# Artists who most alienated their fanbases **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 28, 2008, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452 "2008-02-28T02:10:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2008, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/61 "2008-02-28T20:18:53Z")
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn] Ah, you might be right- I was ten at the time and since I thought it was real, maybe I assumed everyone else did. 🙂 [/QUOTE] I thought so, too, until my dad told me, when I was about ten. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/62 "2008-02-28T20:29:44Z")
Roseanne Barr had been loveable (by some) as a sloppy, irreverent comedienne and prime time Mom. Then she got sloppy and irreverent with the national anthem, made dubious claims involving incest, bashed the gay community, just pretty much couldn’t shut up about anything, really… and everything changed. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2008, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/63 "2008-02-28T20:43:46Z")
[QUOTE=lisacurl] Garth Brooks is a big dumb asshole, but Tricia Yearwood is only like two years younger than him and his first wife. [/QUOTE] True dat. I meant “newer model” as in “newer model” – fresh and different, not necessarily younger. And :eek: a google search on Sandy Brooks brought up an incident from 2006 where she claimed she was kidnapped by a gang member. Turns out the gang member was her 28-year-old boyfriend, angry at being dumped. Maybe Garth had the right idea. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2008, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/64 "2008-02-28T21:18:48Z")
John Lennon: We’re more popular than Jesus. Cause a huge controversey in its day. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2008, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/65 "2008-02-28T21:21:11Z")
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas] John Lennon: We’re more popular than Jesus. Cause a huge controversey in its day. [/QUOTE] Which was funny, becasue he was 100% correct, and he didn’t say cooler, smarter or better, just more popular- the outrage at it is puzzling. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/66 "2008-02-28T21:25:09Z")
Rosie O’donnell ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/67 "2008-02-28T21:29:32Z")
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas] John Lennon: We’re more popular than Jesus. Cause a huge controversey in its day. [/QUOTE] Wasn’t around then, but i don’t think Lennon alienated his _fanbase_. ISTM, the folks actually angry about this comment were bible-thumping christians who were already anti-rock & roll and anti-Beatles, and who were just waiting for an excuse to attack the band. I imagine that actual fans of the Beatles likely either took it in stride or applauded Lennon’s irreverence. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/68 "2008-02-29T00:00:12Z")
[QUOTE=lieu] Roseanne Barr had been loveable (by some) as a sloppy, irreverent comedienne and prime time Mom. Then she got sloppy and irreverent with the national anthem, made dubious claims involving incest, bashed the gay community, just pretty much couldn’t shut up about anything, really… and everything changed. [/QUOTE] You forgot the topper: she got sloppy and irreverent with her successful TV show and ran it into the ground. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/69 "2008-02-29T01:34:34Z")
**Zen Beam** , I think you’re remembering about VH’s Diver Down album. Although I can’t remember the reception it got, it does remind me how much Van Halen changed after David Lee Roth. It went from being straight ahead hard rock to synth heavy pop rock. VH is a lot like Metallica; a big change in sound earned them a much larger audience, but you only seem to hear from old fans who miss the old sound. ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/70 "2008-02-29T01:57:32Z")
[QUOTE=ZebraShaSha] Liars are perfect for this discussion. They debuted with an amazing dance punk number, that wasn’t all that fresh or original but it was good enough to garner them international attention. Their second was a giant middle finger to anyone who liked the first, as it was a brooding, intentionally dada affair about witches, the occult, etc. [/QUOTE] I love [that record](http://www.amazon.com/Drums-Not-Dead-CD-DVD/dp/B000EJ9VUW/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1204250134&sr=8-2). ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/71 "2008-02-29T02:11:51Z")
Weezer didn’t do themselves any favors when they released the Green Album after five years of no new releases…and it was 28 minutes long. ---
**Author:** ![pesch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pesch/32/4925_2.png) [@pesch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pesch)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/72 "2008-02-29T03:40:52Z")
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn] Which was funny, becasue he was 100% correct, and he didn’t say cooler, smarter or better, just more popular- the outrage at it is puzzling. [/QUOTE] To paraphrase the Rutles “documentary”: “People bought their records, just to burn them.” ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/73 "2008-02-29T03:46:16Z")
[QUOTE=Morbo] Weezer didn’t do themselves any favors when they released the Green Album after five years of no new releases…and it was 28 minutes long. [/QUOTE] Pretty much each of Weezer’s releases after the first album has been the equivalent of hitting their fans in the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Yet they (OK, we) still keep coming back. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/74 "2008-02-29T04:12:20Z")
