Imagine Dragons, ugh, music designed for car commercials and 8th graders, fucking rip my ear drums out.

Coldplay.

Their music doesn't move me in any way (except to turn it off). Can someone please point out any good bit of any song? I'm willing to try, but everything I've heard for years is just musical mush.

KISS was mediocre rock at best. They have a few good songs. They are/were stage performers. Same with Gwar. Same with Insane Clown Posse. And KISS have done a lot to entertain their fans. They’re fine.

Most popular music is popular because a lot of people like it. I never much cared for Taylor Swift, but I decided to try her new album. I pay for music streaming, so it didn’t cost me anything. Turns out I really like most of it! Listened to her previous album and it doesn’t hit the same. So I’m not a Swiftie after all. Same with Kendrick Lamar. He was doing the Super Bowl last year so I listened to his latest album. I still play GNX from time to time.

Find what you love but don’t yuck somebody else’s yum.

hype? Pretty much any because hype is almost always artificial.

But fans? I can't say any band/performers don't deserve their fan base. You pull the crowds that need what you're making, so you inherently deserve them.

I can say that some fans do over hype the talents of what they like. It's perfectly okay to be a middle range musician, and it's perfectly fine to like them and recommend them exactly as they are.

Like, backstreet boys. Solid pop boy band. Had some great songs, but most were just okay pop. None of the members can really be compared to someone like Freddy Mercury, or Pavarotti, or Marvin Gaye, but they all had good voices to some degree or another and used them well. But their fan base back in the day was all about the hype, the fannishness of it. So they got hyped way beyond what they were.

That's the curse of a lot of pop performers, and it is the curse of teen/tween targeted pop for sure.

A lot of that kind of performer has to totally undo their family friendly (which is a bullshit term to begin with) focus to ever really grow musically. Look at pretty much every Disney escapee for examples. Timberlake, arguably the best example of someone escaping that trap without having to piss off the original fan base, still drags some of that curse with him while producing some very good pop music.

Now, KISS? Since that's the example in the post, I think you run into the trouble of hindsight. At the time they gained their initial popularity and success, they were a damn great live band. A KISS show back then was something most people had never seen, and the hype was justified

But they suffer from the success curse. Other people took what they did and did it better. So now the hype is essentially all nostalgia, so it feels out of place. Legit, go back and check out footage of their live shows and compare it to the standard rock bands of the same eras. It wasn't until they went full idiot and tried to abandon the makeup (and all that went with it) that they lost the thread. At that point, they kept trying to summon up what they'd lost and never regained their mojo. At this point, a KISS show just doesn't do justice to what the hype says. It can't, because it isn't the same band despite being mostly the same people.

But they were always mid tier songwriters (even the ones I fucking love were mid tier compared to a band like The Band that I tend to enjoy less).

So, that kind of thing is why I don't jump on hype or shit on hype. It's usually artificial, and it's also usually generated by dint of numbers. So hype never carries well.

But it's also why I never object or care about someone like Taylor Swift having a massive fan base either. She writes and performs for her target audience. She does that very well, no matter what else anyone thinks about her. Any pop performer is trying to do exactly that. Even niche subgenre performers that are actually trying to sell their music try to find a way to target a fan base (even if it's only people that would object to being called a fan base).

I would, at this point in my life, also say that at least checking out hype can be worth it. Even if you don't like whatever it is, you've shared something with other people, and that's a net positive. Plus, you might run into a few songs you do like from someone you don't otherwise enjoy (like shake it off from Swift for me)

Sex Pistols. Don’t get me wrong I like them, but they were children who made one album and were barely a band for a year. Their hype really comes down to the story of Sid and Nancy’s deaths.

Exactly my thought, Kiss is like royalty free muzak rock.

Ghost. It’s just not metal. You can be into it and I’m not going to judge you or anything, but just stop calling it metal, it’s arena rock. Sticking feathers up your ass doesn’t make you a chicken.

Not exactly what you're asking, but Nickelback was a passing good rock band with several great songs. How they became the punching bag of bad bands I'll never really understand.

If anyone says Rush, I will find you....oh yes, I will find you.

Kings of Leon? Nickelback? I'd also suggest Right Said Fred, but AFAIK they've always been derided and I'm Too Sexy is a meme at this point.

Like legitimately, I'm Too Sexy is a song you could rick-roll someone with.

Steven Patrick Morrissey. Fuck him and his whiney bitch voice. He's also an asshole.

Why is it always KISS? People are making the mistake of treating KISS as musicians. They are showmen and good at their job. The music is just the background. I saw them live once and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen.

If they put in the work establishing themselves, composing and playing music, recording, touring, and attracting a fan base, then they deserve every bit of it.

I can't stand Kiss, and about 90% of all the other bullshit out there, but its not my place in the cosmos to harsh someone else's buzz about the music they like. My tastes are extremely eclectic, and only a tiny percentage would be into the same stuff I'm into. I wouldn't tolerate criticism of my musical tastes, and I'm not about to criticize someone else's.

Like what you want, WTF should I care?

To be honest? AC/DC; they've got plenty of good songs but plenty of duds as well. It's pretty much become one of those bands that if you ask someone, who's wearing their tshirt what their favourite song/album is, they either won't be able to give you an answer, or pick a really obvious one (most likely either Highway to Hell or Hell's Bells).

It's the same with Metallica and, to a lesser extent, Iron Maiden.

Electric Callboy. Saw them live at a festival. They're sooo popular here right now, but OMG this is not Metal. This is Carnival music. Glittery idiots, techno bassline and confetti canons. I actually left their performance early.

Smashing pumpkins. Booooooring. And Billy is an ass.

Basically any 80s hair metal. Never understood how any of those bands were even considered listenable. If it has to be just one I’ll go with Motley Crue.

the rolling stones are a singles band. they dont have even one solid album

Grateful Dead
Yes they are very good musicians. Yes some good lyrics & songs.
But Christ are they overrated. I usually went to their concerts primarily to stock up on acid

Pretty much all of them.

It'd be easier to ask which bands do deserve their recognition.

The Ramones. If ever a band deserved to be a 1-hit wonder, this is it.