Bands you tried to hate - but failed

Reverend

Dopesick said:

I thought grunge was mostly about the fashion as well as geography.

sort of, although a lot of what was considered grunge fashion - checked flannel shirts, old 501s, DMs and converse - was the basic uniform of thrashers, punks and H/C kids in the 80s. 

stimpsonslostson

McFly. I KNOW I shouldn't like them, but their songs are catchy and well played. Dammit.

freakboy1610

The Darkness. I can recall the first time I heard them on the radio. As soon as the vocals kicked in I thought it was a complete piss take. A couple of years ago a friend of mine introduced me to Hot Leg and from there I got into the Darkness who are now a firm favourite. Who cares if they are taking the piss!

stimpsonslostson

freakboy1610 said:

The Darkness. I can recall the first time I heard them on the radio. As soon as the vocals kicked in I thought it was a complete piss take. A couple of years ago a friend of mine introduced me to Hot Leg and from there I got into the Darkness who are now a firm favourite. Who cares if they are taking the piss!

I feel much the same way about Steel Panther. 

Winny_Pooh

PolarityMan said:

Limp Bizkit, I actually succeeded in hating them all through the 90s but somehow now I quite like them...must be nostaligia I reckon.

WRONGNESS

ICBM

BigMonka said:

One Direction :-$

Wisdom. My youngest daughter is a fan, and I had to get her the albums… oh god I thought, these will be dire. But in a spirit of open-mindedness I thought I should listen to them before passing judgement, and I was wrong.

I admit that they're obviously a manufactured pop band, and they've got better over time so the first couple of albums are the least good, but… they're genuinely not bad. Well-written, well-produced and played (by session musicians obviously) and some of the songs are pretty decent. The boys seem to be able to sing at least reasonably well and don't seem too obnoxious compared to many other "celebrities", so - they're OK. I'm not exactly a fan, but I don't hate them.

Oddly enough I don't like McFly even though they're actually a proper band - I just find their songs annoying, I think.

octatonic

axisus said:

The Spice Girls. I'm in love with two of their songs/videos in particular:

Viva Forever and 2 become 1

Do they give you what you want?

octatonic

octatonic said:

axisus said:

The Spice Girls. I'm in love with two of their songs/videos in particular:

Viva Forever and 2 become 1

Do they give you what you want?

What you really, really want?

ICBM

If we're including solo artists - Shakira. Initially I didn't like her voice at all and I thought she was just another manufactured pop princess trading on her looks.

Then I found out she actually writes most of her own songs - sometimes the same song in more than one language, which she speaks at least three of fluently - and has a big hand in the production. I read some of her lyrics… and she's brilliant. Clever, literate, witty, emotional and cynical in almost equal measure - genuinely good songwriting. After that I got past the sound of her voice and now I have to admit to being a big fan.

Talented, intelligent, good-looking and successful - what's not to like? By many accounts she's not a very nice person to work for - perhaps it's not easy to get to the top as a pretty girl in a sexist industry if you aren't. Still, I won't have to. Laundry Service is still one of my favourite albums of this century.

guitarfishbay

I don't remember trying to not like a band/song since I was a teenager.  I find the elitist sections of some musical sub-cultures just plain odd - my guess is it possibly dates back to the days if you wanted a decent music collection it cost you £££'s so you had to prioritise, so people ended up listening to less varied music?  I wonder if music identity means as much to kids these days, I'd guess not

Hertz32

guitarfishbay said:

I don't remember trying to not like a band/song since I was a teenager.  I find the elitist sections of some musical sub-cultures just plain odd - my guess is it possibly dates back to the days if you wanted a decent music collection it cost you £££'s so you had to prioritise, so people ended up listening to less varied music?  I wonder if music identity means as much to kids these days, I'd guess not

Lol elitism is still prevalent. Particularly in metal culture. 
Chatting to a girl about metal and I told her I haven't seen anyone live since Periphery and Veil Of Maya, which she promptly says isn't real metal because she listened to them when she was 12. As if that makes their music or my taste less valid. 
She then went on to suggest a band called Vitja (Who are actually alright, Follow the shadows and Your Kingdom are great) and went off on one about how real metal is all grindcore and metalcore is for teens and it's just kiddie metal... 


I digress.
I wrote this entire post whilst listening to About you now, and Push the button by Sugababes. I'm off to listen to S club 7 next... 

mudslide73

Kiss. I had a real problem with them as a kid but now I can see what they're for.

RocknRollDave

mudslide73 said:

Kiss. I had a real problem with them as a kid but now I can see what they're for.

..reminding me to turn over to BBC6 Music from Planet Rock....?

markv

Not sure I have tried to hate any music but there's plenty you're not "supposed" to like if you're into your music. I just love pop music. A good song is a good song, particularly when you consider that the best songwriters work for anyone who will pay them (broadly speaking, anyway). Someone like Eg White has written for Adele (Chasing Pavements), Will Young (Leave Right Now, fantastic song), James Morrison (Wonderful World, also great) and many more. So what if you're not supposed to like Adele? (Plus he made one of the most amazing obscure albums, 24 Years Of Hunger by Eg & Alice)

I can be a bit snobby about some music but I'm usually proved wrong. I got UB40's debut album Signing Off a couple of weeks ago. It's superb. (Labour Of Love is still shite though)