It's Always the Ones We Love Who Hurt Us the Most

Scott Hardie | September 15, 2023
Regardless of medium -- book, music, movie, whatever -- what's a creative work that you cannot stand by one of your favorite artists, and why?

Denise Sawicki | September 22, 2023

This kind of annoys me. Almost feels like they're saying their stuff from the 90s is stupid. I agree with
this article, though.

"I think early B&S was actively trying to court obsession and lost the creative impetus behind its music once it became a band with a secure, aging fan base. "

Scott Hardie | September 24, 2023
Huh. I like that song musically, but yeah, I can see how it can be interpreted that way. I like it when artists express regret for their creative missteps, especially through subsequent works, but artists are sometimes too close to their own work to assess their successes and failures the way that audiences do (ahem).

I can think of countless examples of things that answer my question -- has any TV series of substantial length not turned out a single bad episode? -- so I'll go with the first thing that comes to mind that I literally cannot stand: Lulu. Metallica has an epic history of taking creative risks that very much did not pay off, and as cringe-worthy as many of their efforts turned out, I have remained a fan. I can listen to that time they recorded a country ballad, and that other time they recorded rap, and even whatever they were trying to accomplish with St. Anger. But I've tried numerous times to make it though the excruciating album Lulu and I have yet to tolerate it for more than a few minutes at a time. It's like broken glass inside my head. It's aggressively hostile to the listener. I keep hearing from respectable critics and artists that fans like me would appreciate the deeply unpopular album more if we just listened to it, but I literally can't.