A Tale of Some of The World's Disliked Musical Acts

Previously, I wrote about probably one of the most hated musical acts in the world, the Canadian band Nickelback. In that article, I explained how their often over-used song formula played the role of their constant hate, mockery and ridicule by the masses. But there are many musical acts that don't necessary have to have generic music in order to be hated. Many musicians are slammed simply because of their unusual way to be famous, their musical inability, or simply because of attitude problems.

In the rock and metal realm, one of the most hated bands besides the previously mentioned Canadians is Limp Bizkit. This American Nu Metal band was responsible for the early rise of the genre, along with Korn. The primary source of hatred towards this band is mainly their vocalist Fred Durst. Durst is known to be quite obnoxious on a few occasions. He even stated that he once had relationships with Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, although both singers denied this. His infamous example of explosive personality happened during their tour supporting Metallica in 2003. After just six songs, Durst errupted in a profane, homophobic tirade after the fans chanted 'f--k Fred Durst' and throwing debris onstage. He was later sued in a class-action lawsuit for not completing the show, evidenced on the fact that he actually threw the microphone and walk out from the stage after the tirade. We also mentioned Metallica, who prior to the release of their self-titled album in 1991 was the biggest Thrash Metal band in the 80s, they even considered as the "Big Four" bands of the genre, alongside fellow Californians Megadeth and Slayer, as well as New Yorkers Anthrax. Since then, they became the most disliked band after the release of the abysmal St. Anger which dubbed as the weakest Metallica record ever, before the hate even escalated during the band's (Mostly represented by drummer Lars Ulrich) feud with the file sharing website Napster and their collaboration album with Lou Reed, titled LuLu, which spawned the "I am the table" meme. The meme itself originating from the lyrics of one of the songs on the album, titled The View. Guns n' Roses also picked up hate based on both the frontman Axl Rose's erratic behavior and their Chinese Democracy Album. Axl is known for his apparent inability to co-exist with is band mates, most notably legendary guitarist Slash, which lead to the latter's departure form the band. He is also a bit temperamental, as shown in one of GNR's concert, which he stopped mid-song, went on a rant before storming off stage. Perhaps the best example of the most hated band in the rock and metal world is British Metalcore band Bring Me The Horizon (BMTH for short). Why are they hated is because of their musical evolution. After the release of Sempiternal, they allegedly gone soft, and considered 'sold out' to the mainstream audience. Their plan to collaborate with various pop singers only made the case worse for them. The metal community considers a band a "sell out" when the band in question release either a single or a full album that targets mainly for mainstream audiences and to attract radio stations to play their songs.

The hate didn't just present itself in the heavy side of the musical spectrum. Hip-hop also has some of the most hated singers and rappers in this genre alone. Two of those in question are Kanye West and Lil Wayne. West's questionable behavior first witnessed during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, which he infamously interrupted Taylor Swift's award acceptance speech for Best Female Video. He even tried to do the same during the 2015 Grammy Awards when Indie Rocker Beck snatched Album of The Year Award. As a result, many other artists condemned and criticized him. He is also declared himself as the 'greatest rockstar' and declaring that rap is the new rock. This statement eventually responded by Slipknot and Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor, quickly shut him down. The last straw for Kanye was when he tried to perform Queen's eternal masterpiece Bohemian Rhapsody during his set at the Glastonbury Festival in 2015, but failed miserably in the process. Nowadays, the husband of Kim Kardashian is also facing backlash for his support for the controversial US President Donald Trump. For Lil Wayne's case, the source was almost similar to that of Nickelback's, with often generic and boring music, his actual inability with musical instruments, most notably guitar, and his lyrical content that overloaded with expletives, women, hedonism and racist speech to white and people of color.

Perhaps the Pop segment of the musical genre has the most disliked singers or even bands. When Justin Bieber released his first big hit Baby back in 2010, aside from praise, the song also garnered hate because of the repetitive nature of its chorus. During the height of his career, Bieber also caught doing the most questionable, often disgusting antics with his entourage, from spitting on his own fans from the hotel roof to actually pee'd on a janitor's bucket. He also accumulated a few driving infractions during his most famous years. Another example of questionable, often violent behavior was Chris Brown when he was arrested in 2009 over an assault charge on Rihanna, his girlfriend at the time. He is also known to be the least friendly with the fans, same with the case of Ariana Grande. Ariana is talented, let's be real. But when it comes to the fans, she confessed that they rather be dead. Ariana is not shy of disgusting behavior, once caught licking a donut in a bakery in Los Angeles, without actually buying it, or a batch of those donuts. One of the problems with artists of the genre is the presence of (often over utilized) auto-tune backed songs. There are countless songs that use this device as the means of improving the singer, and many are hated because of it. In 2011, the people was surprized by the release of the song Friday by Rebecca Black. Black was in turn hated and ridiculed because the main feature of the song is the extensive use of auto-tune, which many claim as soulless and often showed the lack of effort. The same thing can be said for the Internet sensation Jacob Sartorius. From Vines and musical.ly videos to releasing his debut single Sweatshirt in 2016, this 17 year-old American also garnered hate because of mainly his cringe inducing vines and musical.ly lip-syncing videos and his apparently auto-tuned singing voice. Overplaying an artist can also resulted in hatred, as shown by British band Coldplay. They maybe produced some memorable songs like Fix You, Viva La Vida, and The Scientist, but Coldplay has been reviewed as an overrated band with mediocre quality over their live performances. Las Vegas native Imagine Dragons is also hated as a result of constant radio play. The band can produce good songs, as evidenced with the anthemic Warriors used as an official sountrack for the 2014 League of Legends World Championships or the first ever single Radioactive which gained popularity almost instantly, but every radio plays two or three of their songs a little too much. Even the ever outspoken Corey Taylor once stated that they "took Nickelback's baton as the scapegoat of rock n' roll." One of the most known subgenre pop, electro-pop also presents its own case. Former Blood On The Dance Floor (BOTDF for short) frontman Dahvie Vanity is infamously known for his alleged sexual harrassment record involving teenage girls. He is also critisized for BOTDF's meaningless lyrical content, which involves graphic depictions of sex, hatespeech and profanity. The critics were reasonable, because at that time, most of BOTDF's main target audiences were teenage girls between 12 to 17 years old. Perhaps one of his infamous occurrences of questionable behaviour was when he feuded with Nu Metal singer Otep Shamaya over a plagiarism accusation. Otep accused Vanity for ripping off the chorus from her song Rise Rebel Resist and using it for BOTDF's Looking Hot Dangerous from their album Epic, released in 2010. As a reminder, Rise Rebel Resist was included on Otep's 2009 release Smash The Control Machine. Their recent plagiarism accusation rose when fans discovering that the opening melody of BOTDF's song Something Grimm is similar to the opening piano riff of the song The Last Night performed by the Christian Metal band Skillet.

But across all musical genres, people seems to hate an artist based on their repetitive lyrical content, which often features one or two words spoken repeatedly. Lil Pump released his first single Gucci Gang with mixed receptions. Most people will point out the repetitive nature of the song with the words "Gucci gang" being muttered multiple times across the length of the song. Taylor Swift also subjected to massive hate when her single Shake It Off was released. Multiple words and syllables are uttered multiple times on this number. She also made the case worse for her when she announced to apply for rights to own the phrase "This sick beat."

We all know that all these musicians are indeed humans. And just like us, they are subjected to mistakes and poor decision making skills, but many of us also declare hate on one artist only because of their poor decision making. I write this article by saying these musicians don't necessary deserve the hate, but because of so many negative backlash and the reason behind them, I can understand why they are hated by the masses.