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Bands you have an irrational dislike of.

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Go on, be mean.

The Thompson Twins.

No idea what it is about them, they are just annoying.

2

Comments

  1. Spandau Ballet
    Bay City Rollers
    Billy Bragg
    Oasis
    Eurythmics
    American mock punk
    Sam Smith
    Take That
    Kiss
    Grateful Dead
    Drilling and vomitting versions of heavy metal
    Shrieking rawk singers

    I could go on…..

  2. Good call, Freddy – Thompson Twins: ghastly.

    I can add, just off the cuff, Anne Lennox, Runrig, Bob Dylan, Ron Wood/Rolling Stones, Steely Dan, probably lots more…

    Mind you, sometimes the dislike isn’t entirely irrational: I can make cases for the appalling overratedness, smugness and vacuity of a lot of these people. But it’s time I wouldn’t get back.

  3. Plenty for whom I have a wholly rational dislike, but if you are asking about those which set the teeth on edge for no discernible reason, the following leap to mind.

    Led Zeppelin
    The Housemartins / The Beautiful South
    Joy Division / New Order
    Fairport Convention

  4. Loads, and all irrational – no logical reason other than prejudice.
    A selection:
    – Spandau Ballet – too “nice”, too clean, and Tony Hadley comes across as a prize prat
    (although I’m latterly warming to Gary Kamp, and believe John Keeble is a great drummer)
    – Wham – girls band!
    – Nirvana – make a fine noise, but not convinced they have a position in the pantheon of greats
    – Stock, Aitken & Waterman stuff
    (The story of how the producers came together, worked stuff up, and plotted supremacy is an interesting tal. Hut what came out of the studio is far from interesting)
    – Any of the glut of 21st Century solo singers who try and fit 27 notes into a three word chorus

  5. U2 — Bono. Need I say more?
    Duran Duran — All the girls at school fancied them and not me. (Of course, in retrospect I do realise that sitting on my own in a smoke-filled sixth form common room listening to the skronkier King Crimson albums was unlikely to have them swooning over me.)
    The Strokes — WTF was all that about? I’ve never heard such derivative, workmanlike and tuneless dirges before in my life.
    Oasis — See above, but with the acknowledgment there were tunes. Somebody else’s tunes, but hey, still an improvement.

    I have a bad case of flu and it’s making me grumpy. I’ll stop there.

  6. I can only think of a few, but for some reason they really irritate.

    Queen
    They bring out my inner music snob. When people tell me they like Queen, my head responds with ‘so you don’t like music then?’ (as I said – music snobbery of the highest order & shows I am a tool!)

    The Kooks
    I am fully justified in this one. I will listen to most things, but not this – i have to leave a shop if they are playing! Totally irrationa I hear you say,l but they bring out a level of distaste i have only ever felt for politicians

    Van Morrison
    It is mainly Brown Eyed Girl i dislike, but I really really can’t abide it

    • An apprentice at work took great pleasure in sharing their Spotify wrapped.
      Most listened to band – Queen (by quite a long way over anything else)
      Most listened to song – Bohemain Rhapsody (beating number 2 by about 3:1)

      I suggested they listen to the first two albums – they came back saying “it was OK, didn’t really like it though. Only Seven Seas Of Rhye”

    • I too share your dislike of Queen and also am quick to judge anyone who professes a fondness for them. It’s that smarmy, self-conscious “look at us” theatricality of their music that I find so irritating. These days, this view has got me accused of homophobia more than once. I conceded Freddie Mercury was a very fine front man, but, dear god, the music the whole band produced is unforgivable.

      That, and the fact that Boh Rhap was number one for what seemed like a entire decade when I were a lad and you couldn’t bloody avoid it on’t wireless, ever.

        • I don’t mind anyone thinking I have bad musical taste because I like Queen. This is largely because I know that I don’t have great musical taste (I have far too many KISS CDs for me to argue otherwise). I’m perfectly fine with this state of affairs.

          I can also understand why people don’t like Queen: their music is overproduced, camp, theatrical etc. And even I don’t really like the stuff they did after The Works. But again, to build on the point I made below, it’s the things that you folks don’t like about them that I like. I like the theatricality and the pomposity and the camp. They were never boring. The older I get the more I want pop music to entertain me. And that’s what Queen wanted to do more than anything else. This is band who wrote a song called “Let Me Entertain You” after all.

      • I can see that they are very good musicians (whoever the mandolin player was especially) but they just grate. Martin Carthy I also really like. I think the band is possessed by an evil spirit that consumes all who play with it.

