Bands / Artists you used to despise and now love

  • Everyone`s musical taste changes over the years. I find myself listening to music today, that I wouldn't get near to in the past. The most remarkable example is ELO. I never loved them, not because I didn't like the music, but because I didn't like the overall sound of the band. To me it all sounded, as if I was listening to the music via a tin can. The change came, when The Traveling Wilburys saw the light of day in the early nineties. I was so fond of their music, that I started to explore ELO`s musical catalogue and found out, that I could live with the sound. The early albums are different from what you regularly hear anyway.


    And then there are the Flower Kings. I had a few albums, because as a prog fan, I was supposed to love them but I couldn`t. It wasn't until I saw the dvd of the show in Tilburg from the Paradox Hotel tour, that I really started to love them. These days, they belong to my ten favourite prog rock artists.


    When I was a kid, I had a friend, who was heavily into David Bowie. I really couldn't get into his music at all. A couple of years back, I bought Ziggy Stardust for a fiver in my local discounter and got hooked. I knew all the songs from my childhood and listened to them with a completely new approach. It was amazing.


    I used to be a hater of Yes. A real hater. A friend of mine had Close To The Edge, and I ran away screaming once the quite dissonant part of the title track started. In 2004, I had a revelation. Bought the album for a fiver (again) and got hooked. I bought their complete catalogue within 6 months and listened to really nothing else in this time.

    First we learned to walk on water.

    Then we tried something harder.

    - Red Seven -

  • I suppose I have been influenced by my husband's tastes. When we first met I didn't have any time for Rush but I've heard enough of them now to enjoy them. The same goes for Aerosmith, another favourite band of his. But I couldn't really say there was any act I 'despised' & came to love, although I never liked the Bee Gees until I heard Stayin' Alive.

  • Personally I'm not into bland music or heavy metal, so basically my tastes are very conservative as music goes... Cannot pick out one artist or band to go along with this thread, though I once hated rap and country music, but their music has evolved so much, I do find them interesting now.


    One band I've tried to like is Rush, but you never know, one day maybe? ^^

  • You will be converted :D

    The only time I might like them, would be if I end up in a Coma and survive the incident. Richard Hammond( Ex Top Gear and now Grand Tour) he used to hate celery and now loves it, after his horrific crash ages ago... ^^

  • I don’t think I’ve ever done a complete 180, where I went from hating a band to loving them.


    Though in my early teens, when my friends all seemed to be collectively getting into the likes of Judas Priest, ACDC and Motorhead – I dismissed that entire head-banging genre as simplistic adrenaline-inducing crap.


    Over time, I’ve actually come to appreciate ACDC, and now have a few of their albums in my collection - there are some of the earlier ones which I quite enjoy.

  • Hum, generally speaking I have grown a lot more tolerant towards any music with German lyrics. I used to like only music with English lyrics, I was so used to listen to it, even before I knew any word in English and I had no clue what the heck they were singing about, no matter what it was just normal that every "cool" music was in English. With German I could understand every word and I used to find it so so embarrassing. Now since I had an American girlfriend and later on I got to know more people more other countries, I started seeing my own country through their eyes, and that made me change my views on German music.

  • I was massively irritated by U2 up to and including Rattle & Hum. From the moment I saw the video of The Fly premiered on TV, I knew some major shift had occurred. From then, I bought their albums through the 90s and caught up with the earlier stuff which I still didn't much like apart from the odd few, but now viewed through much more accepting eyes. The stuff where they are regarded as having gone somewhat off-piste by many fans - Zooropa, Passengers, some of Pop, No Line - is my favourite U2 work (even the band say they think No Line was a mistake, and since that tour they have never revisited it).


    I had the rock fan's scepticism about Madonna for the first few years of her career, but gradually realised she was doing some very good-quality pop music and it re-activated my liking for pop.


    There are probably other examples; as Witchwood said above, I couldn't honestly say I actually detested any of these acts as that would be a complete 180, but certainly I found U2 very annoying and was at best indifferent to, at worst dismissive of, Madonna.

    Abandon all reason

  • Great post, Backdrifter.


    My experiences with U2 were just the other way round. I was a huge fan in the eighties and thought, that Achtung Baby was a masterpiece, but they sort of lost me after this one. I couldn't cope with Zooropa. Pop I didn`t even buy. All the albums, that came after Pop seemed to sound the same and everything, I used to love about U2, especially on Unforgetable Fire and Joshua Tree seemed to have gone. Meanwhile I keep listening to all of their stuff again quite regularly. Even Zooropa has grown on me. I think, that their last three albums were really great. Just now, I am playing No Line On The Horizon.


    I shared the rock fan`s scepticism about Madonna until I heard Dress You Up on the radio. Bought Like A Virgin and loved it.

    First we learned to walk on water.

    Then we tried something harder.

