Does a Band's Popularity Affect Your Taste?
 

I remember my dad telling me that he liked The Beatles until they really blew up. After that he couldn't be bothered with them.

Do people here (in general) devalue bands just because they're popular? And if so, why? Is it simply because you think they're overplayed, or is there a "snob effect" invloved, where you only like being known for liking more obscure bands?

Personally I think I'm pretty good with not doing this. If you like something, you like it. My love for bands like Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, etc. isn't affected in the slightest because of their popularity. Of course there are many popular bands I don't like, but that's just a matter of taste.

EDIT: This isn't asking about when a band changes their style to gain more fans.

No, it doesn't. I like Franz Ferdinand, I Like Dire Straits.
But some bands do change their music when they get famous.

I do have a hard time taking bands from the Netherlands serious.
Especially when they come from somewhere near. It somehow feels like I have to like that band because they come from where I come from.
Nevertheless, I have quite some records in my cabinet that are from bands from Limburg (The province where I live).

Not really, if i like a band's music then i listen to them, regardless of how popular they are. I certainly don't listen to underground bands just for the sake of it. If a band changes their sound to gain more commercial interest and if their new sound doesn't appeal to me i would be less inclined to listen to them, not because of their new-found popularity, but because of their new sound.

The overplaying factor does have some effect though. If you're over-exposed to a band or a particular song being played on the radio constantly then you get sick of them after a while. But that doesn't happen to me too often.

Exactly what Zero said. Literally.

It's not so much how popular they are, it's more how sick I am of hearing that one song that EVERYONE loves so much.

Not with every song hear. I can't hear Stairway to heaven or Bohemian Rhapsody anymore, but I still like Sultans of Swing and Hotel California.

A song / band's popularity doesn't generally sway my opinion one way or the other. If I like it, I like it.

With that said, as soon as a song is used in a commercial and I have to hear that one snippet of the song a thousand times, I grow to dislike that song and even think of it as cheesy.

I see what you mean but really it's a personal thing. It varies from person to person. There are some songs i never get sick of hearing but not too many.

no.

Not at all, albeit music I do like happens to be unpopular most of the time, and music that's popular I tend to not like. However, there are very melodic, rhythmic, and philosophical reasons for this.

Nope. It affects me talking about the band, ie if someone here asks me about Radiohead it's probs all been said before so I cba, but the music doesn't change any.

It's not the popularity, it's the current popularity I think. I can't stand modern mainstream rap, because I think that it dominates the music scene and I every dumbass who thinks he's a music fan listens to it and talks about it constantly. Yet, I love Motley Crue and Poison, even though they did the same thing decades ago, but, nobody goes around saying that they're the **** any more. Neither Yin Yang Twins nor Motley Crue are legitimately creative, but I don't have to live through the annoying **** of Motley Crue ruining the current music scene so they don't bother me as much.

I've been listening to Kings of Leon years before they hit it big with Only By The Night. They've been on a decline since Aha Shake Heartbreak though.I think now they've realized how successful they've become in the United States and are now trying to appease to different kinds of fans: the fans that have always been around and the fans that can only think of Use Somebody or Sex on Fire. This does not affect the way I like them, I will always like them though the creative change they make might turn me off of future releases.

I just hope The Black Keys continue to make albums on their own terms now that they have achieved some level of success over the past year.

I think for me it's about the social factor. If a lot of people like a band, I almost feel uncomfortable when I listen to them. I'm not sure why. I feel intensely nervous watching something like the Grammys or Superbowl, knowing a LOT of people are as well. I remember for the first time figuring out that if I was the only person on a roller coaster, I probably wouldn't be scared. It wasn't the heights or the coaster itself, but all the people talking about it and all the people in the long lines that scared me.

