Super Furry Animals, because lead singer Gruff Rhys once said he was embarrassed to be on the same live bill as Echobelly. And I loved Echobelly.

Luckily the SFAs haven't released anything that's placed me in the dilemma of having to like them despite disliking them through petty personal prejudice. Each to their own, but the praise routinely heaped on the Supers has long baffled me.

Largely with you on The Floyd too, Austin.

The Beach Boys
Utter tosh!

can see where you are coming from with the Floyd, was quite tempted to buy some of their back catalogue from Fopp on a recent visit but decided not too, as the comp i've got is all I probably need.

Couple of artists that I dislike, in no particular order, are Van Morrison and Bob Dylan, why? No particular reason, just think they are overrated, and the reverance in which they are held just gets on my nerve.

Hardly heard much by both artists, probably only the acknowledged so called classics, and have no real desire to rectify this

It is a daring and interesting thread: ""please tell others how you have been narrow minded and deliberately cut yourself off from enjoying music that is well regarded". I suppose I can admire the brio required to respond to this. Sometimes I am surprised at the readiness of good, music loving folk (who often like artists that require work and commitment) to be dismissive of other music for no reason at all. Interesting that despite Mint's disavowal, there is a reason for the Dylan / Morrison dismissal and that is that he/she thinks they are over rated. To come to that conclusion you must have disliked their music that you actually did hear.

because a guy called Kevin I was at school with loved them. Simple as that.

Hate Led Zep and Neil Young because of the singing. No other reason, some great songs and playing, but something about the pitch of the vocals just grates.

I can't stand Joni Mitchell.

1/ Her voice is too high pitched, I'm sure it frightens dogs. I know it makes me flinch.

2/ She delivered one of the worst moments in pop/rock history with her fake laugh at the end of Big Yellow Taxi.

When you weigh up all that I'm probably right to actively ignore her.

Contrary to the view, widely held, that I affect this merely to wind up those who can abide the beardy screechers, neither good at beards* or screeching, but I actually dislike them for the far sounder reason that I was excluded from a jaunt to go and see them in 1979.
*except the sax player, who had one of those even more annoying neat beards, as affected by an annoying bloke who lived in my uni flat for a while, again putting me off the bastards.
(Next: why I can't stand Gilbert O'Sullivan.)

There, I've said it.

Thin argument for dislike: All that 'Jonny was a truckstore gunslinger doin' doughnuts on the highway of life' tripe and his constipated asthmatic vocal stylings on 'We Are the World'.

I shall now retire to a cabin in the woods and await the fatwah.

why i dislike Dylan or Morrison, and certainly no logical reason. It's most likely an aversion to artists that are put on a pedestal and appear critically untouchable, I have over the years managed to overcome this, and can now happily listen to the likes of Beach Boys, The Beatles, Led Zep, Joni Mitchell etc,artists 20 plus years ago I wouldn't have given a tosh about, but Dylan and Morrison continue to evade me.

I like to think of myself, for the most part, fairly open minded,if rather a curmudgeonly old sod, and am willing to have my rather shallow, petty prejudices shattered. Having said that I honestly can't see myself entering the world of Morrison. For someone who, appears to me, does not enjoy his music making in any way, shape or form then I think, why should I bother.

Led Zep and Floyd though in the last six months my hard line on them has softened slightly
AC/DC & Iron Maiden that's a schoolyard thing
David 'bloody' Gray - whiny git never understood how he got ANY critical kudos.
Crowded House I don't hate but typify a no of bands who fall into the "middle of the road bands who are perfectly fine but I don't understand what the fuss is about".

...but personally, I find that my disliking of an artist/band is almost always inversely proportionate to the amount of their music that I've heard. Through ignorance I create an impression of a band, which is often proven to be inaccurate or ignorant.

For example, I never heard much (if anything) in the way of Led Zeppelin when I was growing up. The late 80s-early 90s wasn't exactly a huge period for them, so I probably based my impressions of them on 'Stairway to Heaven'. As such, until I actively sought out some Zeppelin, I had the impression they were a fairly wussy folk band. Obviously this is an extreme example of me getting it wrong, but if I hadn't made the effort to clarify my understanding, I might have missed out on a spectacular band.