    - Red Seven -

  • I was massively irritated by U2 up to and including Rattle & Hum. From the moment I saw the video of The Fly premiered on TV, I knew some major shift had occurred. From then, I bought their albums through the 90s and caught up with the earlier stuff which I still didn't much like apart from the odd few, but now viewed through much more accepting eyes. The stuff where they are regarded as having gone somewhat off-piste by many fans - Zooropa, Passengers, some of Pop, No Line - is my favourite U2 work (even the band say they think No Line was a mistake, and since that tour they have never revisited it).


    I had the rock fan's scepticism about Madonna for the first few years of her career, but gradually realised she was doing some very good-quality pop music and it re-activated my liking for pop.


    There are probably other examples; as Witchwood said above, I couldn't honestly say I actually detested any of these acts as that would be a complete 180, but certainly I found U2 very annoying and was at best indifferent to, at worst dismissive of, Madonna.

    Great post, Backdrifter.


    My experiences with U2 were just the other way round. I was a huge fan in the eighties and thought, that Achtung Baby was a masterpiece, but they sort of lost me after this one. I couldn't cope with Zooropa. Pop I didn`t even buy. All the albums, that came after Pop seemed to sound the same and everything, I used to love about U2, especially on Unforgetable Fire and Joshua Tree seemed to have gone. Meanwhile I keep listening to all of their stuff again quite regularly. Even Zooropa has grown on me. I think, that their last three albums were really great. Just now, I am playing No Line On The Horizon.


    I shared the rock fan`s scepticism about Madonna until I heard Dress You Up on the radio. Bought Like A Virgin and loved it.

    I am pleased to read these posts - unlike the course that you both took with U2, I liked them all along! ^^ I'm a big fan of "No Line On The Horizon" too - besides the latest album (Songs Of Experience), it's my favorite post-90s U2 album. I quite like "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" too - very strong album tracks on that one. "Achtung Baby" is my all-time favorite and probably always will be. I almost always listen to it start-to-finish when I put it in the player. As much as I liked the 80s material, I still prefer the 90s material, even including the "Passengers" CD.


    I also had a mini-about-face over Madonna as well - in the 80s, her music made me quite queasy; in the 90's, esp. around "Ray of Light" and "Bedtime Stories", I almost enjoyed the songs - at least I disliked them much less than her older songs. In the new millennium, her music is pretty much a non-factor, but there was a brief moment in the mid-to-late 90s that I mildly enjoyed her music.

    Stepping out the back way, hoping nobody sees...

  • Good to hear some appreciation for U2's No Line. I think it has some of their strongest songs for quite some time by that point. It was nice to read that Slowdancer also even got to like Zooropa. Daddy's Gonna Pay remains a real favourite for me, it's something you could play to many neutral listeners or non-fans who'd not realise it was U2. The live rendition of Dirty Day on the Zoo TV film is absolutely ferocious. I usually really appreciate when massively successful acts do a major right-angled turn like they did especially with Zooropa and more so the Passengers album. It's interesting to read in Brian Eno's diary that Original Soundtracks was always intended as an actual U2 album until their manager and the record company became very uneasy about how unrelated to their usual stuff it was, and feared they'd "confuse the fans". Eno was frustrated and commented in his diary, haven't hugely successful acts earned the right to go off the beaten path and do something different and challenging? Eventually the false band name was agreed as a compromise so it no longer seemed to be a U2 album and thus comforting the supposedly delicate and easily-baffled fans.


    Another thing they rarely get credit for is how innovative and well-designed their live shows are. Peter Gabriel has said in interviews that he'll often see a U2 show several times per tour as he always marvels at how interesting they are. The first tour I saw them on after my 'conversion' was the Zoo TV one and having already had my head turned by their new music, I had to then admire how they'd changed the stadium rock experience. I saw it a second time so I could fully encompass everything that was going on. It remains one of the high points of all my gig-going. And in that second show, their performance of Mysterious Ways and Bono's theatrics during it, were an absolute joy. I know he gets a lot of flack and even he acknowledges he can be a complete prick but the plain fact is, he is a natural-born rock star.


    My Madonna turning point came in about 1986, hearing Like A Virgin on the radio; obviously it was already out for 2-3 years before that and I'd heard it many times before, but hearing it that particular moment for some reason I suddenly tuned into what a good piece of pop music it is. Then I heard Express Yourself which I quite liked, and what finally did it was Live To Tell. From Like A Prayer onwards I became a firm fan and I agree that the 90s era, especially the albums you mentioned above OFTV, are her peak - she was producing some genuinely intelligent and interesting pop music by that point. After that she kind of cruised along and apart from another peak with the Confessions album (and a great tour behind it) her work has mainly been quite dull and way too in thrall to current R&B stars and styles, aside from the occasional good tune.


    Having seen her on stage a few times and many times on TV for the more recent tours, I've always found she's at her best when all the spectacle (enjoyable as it can be) is stripped away and she's just standing and singing - ie when she becomes simply the frontwoman of a band. I've always wished she'd challenge herself by just doing a very basic tour without all the paraphernalia, but she's said before there's little chance of this, which is a shame.