    • Had Cliff just paused after releasing Move It, and then met a tragic end (perhaps in a car accident on a wet B road en route to his next gig in Horsham or somewhere) he would still be regarded -genuinely- as Britain’s answer to Elvis.

      Instead, we got “Travelling Light”. Oh well.

  8. Only one for me: Ed Sheeran. I’ve had an entirely irrational dislike of him since he first appeared.

    True, his music and songs do nothing for me, but then so do lots of other artists’. By all accounts he’s a nice guy and great to work with, he clearly knows his way around a pop song, and he helps good causes. Regardless of all this, he leaves me completely cold.

    He didn’t help himself with his turn in Game of Thrones and his silly comments about Do They Know It’s Christmas, but on the other hand he’s worth a gazillion pounds and has a crazy amount of awards and fans, so I suppose he can rise above my criticism.

  9. I may have mentioned before: I have an irrational dislike of Talk Talk.
    And Deacon Blue.

    No point in trying to justify it – it’s irrational but no less visceral.
    (I’ll get me coat…)

    • I can see the Deacon Blue thing. They had a cringe factor with songs like Dignity and Fergus Sings the Blues but crossed the line for me with “do what I should have did”. He was an ex teacher FFS.

      • Scotland, unfortunately, had a real problem in the 80s with dour, self-righteous, clenched-buttock singers in floppy haircuts doing angular moves in bomber jackets rolled up to the elbows with deeply, deeply unappealing songs that: (a) seemed to appeal to Scots of their era as if they were national anthems for the second coming; (b) sounded like a load of po-faced kak to the rest of us. Chief among these were R**rig and D**con Bl**. Ghastly.

  11. Off the top of my head:

    Radiohead
    Ed Sheeran
    Sam Smith
    Robyn Hitchcock
    Anyone who does breathy, jazz-lite ironic cover versions of punk classics
    Frank Zappa
    Father John Misty

  12. Irrational..? I think there is usually some underlying reason, but here goes…

    The Proclaimers – I want to listen in stereo, not watch
    Judas Priest – stupid name
    AC/DC – terrible vocals
    Status Quo – just because. Pictures of Matchstick Men is ok though.

    • Now hang on, surely no-one can irrationally dislike Status Quo. OK, everything since the 90s has been a bit sh*t, but it’s Quo … oh, Rockin All Over The World is the wrong side of tedious. As you were.

    • The stuff that AC/DC did with the guy before the guy with terrible vocals came along is much better than the stuff they’ve done with the guy with terrible vocals.

  15. I find this a difficult question because if I don’t actively take an interest in a particular band/musician/singer my reaction is indifference rather than harbouring an active dislike. I find that to be true about myself about everything. Hating things takes energy and I have better uses for that like washing the dishes. However there is one name that will invariably cause me to lower my brows and curl my lip that name being Andrew Lloyd Webber. I’m not sure if this is irrational though or more just an understandable reaction akin to the way one automatically recoils after inadvertently treading in dog crap.

  19. I think irrational is the right word when it’s an act you know is objectively good but it just doesn’t appeal. On Steven Wilson’s Album Years they were both rather unmoved by Springsteen but they knew the records were clearly good. I’m with them on Bruce. First time I tried was Darkness OTEOT because it was the NME writers’ album of the year but it never really grabbed me. I have a few albums but I never want to put one on. I find him a rather dull individual overall.

    Also Joni, a great artist but I’m not going to play anything.

    Elvis Costello. It’s often a voice thing with those I dislike but also this worthy approach. Acts that Hepworth likes best tend to be the ones. Although he’s said he likes to play the trilogy of Grace Jones albums and Joy Division’s Closer and I’m with him there.

  21. The Thrills win this for me by a mile.

    Franz Ferdinand

    Red Hot Chilli Peppers – I think it was Mike Scott who said something along the lines of… How come wherever I am in the world, whenever I ask what’s that shite on the radio? the answer is always the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

    Maroon 5

    Black Eyed Peas

    Mumford and Sons

    I’d better step away from this thread or I’ll be here all day.

  22. Björk
    Queen
    Anyone performing a song by Stephen Bloody Sondheim. Grrrrrr….
    Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Jack Jones (not the trade union leader), Andy Williams, Sammy Davis Jr – that entire genre of singers, really.

  24. Rush. I dunno, it’s… everything about them. Pretentious lyrics. Double neck guitars. Screechy vocals. Drum solos. Goblins. Capes, probably. Mostly though it’s the triumph of virtuosity over feel. Just because you can play like that doesn’t mean you should.