I think the usual Piers Anthony progression as one goes through his books is to think “Hey, this is kind of interesting”. Then the pause. Then the :dubious: look. Then the pushing away of the book with a long stick. Everyone seems to get there eventually. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/75 "2008-02-29T04:18:05Z")
Axl Rose. I’m sure that will turn around as soon as the album comes out. ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/76 "2008-02-29T04:51:06Z")
[QUOTE=Morbo] **Weezer** didn’t do themselves any favors when they released the Green Album after five years of no new releases…and it was 28 minutes long. [/QUOTE] Oooh, great one. I can’t believe I didn’t think of them. I loved the first two albums (the second one had to grow on me, but still). Then after five years not only was it 28 minutes long, but the music (while somewhat catchy) was really plain and really lazy. Every single guitar solo was just the melody from the verse. Boring! Maladroit was ok, and I started to have a bit of hope for the future, but then BAM came Make Believe, and all was lost. At that point I reclassified Weezer as not a great band with a couple duds, but as a mediocre band with a couple of good ones. And while I’m on a roll, **Kevin Smith** got the exact same reclassification in my mind after I saw Jersey Girl. Fortunately he redeemed himself with Clerks 2 (which I almost didn’t bother seeing - Jersey Girl was so bad it not only made me hate Kevin, but made me disinterested in movies of any sort). Edit: And I guess I’ll be the one to ask again. What’d \*\*Rosie O’Donnell \*\*and/or **Axl Rose** do? Please don’t make me work, note the username. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/77 "2008-02-29T05:26:54Z")
I haven’t been in the US for a long time and don’t see any American daytime TV, but based on what I read here and elsewhere, once Rosie O’Donnell became the main host of _The View_, she steadily became more extreme in her opinions and generally nastier to anyone who questioned her. The change was pretty striking to me. The last time I’d seen her was in _A League of Their Own_ and on various talk shows in the early '90s, and she always reminded me of one of my aunts: loud and opinionated, but quick to laugh about anything and always totally lovable and sweet to everyone. That was the image of her I had until about a dozen years later when I watched a YouTube clip of _The View_ where she was wishing Anna Nicole Smith would disappear for good (a few weeks before Smith died), and I couldn’t believe how completely she’d changed. ‘Mean’ was probably the only was to describe how she looked. Mean and angry. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/78 "2008-02-29T05:32:42Z")
[QUOTE=Slacker] Oooh, great one. I can’t believe I didn’t think of them. I loved the first two albums (the second one had to grow on me, but still). Then after five years not only was it 28 minutes long, but the music (while somewhat catchy) was really plain and really lazy. Every single guitar solo was just the melody from the verse. Boring! Maladroit was ok, and I started to have a bit of hope for the future, but then BAM came Make Believe, and all was lost. At that point I reclassified Weezer as not a great band with a couple duds, but as a mediocre band with a couple of good ones. And while I’m on a roll, **Kevin Smith** got the exact same reclassification in my mind after I saw Jersey Girl. Fortunately he redeemed himself with Clerks 2 (which I almost didn’t bother seeing - Jersey Girl was so bad it not only made me hate Kevin, but made me disinterested in movies of any sort). Edit: And I guess I’ll be the one to ask again. What’d \*\*Rosie O’Donnell \*\*and/or **Axl Rose** do? Please don’t make me work, note the username. 😛 [/QUOTE] Axl Rose has been promising the record Chinese Democracy for something like 15 years. It’s been right around the corner for years. People stopped caring a while ago when they figured out he was too flakey to ever release a new album. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/79 "2008-02-29T06:20:09Z")
Laurell Hamilton. She wrote more than half a dozen great books in the Anita Blake series, and then used both of her series as an opportunity to write her own erotic fanfiction. Really bad, boring repetitive erotica interspersed with 30 pages of plot each her last 8 or 10 novels. Chris Carter made a lot of fans hate him with the last 4 episodes of the X-Files. Most of it amounted to petulant character assassination of most of the major characters, culminated with a frickin’ finale that was 85% _clip show_ that punished people who’d actually watched the last two seasons by only using David Duchovny’s final appearance that season to make him look like a broken wuss afraid of a date of all damn things. Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452/80 "2008-02-29T07:41:27Z")
Did **Queen** lose any significant portion of their fans when they abandoned their “no synthesizers!” rule with _The Works_? While I actually like a lot of the songs on that album, it’s a big change from much of their '70s work (maybe not so much from _Hot Space_), and it seemed to mark a change away from the playful style mixes and experimentation of their earlier albums to the more run-of-the-mill pop (to me, at least) that followed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-who-most-alienated-their-fanbases/439452.md?page=5)