It was ok

I'll be watching it as light entertainment rather than something I put actual time into thinking about. Unless there's any good songs.

Not yet, but thanks for reminding me about it - I'll watch it soon

There are supposedly a good number to come. One was released via horrible quality recording, and it's pretty catchy (also sort of an AJ song).

And I'll probably catch the episodes as they air. Gives me something to do on my weekends while I wait for the next Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and news on Gravity Falls S2/The Clone Wars "Bonus Content"/Star Wars Rebels/Legend of Korra S3.

Also, I am looking forward to new fan music from a few artists. Hurray!

I'm really not. Everything has been so incredibly disappointing since late last year.

Everyone has decided they want to be 'serious' artists and that means the following: 1. increasing production time so a song takes six months instead of a week (to no real difference), 2. incorporating weird electronic/dubstep/rap segments to follow what's radio-popular, 3. doing lots of things that aren't exactly music (playing random video games and uploading them to Youtube, making covers of pop songs, spamming attempts to raise money for charity, going on tour, doing interviews, and in general just being a celebrity)

They seem to think they're above making a song about a pony in a week and uploading it

As someone who's written a fair bit of fan-fiction and has been in touch with fan-artists of various stripes, it's a natural progression to move on to "real" work (this need not be serious, but must in some way be a progression from the fan-work). You start doing fan-work because you have an idea that you think needs to be seen. You keep doing fan-work because its easy (you have a pre-established world and characters to play with) and because it gets you attention much more easily than original work (make a good drawing of a standard space marine, 30 views. Make the same quality drawing of Samus, 500 views) Thus fan-work is a great realm to cultivate your skill, because you're more free to experiment with different techniques and get the audience that will get you feedback to demonstrate where you're strong and where you're weak. If you're really interested in getting into the field of choice (music, art, literature, animation) more seriously, you'll feel the need to pursue original work.

That doesn't mean you can't throw your old audience a bone every now and again, though.

Yes, it's the best move for their career. I'm not really saying they should do otherwise (although playing up the celebrity culture is obnoxious)

I just don't like it because between this and the effective retirement of various game composers the current number of active musicians whose work I like is now less than three. Finding music I like is near impossible.

I liked pretty much the whole episode except for the part where they all shoo Twilight back to Ponyville. The entire scene where it happened was garbage.
A: What if they need the Elements to stop the whatever? It's not like they don't rely on them to defeat every single threat.
B: What if they need Twilight's knowledge or magical expertise?
C: When Twilight asked if they all thought that way, Spike was right there. Did he also feel the same way?

Moreover, since the crisis the schism created was so quickly and easily resolved, it also seemed like it was either shoehorned in to check some "friendship lesson" box, or simply filler to pad the double episode. I don't need to say why the second reason would be terrible, and the first reason is awful too, because there's ALREADY another friendship lesson built into the episode! Applejack was going on about how the Elements of Harmony are their bond, and in the climactic scene Twilight talks about how their bonds were forged when they found the Elements but don't depend on them to stay strong. If anything, having that nonsense in the middle detracts from a lesson that is much better integrated into the episode—and doesn't require anypony to be a tactless fool.

Oh, hey: Since the episode's main conflict was created by Discord's seeds belatedly growing, what exactly is it that the Tree of Harmony controls the growth of? Unless that's where Discord got the seeds from, that's an interesting unresolved question the episode raises!

Well... my list of artists is very short. Makkon (who does more than pony music) and Melodicpony are about it. RC88, if he makes anything new, but I don't think we'll get much besides the 8-bit songs from him. Still though, I love what those guys do.

I was under the impression that it controlled the growth of the Everfree Forest.

Makes sense ... in which case that particular protection, one would guess, at least partially failed long ago.  Unless the castle was always in the midst of trackless forest, which makes no sense, and doesn't seem to match what little we saw in the episode—but we didn't see much.