YMMV / Cradle of Filth

• Broken Base: Ohhhh where to begin... if the band jumped the shark after a certain album, or if it was when a key member left, or which era was better, so on...
• Fandom Rivalry: With Carach Angren, a symphonic black metal from the Netherlands. The rivalry came out when Dani Filth released a new make up style that looked exactly like Carach Angren vocalist/guitarist Seregor. Fans and even Seregor himself were not amused.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: The reaction of many black metal fans to their popularity.
• Nightmare Fuel: Their music can certainly qualify with their horror-themed lyrics, which, coupled with Dani's judicious use of Careful with That Axe and Screams Like a Little Girl, creates a rather unhinged sound to their music. On the other hand...
• Nightmare Retardant: The band tries hard to look scary. Unfortunately, Dani is short, round-faced and has a posh middle-class accent, so it doesn't really work.
  • Particularly in his newer work in which he wears glittery face paint, making him look like, according to one Youtube commenter, the Goblin King.
• Signature Song: "Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids" or "Her Ghost in the Fog".
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: And since they introduce a change to their sound with just about every new release, this happens a lot.
• Win Back the Crowd: While it's a matter of debate as to when their decline in quality was greatly accelerated, general consensus is that their post-Midian output kicked off the start of a slow decline in quality that grew much worse at some point, briefly got better with Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder, and eventually reached its logical endpoint with The Manticore and Other Horrors, or "Paul Allender Doesn't Want To Do This Any More: The Album". One massive lineup change later and the band released Hammer of the Witches, which is universally held to be their best since Midian and quite possibly the best of their entire career.