It might be the reason why Nicki wants to release an album with acclaim...

Maybe he paid for it?

They control the Grammy Awards, nothing more really. Albums with great reviews flop commercially (Channel Orange), albums with terrible scores still do really well (Teenage Dream).

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how did channel orange flop commercially
hasn't it sold like 400k already?

Lmao, no.

No, or Warrior wouldn't have flopped.

No. No one gives a **** of what critics think.

!!! The album is blacklisted by Target and his record label didn't ship a lot of copies. All that conflict and still managed to have the 2nd best selling R&B album this year.

+1

Just like every other industry in the free market.

ATRL does.

if they're part of the establishment, and a lot of them are, then yes.

No, they don't control it. They do have influence in a lot of places, just less so in blockbuster pop music.

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Agreed, honestly if you asked someone outside of ATRL/outside of an artist's stanbase, people probably don't know how albums did with the critics. They just know if their friends like it or not, if they like it or not, etc. and it's not a problem to give an album a chance when you can listen on YT or Spotify. Fiona Apple and Björk get sweeping praise for all of their releases but still don't sell much. With movies though, people hear in the news if movies were crappy or not, and probably won't waste their money going to the theater if they're afraid it won't be worth it.