It does when I'm looking for new sounds. I built up my respect for popular artists a long time ago, so there's little need to revisit that stage. Nowadays, when it comes to modern forms of music, I genuinely seek out music that's a little less popular than whatever is on Top 40 Radio. Not because I seek to become an obscure-loving nutcase who spits upon pop fans, but for a few others: a) I'm a sap who thinks that less-appreciated musicians are due their chance to shine. b) My favorite genre is likely drone, which, for completely understandable reasons, doesn't get much airplay. c) Mainstream music has its gems, sure, but it's saturated with a lot of filler. In the underground music world, there is even more filler, but usually you can follow the guidance of a few knowledgeable people who've stepped through that terrain before. I can get a lot more out of my favorite genres this way.

However, when it comes to actually listening to the music, there is no elevated opportunity for an underground album to amaze me when compared to a popular one. Sure, I'd gladly check out an obscure free improv. artist before, say, the next Katy Perry album, but if I heard both, I would judge them both equally on how much objective/subjective merit I feel they have. In some cases I may question the simplicity of the pop arrangement of Mrs. Perry's music, but I won't bring her popularity into the mix. Bringing 'popularity' into actual musical discussion is one of the main reasons why I hate talking about The Beatles. Popularity to get to new music? That's great. Popularity to talk about it? Not so much.

To be clear I wasn't talking about bands changing their sound to be more mainstream. I'm just talking about either not liking a band anymore after (and because of) a sudden influx of fans, or purposely avoiding getting into a band because they're already popular.

I'm inclined to say no, though in some roundabout way that also considers major label influence and how annoying the fans are, I'm sure popularity can bring a band down for me.

In that case, no.

In some cases for sure. Not because of ridiculous stubborn reasons, but because they are so over played and overused to where it just gets annoying. Nirvana was like that. Really good when it was only on college radio and the one alternative station on the am dial. Then the top 40 and rock sites got into it around the early-mid 90s, and they just got nauseating.

truthfully a little but i'm happy listening to mainstrem, indiestream, and underground

Now? I'm more open minded than to hate an artist just because they're famous. When I first started listening to music? My God.

I use to not want to listen to artists who didn't write their own music, or who autotuned their lyrics because of them not genuinely expressing themselves (and, in the autotune case, their voices), so I taught myself to hate them. For example, I literally use to want to kill Rhianna because i saw her as manufactured and taught myself to hate her music.

Now, I admit to her being "eh" for the most part with a few good songs. I'm still not a fan, but I definitely wouldn't kill her. Don't get me wrong, I DO hate it when an artist puts songs on an album that were almost scientific attempts at reaching a certain demographic, with no personal connection whatsoever, that the artist his/herself probably hates, weather that was written by them or someone else. If the artist is genuinely trying to champion someone else's composition that they found meaning in, then I have nothing against an artist using a songwriter. For example, up until Bad, Michael Jackson usually used songwriters, but his music was still high-end, cream-of-the-crop pop because he truely wanted to impress himself as well as others, and rejected a lot of the stuff that was written to him. And when he did sing someone else's composition, he made sure he could relate so he could put emotion into it. In contrast, someone like Britney Spears'll never sing about anything that relates to them. She'll sing love songs and whatever else the record company sees fit. And she literally has marketing experts behind most of the tracks, and probably doesn't care about them herself. Granted, I'm glad she was able to overcome her personal problems and borderline insanity, and I respect her for that, but I still can't listen to music that screams out "impersonal." It's not as black-and-white as my 11-year-old self thought it was.

Short form: the answer is "use to. Now, I don't care."

Yes and no.

I don't mind what I listen to being popular. I do however have a problem with the popularity means its overplayed. I don't listen to much radio but there's songs that each and every time I turn the radio on is playing and that for me can unfortunately ruin a song or band even. I must admit there's times when a bands popular and often times that will keep me from checking out a band. Now not so much because I'm anti-mainstream but because I'm always scared I'll be let down and disappointed.

Sometimes when the band you love makes it big you can end up resenting all the people who put on the tshirts and name just the singles as favourite songs.

You say, you're not that much of a fan.

