Funny how corporate culture has influenced the creation of music - just like businesses who decide not to develop in-house capabilites to complete a vital part of the production process, large bands influenced by labels will simply buy the services of a well-known 'underground' (how ironic) producer in order to add the freshness to that sound.
Many times it doesn't work - the examples cited so far (although Mariah Carey junglized probably wouldn't be as bad as you think) also illustrate how many people think that it just WOULDN'T work in some cases.
I think overly negative reactions should be mitigated by the following factors, however:
1) The subjectivity of artistic integrity - most people's judgements about what is good in music dissolve to what sounds good TO THEM.
2) The fact that many of the people who buy these albums *love* them - illustrating the varying tastes in musical appreciation on a grander scale. Maybe what they wind up loving is the very fact that it sounds different, and since they don't follow music all that closely, are happy when the 'stars' they rely on steer them to a new part of the musical universe....
Jay B