    Abandon all reason

    Edited once, last by Backdrifter ().

  • Great post! I wholeheartedly agree!


    ZooTV revolutionized touring, period. Having a mini-stage in the middle of the floor seating area wasn't done by acts before ZooTV; very many stadium performing acts (and some arena touring ones too, including U2) started using the idea for themselves after ZooTV - it's an effective way to get a little intimacy in a large setting.


    IMHO, "No Line" was U2's "The Unforgettable Fire" for the new millennium - i.e., the album that signaled a sharp change in direction for the band. "Achtung Baby" had that function as well in the 90s. The tour supporting "No Line" also was visionary - the U2360 tour had what they called "the claw" on that tour - they figured out a way to have a large object in the middle of a stadium which somehow made a stadium show feel more intimate than a stadium show. I'm still kind of blown away by the effect it had - I saw that show three times, but it didn't feel overwhelming in size like most stadium shows I have been to. I agree with Mr. Gabriel that you have to see a U2 show multiple times in order to fully "get it" (i.e., because there was so much forethought going into the shows design that seeing one show may not be enough to grasp it all) - and for that reason, they are the one touring act remaining that I insist on seeing multiple shows on the same tour.


    "Live To Tell" and "Express Yourself" caught my ear too - when I heard them, I found myself thinking, "Wait! I don't hate this." Maybe I should back up to the "Like A Prayer" album (which I think came out in '89 (?)) and give her credit for most of the 90s then...


    I also agree about the power of, at least temporarily, stripping back during a show. Having an entire show stripped back is a different thing altogether, and that approach works for many acts. However, with an act that achieves a large level of popularity where a level of spectacle has to be employed, just from the size of the venues as much as anything else, it is refreshing when the act reduces an occasion to a more intimate level. That was the thinking behind the b-stage for U2 as well. So, yes, it's always good to remind everyone that the act is why everyone has congregated in one place for an evening, not just the glitz.

    Stepping out the back way, hoping nobody sees...

  • Regarding U2 my perception is that at a certain point it became 'cool' to loathe them. Personally, I believe that purely in terms of songwriting, because as far as musicianship go there can be objections, they are up there with the great bands of the 60s and 70s, with the difference that they lasted for decades with an intensity, fire and passion unknown to others and I would include Genesis, my favorite band, amongst those others. Sure, Bono is polarizing and preachy but when all is said and done, he is imo one hell of a singer.

  • Regarding U2 my perception is that at a certain point it became 'cool' to loathe them. Personally, I believe that purely in terms of songwriting, because as far as musicianship go there can be objections, they are up there with the great bands of the 60s and 70s, with the difference that they lasted for decades with an intensity, fire and passion unknown to others and I would include Genesis, my favorite band, amongst those others. Sure, Bono is polarizing and preachy but when all is said and done, he is imo one hell of a singer.

    Completely agreed.


    Since the 90s, he hasn't really been preachy on-stage anymore either - off-stage, yes; on-stage, no. The last two tours (i.e., the JT anniversary tour last year and this year's SOE tour), he's become more political on-stage again, but that's a logical reaction to the 2016 election. So, more power to him, IMHO... 8)

    Stepping out the back way, hoping nobody sees...

  • Despise is pretty strong I guess but when I first heard Rush I tought they were the worst band I'd ever heard. I was 14 and my fave band was Motorhead, ands the first ush track I heard was New World Man, so that aybe why. I went on to love them, and to consider them one of the best heavy prog acts of all time.


    Supertramp is another. They used to irritate the crap out of me, but when I actually listened to Crime of the century I appreciated their genius.

  • ^ Interesting - Supertramp is a band I've never massively disliked but also never really had that 'click' with them. I hear the occasional track and it's okay, and I recall quite liking Crisis - the opening two tracks were a highlight for me.


    I still feel frustrated that I wasted the last couple of chances to see Rush in the UK. I had a sort of on-off liking of them but on the whole I'd say I was a fan.

    Abandon all reason

  • ^ Interesting - Supertramp is a band I've never massively disliked but also never really had that 'click' with them. I hear the occasional track and it's okay, and I recall quite liking Crisis - the opening two tracks were a highlight for me.


    I still feel frustrated that I wasted the last couple of chances to see Rush in the UK. I had a sort of on-off liking of them but on the whole I'd say I was a fan.

    I've seen Rush maybe five times. Wonderful band, but one I almost prefer listening to at home, rather than in some enormous arena where they seemed to suffer terrible sound. I guess as their own hearing declined over the years they felt they had to crank everyting up to 11! With so much going on at the top end in their music, at that volume they used to distort really badly. That said, I will never forget seeing them perform La Villa Strangiato and Xanadu live. Glorious music.

  • I was generally able to make sure I got really good seats at the front and never had any sound problems, bar one occasion on the R30 tour when I was at the very top, at the back, on one side.


    If i were to list my gig 'moments', one would be Subdivisions, second song in, right at the front on the Hold Your Fire tour. All I can say is: stunning.

    Abandon all reason