Well, I certainly do not intend to defend their songwriting and there's no way I could deny that they're trying to be commercial (at least 3 it's my life clones, a countryalbum after wsycgh and so on).

But I just can't imagine that they write songs and make albums just for the money, with songs that (they think) please the masses while they themselves don't like them. They must be contented with what they're doing. And not just because they get money for it.

I as a musician can't get my head around the concept of making music you don't like but that appeals to others. You do it one or two times, but no way for ten years and four albums. I played bass for several disco songs at a concert, but as I hate disco, there's no way I'm doing it again, in spite of all the positive reviews we got.

And they too keep mentioning how much fun they had while recording lh, or what a bunch of great songs they wrote for the circle. So I do think they like where they are at musically. And that's even sadder then doing it just for the money...