Clearly you weren't paying attention when it was all over the news that Coldplay were doing that Jordan gig, it was hard to ignore and framed as a good thing (though some real journalists did question the hypocrisy of flying the band and crew out to Jordan just to highlight the fact).

AFI totally sold out and i saw them live a few years ago and everything was post - Girl's Not Grey, they'd gone full emo and ignored anything before then even though I'd only stopped at the stage to hear earlier stuff live. There's plenty of bands that have changed their style that will play their earlier music too because they haven't sold out, they've evolved and embrace their entire back catalogue.

Slipknot are exactly what they are portrayed to be, without the masks and stage setup they'd be barely anything, their drummer is hardly the best drummer in the world. Clearly you need to see Mike Portnoy, Johanne James, Nicko McBrain or pretty much any other drummer in that realm to be honest.

As for "murder simulator" that's the term the likes of Jack Thompson use but he, and groups that protest each GTA game launch, have all been led on by Max Clifford's PR company, he's said so, Rockstar have said so, they paid for the campaign, it worked and it's still working. As they say there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Clearly though you don't peek behind the curtain much to see what is behind a certain story or feature, you should as Sick Of It All said "scratch the surface, serve a purpose", or don't, you could just donate your eyes to science instead.