YMMV / Machine Head

• Audience-Alienating Era: Their shift to Nu Metal on The Burning Red and Supercharger was very poorly received and caused massive damage to the band's reputation.
• Awesome Music: Pretty much everything in Burn My Eyes and The Blackening since those are the band's two most appreciated albums.
• Broken Base:
  • Reactions to The Burning Red and Supercharger are pretty split depending on who you ask in the fanbase. Some fans like them, others won't even acknowledge they exist.
  • Robb Flynn's behavior in recent years has been a source of contention, especially after his response to Phil Anselmo after a racist incident at "Dimebash 2016" and his political views seeping into their music. Depending on who you ask, he is either a dude who may be a little overbearing at times, but is one of the few major public figures in metal who is honest enough to call attention to serious issues within the scene and in society at large, or he's an obnoxious, moral grandstanding, loudmouthed egomaniac and talking head for MetalSucks.
• Contested Sequel: Catharsis was this compared to Bloodstone and Diamonds. The fan reaction to the preview tracks grew worse and worse with each track (particularly "Kaleidoscope", which was absolutely savaged by the fanbase), and the critical reception wasn't much kinder. The general mood before it was even released was along the lines of "how on earth did Robb think this was a good idea", which was further intensified when Robb attacked one of the more scathing reviews. It's telling that comparisons were already being made to The Unspoken King, Illud Divinum Insanus, and Suicide Silence's self-titled; once the album was released, the general consensus was that no, people weren't freaking out for no good reason, and yes, it was a terrible album and a worse career move. Most common reasons given are its generic sounding songs, many riffs sounding like carbon copies of songs written by other artists (especially scathing since years earlier, Flynn ripped on Avenged Sevenfold for doing the same thing with Hail To The King), exceedingly long length, stylistic shift back to nu-metal (which wasn't well received by the fanbase the last time they did it), and the lyrics being a mix of heavy-handed political soapboxing and Wangst.
• Epic Riff: One of their main strengths, with "Davidian" being the standout example.
• First Installment Wins: This was finally subverted with The Blackening. For a while, their 1994 debut Burn My Eyes was seen as the defining Machine Head album, with none of their subsequent releases matching its acclaim or influence. However, thirteen years later, the band conquered the odds and managed to strike gold a second time with The Blackening. An album that not only matched Burn My Eyes in terms of acclaim and popularity but also went on to be one of the defining metal albums of the 2000's.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The More Things Change has sometimes been accused of being too musically safe and not deviating enough from Burn My Eyes. Never mind that the album did indeed bring a few new things to the table: Robb used his clean singing voice more often, the band stuck a rap metal breakdown at the end of "Struck A Nerve" - foreshadowing the Nu Metal influences that would come up on the following two albums, etc.
• Narm:
  • Parts of the music video for "The Locust" end up this way. Particularly Robb releasing the titular bugs from his... mouth?
  • Before that, there was the music video for "From This Day". Marvel at the cheesy, 90s-style greenscreen effects and the band's even cheesier outfits and haircuts. And that's not even getting to Robb hanging around on a bunch of wires while wearing a tight leather bodysuit.
  • This was also a common reaction to Catharsis, particularly "Kaleidoscope" and "Bastards", especially Robb's slam poetry rendition of the latter track.
  • Honestly, even the famous "Let freedom ring with a shotgun BLAAAAAAAAAST!" line from "Davidian" is delivered in such a hammy way that it could be perceived as such.
  • The lyrics for "Do or Die" were almost instantly decried as a whiny, insecure, immature Dear Negative Reader rant that would be unacceptably cringy from a person half Robb's age, let alone from a fifty-two-year-old man and accomplished nothing except making him look incredibly thin-skinned and unable to take any sort of criticism.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: In the wake of Catharsis and the nonstop drama that has surrounded Robb Flynn for virtually all of its post-release promotional cycle, most fans have come to see him as an ego-drunk, thin-skinned, overgrown child who cannot keep himself from running his mouth and making himself look like a fool at every single opportunity. The few fans who still weakly defended him in 2019 refused to stand behind "Do or Die" and Robb's ensuing social media tantrums (especially with Edsel Dope, who virtually everyone agreed handled the situation flawlessly and made Robb look like even more of a raging idiot), and by the end of the decade, the prevailing opinion of Robb was that he was an embarrassment to his own band who desperately needed to give up social media for good and hand the reins over to the band's management.
• Signature Song: "Davidian" or "Halo"; the latter of which is nowadays the concluding song for Machine Head's live performances.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The band's latest album, Catharsis, had a lot of this going on; namely with "Beyond the Pale", which was criticized for using the same signature riff as "Love?" by Strapping Young Lad. ^note Devin Townsend himself would come to admit that "Love?"'s hook was just him ripping off "City of Love" by Yes
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: As stated before, The Burning Red's Nu Metal influences. Catharsis returned to that style and was viewed even less favorably, and even fans of their original nu metal-era material haven't responded well to it.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • The Blackening, big time. Through the Ashes of Empires was also considered that, but the former managed to outshine it both in terms of critical reception and sales.
  • Reception to the singles leading up to Of Kingdom and Crown was very positive, leading to fans being hopeful of a good comeback after the divisive Catharsis album; upon the albums' release, many fans and critics hailed Of Kingdom and Crown as not only a glorious return to form, but also considered it one of Machine Head's best albums.