    Oh, and Springsteen. Basically Meatloaf but without the sense of humour.

  27. I’m thinking there’s too many bands/artists on here that you are listing because you actually don’t like them.
    The OP was after those who you grudgingly admit are, in fact, ok but for whatever reason you hate.
    I hate The Cure because of that knobhead’s hair. I rest my case.

    • I’ve always liked the Cure’s music, but would love to say to Robert Smith (and Simon Gallop, the bass player) for goodness sake, please get your hair cut. Practically any other style would look better and more importantly, make me like them even more.

  28. The sainted Kate Bush
    Steely Dan no mirth no worth
    Paul Weller too worthy
    Pet Shop Boys too wordy no tuney
    All pale, pasty mid 80s nice hair, nice suits, nice knitwear – Prefab Sprout , Paddy Outoftoon, Blow Monkeys, Orange Juice, Waterboys, Lloyd Cole you get the picture
    Dexys in all its pretentious incarnations
    Hair (gel) metal and fiddly widdly guitars
    Post 1970 Eric Clapton
    Pre 2026 Van Morrison
    Kate Bush

  29. But despite never hearing a note by Scouting for Girls I can have an irrational dislike of them because I dislike their name, but then of course I’m rationalising why I dislike them.

    I recall Twisted Sister on the Tube and the ‘singer’ wiping his make up off saying people didn’t like their music because he was wearing make up (some such bollocks anyway). Again my dislike wasn’t irrational because I thought at the time they weren’t liked because they were shit.

    Irrational surely is looking at a photograph of a band and disliking their look without hearing them.

    Pencil is right I reserve a healthy dose of indifference to a lot of the bands listed above as I’ve never heard a note of lots of them.

  31. Fairground Attraction for me. Maybe it is because the first time i heard perfect coincided with me being laid low with a bad bout of flu but the very sound of Edie Readers voice brings me out in a cold sweat. Is this irrational? I am not sure but it is very real to me.

  32. Any new band that is raved about by critics and who will probably never make a third album because by then another new band will have appeared.

    And probably another.

  33. Yes, indifferent to a lot of bands is possibly the best way to describe things.

    That and irritation. Some bands irritate. In particular The Flaming Lips, and even more in particular their leader Wayne Coyne. Their music doesn’t interest me and his attitude of forced eccentricity and performance art grate on my tits no end.

    I attach a clip below of the estimable Beck singing his excellent long droning ballad ‘Round The Bend’. Coyne is on stage with him for some reason and decides to stand behind him whirling a light bulb round his head for the duration, distracting everyone. If I’d been singing, I’d have sang it twice through until the show off bastard’s arm fell off.

      • I their strong defence, I saw them in Hull in our City of Culture year, and it was one of the best live concert experiences I’ve ever had. My friend, who’s seen untold numbers of gigs in town, rates it as the absolute best she’s ever witnessed.

  34. As above, I don’t think my dislike of any musical act is “irrational”, being based always on solid foundations.*
    Football teams, on the other hand..
    (*It’s notable how many artists whose music you have no time for turn out to be alright geezers and lasses. Someone mentioned Gary Kemp way up there and watching the recent Live Aid documentary I found myself thinking “I could go for a pint with that guy”)

      • Yes, he seems like a really decent sort, always enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the interviewee’s career (just like Guy).

        He often pops up in 1980s/Blitz Club documentaries and articles and treats his and Spandau’s part in that era with a rather charming mixture of pride and “What *were* we like, eh?”

        I wasn’t a big fan of ver Ballet back in the day (Duran Duran all the way for me in that particular argument), but I picked up a 3CD compilation after GK won me over with the Rockonteurs. It showed that he can really write a tune. I’ll Fly For You might not be as well known as the classics Gold (Gold!) or True, but for me it’s a terrific piece of work. Long may his kilt-and-puffy-shirt-type-combo fly.

        • I like GK a lot. I bought his last solo album which is good if a bit serious but it was a lockdown album I think. His one recorded in Ireland is a complete surprise after ver Ballet (whose greatest hits is a great album).

          His autobiography is excellent too.

  35. This is probably based on whether I liked them in interviews etc – some of their music might be astonishing for all I know but I’m not going to go further into any back catalogues any time soon for :

    Kanye or Wheezy or whatever he is known as now.
    Sam Smith
    Lenny Kravitz

    I think it’s because they try too hard to appear extraordinary but my sense is they are not and have been very very lucky, particularly if a good song has come their way.