There's always been a tendency by indie music fans to worship bands with cult followings. I have my own obscurantist leanings because I spent several years listening to blues and reggae musicians that nobody ever heard of.

The Beatles were wildly popular from their first album release in 1963 and unless your father was following the Beatles from their Hamburg/Liverpool days of 1960-1962, I'm wondering what he's complaining about. To the Beatles credit, they refused to be predictable and continued to develop as artists, even if they were successful.

By contrast, Sting has become a boring middle of the road "adult alternative" artist since his days in the Police and has completely made me forget that his music once meant something to me.

I never really delved into it too much with him. I'll have to ask him what he meant.

never

unless they only started to stink when they hit big-time i.e. Depeche Mode

i love Duran Duran, i love Nirvana

i do dislike most current pop, but I still listen to them, anyway on the radio, just for the sake of "gettin' jiggy wit it" with da youth of today

Nah. Albeit, sometimes when people never shut up about a band or when it's played nonstop on the radio, THEN I may not like it. But for the most part, popularity never really affects me.

It doesn't necessarily effect my taste. However, when a group of people say on here favor a certain artist and you can't help but hear them I think that has some influence. My musical tastes have definatley changed since I went on here and I'm sure a lot of it is cause of peoples influences I've adapted to on here. So I guess if music is popular with my friends or people on a forum and I just so happen to like it then to that extent I guess it does effect my taste. Otherwise most of the time I discover my music outside of the influences around me.

One thing I'd like to point out, is that sometimes you can still have a passionate rant about something being overrated. I like Nirvana, but I will EASILY go into detail how I feel they're massively overrated. That doesn't mean I don't put on "Lithium" or "Milk It" or "Come As You are" ever once in awhile, and enjoy it.

People who say Nirvana are over-rated annoy me, I mean yes they were popular for perhaps the wrong reasons but their music was still damn good. I think sometimes we get wrapped up in other parts of the band and lose our focus on the quality (and sometimes influence) of the music.

I'm one who is not going to shy away from something just because they're well known. A large number of my favourite groups are well known and 'big'.

I hope you don't think I'm saying they are overrated, because I didn't, and don't think so in the least. Just that i grew very very tired of them as they got extreme radio play.
Same as the killers. good band, but i can't listen to a cd anymore because I'm overexposed to the point of irritation.

I dont think anyone really allows a band's popularity to affect their taste, I certainly dont. I judge on the music, if the music sounds good to me then I like the band, its as easy as that.

What I do think happens though is we judge other fans based on how long they have been fans for, and then judge them as fans based on that. Obviously we use ourselves as the measure by which true fandom is judged, anyone that started listening after us are bandwagon jumpers, and anyone who started listening before us are elitists.. where as we ourselves are neither lol

Nirvana is massively overrated. They were good, just not that good.

My point, however, was that sometimes people confused saying that with hatred. I don't hate Nirvana any more, or any less, over it. However, I think that pointing out they were a decent/good band that was treated like it was monumentally good like say - Pink Floyd - is annoying. Since Nirvana has a lot less material, a lot less ambition, a lot less originality, and a lot more filler. Doesn't stop me from appreciating them.

Saying a band is overrated is not the same thing as saying they're bad. You can still like Nirvana while acknowledging that they're overrated. I bet even they thought that they were overrated.

I think nirvana is rather good, but I do think they are overrated.
As in: There's other bands that I think are better, that don't get as much credit.

is the old catch 22 a musicians progression never sits well with the hardcore fans, glass ceiling mentality if u ask me

Well, that's very closed-minded of you. It's a shame.

Because it expands your horizons and influences. It saddens me that you allow others to tell you what to like.

I'm not sure you really understand the business of music.

I invite you to guess.

In any event, you're welcome to listen to whatever you want however you want to, but I imagine you'll have a difficult time connecting with the other users of this website if you allow your interests to remain limited.

Would you share your favourite artists with us?

I think a number of those artists are very good at what they do, although it is not personally what I enjoy.

Who do you dislike most?