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Musicians Who Hate Their Fans

The majority of musicians love their fans and are practically nothing without them. But who knew there are musicians who hate their fans? Find out the heartless artists who disrespect the people that love their music.

By C.C. CurtisPublished 6 years ago 6 min read
Top Story - October 2017
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If you listen to music (if you don't, are you even human?), then you must have some favorite artists that you always jam out to. You become fond of their style in music genre and constantly stick to whatever they release into the wild. And all we do is sit there and praise the amazing music they create. But nothing is better than seeing your dearest artists performing your favorite songs live — Ed Sheeran on stage sounds exactly like his recorded music... Unreal.

And, of course, without fans, these musicians would have never been famous. We're literally putting the money straight into their pockets just for them to produce more music — one of the ways musicians make money. It's precisely why artists adore their fans so much. However, have you ever heard of musicians hating their fans? What in the world would make a famous musician hate the fans who listen to his/her music, right? Just the thought of it make me question their whole purpose in life. But, yes, there are, in fact, musicians who hate their fans. See which famous artists can't stand their fans — for some stupid reasons.

Blues Traveler

The Blues Traveler were seen as a small jamming band that made their way across college radio stations before becoming big in 1994, when they released “Run-Around,” a song that instantly became more popular than anything else they released.

They then earned a Grammy and even were spending a record-setting amount of time on the Billboard charts. When they released another great, pop-rock song as their follow-up single “Hook,” it looked like the former band had finally caved in and sold themselves to Top 40 radio.

For musicians who hate their fans, The Blues Traveler's song “Hook” lead them in a different direction: they hated being known as hitmakers. And they hated you for making them that way.

The singer John Popper even explained how anyone will listen to any garbage that’s playing on the radio — as long as it sounds catchy. Also mentioning that you can get away with literally telling listeners that they are morons for liking the song and they would just bob their heads and sing along, anyways.

Radiohead

Radiohead is one of the more iconic bands that’s ever made music. You didn't think they would be among the other musicians who hate their fans, right?

Radiohead is like the other bands who HATE playing the same song in every live show, because they have to for their fans. Well, for them, it’s their song “Creep” that everyone loves so much.

The lead singer, Thom Yorke, even admitted that the song was the worst thing that every happened to him — adding that you can kindly “f*ck off” for suggesting to play it at a show...Ouch.

Sometimes, during a tour, he’ll make the opening act play the song because be knows that their fans want to hear it, and they don’t want to be the ones playing it.

So, if you ever come by Radiohead, don’t mention their most popular hit song “Creep” unless you want to get cursed out by them.

Beastie Boys

The Beastie Boys are also a legendary band who’ve created head-bobbing music that will never get too old. But believe it or not, their also one among other musicians who hate their fans.

If you’re one of those people who thinks of “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)” — you don’t belong at a Beastie Boys show.

Since it was meant as a satirical take on the dopey, brainless party songs of the era, like Twisted Sister’s “I Wanna Rock,” their breakthrough hit sadly went on to define the early part of the Beastie Boys’ career. They couldn’t quite escape the legions of backwards cap-wearing neanderthals who un-ironically loved their joke song.

Mike D. has even mentioned:

"We might have reinforced certain values of some people in our audience when our own values were actually totally different. There were tons of guys singing along to 'Fight for Your Right' who were oblivious to the fact it was a total goof on them."

The Beastie Boys are not fans of you if you’re a fan of them, in that case.

Justin Bieber

It’s no surprise to see that Justin Bieber as one of the musicians who hate their fans. Because his fans are undoubtably one of the biggest and craziest fanbases in the world. And if a Belieber comes across their “savior,” Justin must sprint to safety.

You can just tell that Justin doesn’t really adore his fans — there has been cases of publicly mocking fans and other things related.

Justin is the type who needs personal space, even as a highly-known musician. He’s even mentioned that being famous can “rip you apart,” because of all the action he’s taken from fans throughout his years of fame.

In current days, if you ever ask for a photo with Justin, he’ll simply deny it.

Weezer

Weezer is known to be one of the more iconic bands in the 90s, and another one of the musicians who hate their fans.

Even after all these years, lead vocalist Rivers Cuomo looks at Pinkerton as one of the worst things he’s ever done to himself — likening it to "getting really drunk at a party and spilling your guts in front of everyone," and then waking up the next morning with a terrible hangover and realizing you’ve made "a complete fool of yourself."

Not only does he hate the album, but he also hates the fans who request songs from it during a Weezer concert, viewing them as “sick in a diseased sort of way.”

He refuses to play those songs and continues to question why people still want to hear them. In fact, he wouldn’t mind Pinkerton to take a trip to the Sun and never returning.

However, he did play the album during the Memories Tour in 2010 — looks like Rivers liked money more than he hated the album.

One Direction

Even though the band split apart back in 2016, and they continue to support each other (it's beautiful), the band members still face crazy Directioners whenever they're seen out in public. But the reason why the former band members are known as musicians who hate their fans is because their fans don’t believe in release dates.

This goes for their album Midnight Memories that was leaked by fans who couldn’t wait for the album to be released in 2013.

Liam Payne even called them “little buggers” for leaking their album — but it was clear that he wanted to say much more than that.

And, similar to Justin Beiber’s fan club, Directioners are just as wild in bugging these former band members for a photo.

Liam Gallagher

There’s probably no other musician who looked down at their fans as much as Liam Gallagher — cold.

Since Liam was really into getting hammered before going on stage, he’s always called those who attend his concerts as “f*cking idiots.” Can this guy get any worse?

Sometimes, he’d even stop singing and lie down on the stage to “rest” if the crowd was singing along too loudly.

But what’s really behind Liam's hate for his fanbase is the song that really skyrocketed his band, “Wonderwall.” And he literally hates the song so much (even more than Radiohead hates “Creep”). Liam actually wants to beat up his brother for writing the song.

Once Oasis broke up, Liam vowed to never, ever, ever sing that song again.

Talk about musicians who hate their fans, huh?

John Lennon and Paul McCartney

For the song-writing partnership, John Lennon and Paul McCartney are viewed as musicians who hate their fans — they also despised each other, but kept it together for the sake of their careers.

Since most songs written for the Beatles were solo, this brought the band into huge tensions and disagreements. The songwriting would be split between two styles: Lennon’s serious, songwriting with many layers that’s nearly impossible to understand with just one listen, and McCartney’s fun writing that focuses on “silly little love songs.”

As a fan, you were either a “Strawberry Fields Forever” person or a “Hello, Goodbye,” person. There was never a single genre for the Beatles.

When the band split, the two carried on and wrote their own songs. But the two also didn’t like the fans who were fond of songs that the other wrote —making the Beatles an indecisive band. Except Ringo — who everyone loved, and he loved them back.

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About the Creator

C.C. Curtis

Enjoys lounging in NYC bars, loves traveling to foreign countries, and volunteers at the homeless shelter twice a month.

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