    I used to actively dislike Dire Straits but my heart’s not in it any more – life’s too short. I have accepted that Money for Nothing wasn’t Mark speaking his truth, as I had thought at the time. I think he now says it was from an overheard conversation at a truck stop.

  36. Wot, no Radiohead? They are objectively a very talented band, but ‘Thom’ is my absolutely irrational hate…his ‘voice’, his demeanour, his eminently punchable face…and that fucking ‘h’. Bastard.

  37. Any hatred of various musical acts is rational in most cases as far as I am concerned. Now I am retired I have escaped working in an office where KISS FM or Greatest Hits Radio was played. The limited playlists quickly bred contempt through over-familiarity. I couldn’t name many of the artists/songs that I heard but I can say that I never want to hear George Fucking Ezra ever again, nor Dua Lipa/Elton John’s duet and Ed Sheeran can fuck right off!

  38. Am I the only person who’s becoming more and more tolerant about music with each year that goes by? Sure, lots of artists that I don’t actively choose to listen to, but when I listen to the radio (which is 7 hours per day, at work, not by choice) I constantly hear songs and artists that I used to despise and now I find myself thinking “this isn’t that bad, actually” and ending up humming along quite cheerfully.
    I can even tolerate Neil Young on the radio, safe in the knowledge that I won’t have to hear his voice again for the next few months or so!

    • I’m more tolerant of older stuff, although Queen tries my patience, largely due to over exposure. Newer material is less easy to get on with, maybe it’s the production. No matter, if it’s on the radio, there’ll be something else along in a few minutes. Fortunately, most of my colleagues are over 50 so aren’t listening to whatever is in the charts these days.

  39. Jethro Tull
    Queen
    The Clash
    Paul Weller/ The Jam
    Billy Bragg ( I feel regret at at this as we were once “comrades” of a sort, but ‘Sexuality” is by far the worst pop song I have ever heard: like a trendy vicar teaching a sex education class)

      • As I’ve mentioned before on this forum, the line in Sexuality that really grates is when he says, “I’ve had relations with girls from many nations.” I think to myself: no you haven’t, mate – you’ve got a face like a frightened spatula.

        “I’ve made passes at women of all classes” – careful, now!

          • Of course, he has now “updated” some of the later lyrics, from “Just because you’re gay, I won’t turn you away. If you stick around, I’m sure that we can find some common ground” to “Just because you’re they, I won’t turn you away. If you stick around, I’m sure that we can find the right pronoun”.
            Doesn’t even scan properly.

          • There was a Mitsubishi Zero car. It was a limited edition (only 50 produced) of the late 90s Evo VI rally car. Maybe Billy Bragg is a car obsessive because it was a very niche product. Or he was desperate for a rhyme. It was actually called the Zero Fighter, which seems like a woeful lapse in taste. Oh, and Phill Jupitus was BB’s roadie for a while. I saw them both at Brighton Top Rank some time in the 80s (PB doing his woeful Porky the Poet act).

  41. Randomly plucked but sure there are many..

    Texas- think they are something credible (especially Sharleen, she’s an egomaniac) but had 1 good song right at the start and then a load of insipid crap, just got lucky because Chris Evans fancied Sharleen and played their songs to death

    Bruce Springsteen – Meatloaf with a pick up truck

    Florence and the Machine – you can’t be singing like that deliberately surely?
    See also Tom Waits

    Elvis Costello – too clever by half. Too clever even to write any tunes

    Stereophonics- like shooting fish in a barrel but worse than Hitler

  42. Elvis Presley.
    I know he’s the root inspiration of many, and the sheer excitement generated when he was first seen and heard. But a Best Of will suffice.

    ELO.
    More to do with Jeff Lynne’s name dropping, but I really don’t need to hear Mr Blue Sky again.

  43. Eventually, every act who ever made a record will appear in this thread. But I am not participating, my New Year’s resolution is to be more positive about things I like and to shun negativity

    • @Foxnose

      The AW equivalent Godwin’s Law states that no thread will attract more than three replies before its original posting parameters are trampled over.

      Bands/Acts that leave me cold despite my having bought albums to try and see what the fuss was about include (but are not limited to):

      Crowded House
      Radiohead
      Taylor Swift

  47. The classic ‘irrational’ dislike I have is REM. I own several of their albums, and I can see they’re a quality group, but in the words of the focus-group guy on Frasier…I just don’t like them. I think it goes back to a few interviews I read with them, where they were incredibly condescending to the journalists. Mike Mills also has rubbish specs and a naff beard.

