an Iggy Pop concert and complains that the vocalist is incapable of a proper operatic coloratura, while the statement is objectively true, it is nevertheless totally invalid criticism. Iggy is not
doing opera. Certain grundnorms apply for any subjective judging of artistic merit, and one ignores such norms at his or her peril.
The country music fan who complains about the metal song not once mentioning dogs or trains or trucks or God or America may be absolutely factually correct, but his criticism is just as invalid as is that of the metal fan who complains that the guitars in a country song do not bring the brutalz.
The judge at the Westminster Kennel Club who refuses to name the top greyhound as best in breed because the judge prefers short stubby legs like on a cute li'l Corgi may factually be correct-- the hound does not in fact have short stubby legs-- but his or her criticism could not be more wrongerer.
Or to bring it round specifically to your hypothetical, wtf is Mr. Fleet Foxes doing at "Two Guys
Metal Reviews?" Here, the invalidity of his (or her) criticism is much more easily shown than in most instances-- the grundnorms of many artistic endeavors are simply collectively understood by those practitioners and fans, whereas here we hardly need go further than the very title of the webpage to see that our hypothetical Fleet Foxes fan is out of his depth. A certain brashness and swagger is part of the raison d'etre of punk rock, and the review quite accurately makes clear we aren't trying to be anything but that.
Now, what
might be a valid criticism of Crash Pad given this titular context is that we are not, in fact a metal band. However, careful consideration would undercut much of even that much superior critique, given that the page's "about" subpage clarifies as follows: "Yes, we do reviews outside of the metal umbrella genre, the primary focus here however, is metal, or
genres that contributed to the establishment of the metal genre." It's an historical/musicological fact that punk and metal are related genres, and the Two Guys themselves have declared their page somewhat more inclusive than strictly metal. So, although much more valid a critic than Mr. Fleet Foxes, even Mr. Death to False Metal must concede the field.
Had the guy just said we were lousy at being a punk band, I'd have no quibble. That's where the pure subjectivity of criticism kicks in.