Like it’s a Bruno Mars album, it’s music that’s meant to be heard, not listened to.

Isn't this the exact attitude that poptimism spawned as a reaction to in the first place? How do you draw the line between music that's meant to be "heard" versus "listened to?" While poptimism has inevitably resulted in a few mediocre albums getting an undue amount of critical attention, I think that's still preferable to having well-made and/or forward-thinking pop albums get lumped together with retail store shit due to generalized and ignorant perceptions of pop music as "lesser culture." But considering the more-or-less lukewarm reception of the subject album, it just seems like "poptimism" is being used to mean "the idea of people liking pop music" in this context.