  48. So – who is the most irritating band/artist for the Afterword? Let’s add up the scores.

    In joint 5th, covering all the eras:
    AC/DC, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Clash, ELO, Elvis Costello, Elvis Presley, Hue & Cry, Kasabian, Kate Bush, Paul Weller, Pet Shop Boys, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Scouting for Girls, Status Quo, Steely Dan, Thompson Twins, U2

    In 4th place:
    Anne Lennox/Eurythmics, Billy Bragg, The Cure (oh you fickle people), Mumford and Sons, R**r*ig, Sam Smith, Spandau Ballet, Steeleye Span, Stereophonics, Talk Talk, Van Morrison

    Coming in at number 3, it’s the 90s:
    Oasis, Radiohead

    That coveted number 2 position (in all senses):
    Deacon Blue, Ed Sheeran

    And the number one irritating band for the Afterword is:
    Queen

    (Dis)honourable mention for
    * 21st Century solo singers who try and fit 27 notes into a three word chorus
    * American mock punk
    * Anything synth pop and shoulder pads.
    * Breathy, jazz-lite ironic cover versions of punk classics
    * Drilling and vomiting versions of heavy metal
    * Hair (gel) metal and fiddly widdly guitars
    * Shrieking rawk singers
    * Stock, Aitken & Waterman stuff

    A spreadsheet of all 128 acts will be shared with KFD so that selected cuts can be posted in a follow-up thread.

      • I feel we should take to the stage and sing, ps. Sing our hearts out in a duelling overblown duet set to some trite melody, maybe dressed as cats or rollerskating trains, or both.

        Sadly, nobody else joined you in a scathing indictment of the Knight of musical theatre.

        I haven’t commented at all on this thread because this is not a sad day, it is a beautiful day, it is a new day. We are together. We are unified, and all for the cause. Because together, we got power. Apart, we got pow-wow. Today on this AW blog, you will hear gospel. And rhythm and blues and jazz. And piss poor musical numbers. All those are just labels. We know that music is music.

          • I feel you. Ironically, as an outlier among outliers, we all know what that’s like, even if we can’t share your unique perspective. I, for example, had never heard or heard of Sam Smith until he was soundly trashed by several fellow Afterworders. Now I find Sam (let’s avoid pronouns altogether), rather entertaining. Result! Pariah!

            • Sam Smith’s parents ran/run the pub in the village next to the village where I lived as a teenager. There’s at least one table in the pub made from a wagon wheel hanging by chains from the ceiling’s oak beams. Isolated up on a hilltop, it can get a bit Wuthering Heights up there when it is foggy.

              I went to secondary school round the corner from the pub where George Ezra’s mum worked behind the bar of the Old Barge pub next to the river.

  49. I am aware that this is a possibly ironic comment but is it not worrying that a negative thread ( though I think the ‘irrational’ adjective was designed to avoid it) has led to so many finding the energy to bang away on their keyboard. How about you take the trouble to write about something productive. The casual dismissal of talented people who did years of work is… I don’t know… disappointing from those on a site that on the whole has always avoided the worst darkness of the web. I am of the view that artists should be respected. Whitney Houston had technique but no feeling? Do you mean that you didn’t enjoy her music?

    While I’m banging on, this is why I find my own partisanship in sport to be something I am wanting to get beyond. I took too much pleasure in Virat Kohli’s failures in the test series.

      • I agree.
        I dislike Abba, Queen, Kate Bush, everything Prog, Meatloaf (contd p94) but that’s because I don’t like them.
        I truly, madly and deeply dislike The Cure because of the very stupid hair. Now THAT’S irrational.

    • As I said up thread despite never hearing a note by Scouting for Girls I can have an irrational dislike of them because I dislike their name. Just because of the name I wouldn’t seek out anything by them, same for the Pigeon Detectives.

      I didn’t like Cockney Rebel in the seventies because the singer looked like the class bully.

      I can’t have a view about Whitney Houston as I’ve only ever heard that song and nothing else. I haven’t listened to ‘pop’ music radio since the eighties apart from working in an office for a couple of months a few years ago where the radio was playing, it was playing I wasn’t listening.

  50. There are any number of musicians, most of whom were mentioned above, who I think are just bloody awful, so my reasons for disliking them are fair, so far as I’m concerned. However, my hatred of Dexys Midnight Runners is different and pretty much entirely irrational. It’s got nothing to do with Kevin Rowlands’ ridiculous voice and, well, any number of other perfectly sensible reasons to dislike them, such as their lack of regard for apostrophes or that absurd po-faced manifesto. No, the real reason I always hated Dexys was because of their guitarist/banjo player and his stupid exaggerated style of strumming. That was it.

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