Similarly regarding Pink Floyd, I had dismissed them as bloated, proggy wank (an assessment many still hold, understandably). I still don't claim to be a huge fan of them, but having heard the Echoes comp a few times, I found myself enjoying Shine On, You Crazy Diamond amongst others. It occurred to me that part of the reason I had dismissed them originally was due to the prog cliches they seemed to espouse (i.e. ooh er, isn't space, like, mind-blowing and stuff), until it occurred to me that it was more the fault of the less imaginative bands that followed Floyd who beat those Syd Barrett images into cliche.

The moral of these little stories is not necessarily that anyone is wrong to dislike a band. Instead, I prefer to encourage an attitude of informed opinion: "I have listened to this band, but did not enjoy them" is perfectly acceptable, and an opinion I can respect; those who choose to criticse without having at least a faint grasp of the material build houses on sand. You wouldn't read a review where the reviewer hadn't heard the album, so why is uninformed opinion so profligate?

I ramble. Moving on...

Never quite sure about that these days. Some publications seem to specialise more than others in reviewing the other version of, say, Ys, by another Joanna Newsome.

Thanks to you lot I did try, I really did. I now own four albums which, aside from a couple of tracks on each, I won't be listening to again. My god do they plod. Don't much like the Coldplays of this world but at least they have tunes. Plodding tunes, but tunes nonetheless. Elbow just plod tunelessly.

Of those three, Floyd are the ones that I feel happiest hating because, as far as I can tell, they only play never-ending, self-important dirges. Zep I like occasionally, but only as long as I hear no more than one or two songs in a row.

But Springsteen frustrates me in a whole different way because I feel that I'm SUPPOSED to like him. Yet whenever I listen to him, (barring the odd above average song) he sounds either stuck in an 80's blender or like a pub-rock dullard with a geetar. When people tell me that artists I adore (e.g. Josh Ritter) are completely influenced by him, I just can't see it.

What is this? Am I missing the Springst-gene that helps me enjoy this stuff?

Pseud, poseur, fraud, wanker. Posturing fake who has a look on him that reeks 'I'm alternative, sensitive, following in the footsteps of Syd, Kevin Coyne, XTC and the rest, don't you know'. No surprises that he paints in a 'whimsical surrealist' style. Has there ever been a more self-consciously 'left-field' 'artist'. About as genuine as Black Lace. Who at least had their own look.

..on the early stuff he sounds like Professor Frink from The Simpsons, on the later stuff his vibrato is so overblown it sounds like he's waggling the skin over his adam's apple while singing...

Lyrics strike me as being enormously over-laboured with none of Dylan or Cohen's lightness of touch or humour, plus he's also a completely ham-fisted guitar player...

Easy target, I know.

Only partly to do with the music. Unbearably earnest and overblown as it is.

Almost entirely to do with The Face That Is Aching To Be Smacked*TM*.

Yes, I am that shallow.

Just thinking about them makes me itch.
And I bet no-one will try and talk me round either.

...though as it's been nearly 30 years since the classic lineup split, and they haven't recorded anything new for nearly 15 years, I don't really see why anyone could get too het up about them. If you ignore the spacey/prog detritus that their reputation has acquired over the years, largely disseminated by a lazy press, they are simply a blues band with an excellent guitarist.

I don't think I actively hate any band, that's a bit personal. However, I wouldn't want to be trapped in a lift with the entire works of Bruce Springsteen, as I imagine most of his songs to sound like "Born in the USA" (I know they probably don't, but I'm not prepared to risk it). I have invested a certain amount of time trying to get into Steely Dan, but it still sounds like tedious Jazz-wank to me.

Anyway why stop at Artists - I hate the recorded output of all US C&W singers, especially if they are men with large hats. How's that for musical bigotry?

But when Mr G plays anything featuring the vocals of Jon Anderson I have to leave the house. His voice gives me pain; it grates my soul. Who knows what it does to dogs and cats?
And also that awful whiner in Athlete.

I hate Floyd for the same reason I hate Radiohead - "privileged despair", as Ken Tynan called it - whining public schoolboys going on about how shit life is (and this is not a class animus thing - i was a public schoolboy who did his fair share of whining). In the case of Pink Floyd I think their musical achievement is pretty thin, once you take the expensive effects away - about three memorable tunes in a decade and a half. Still, Dave Gilmour gave his home away to the homeless, so he's obviously a nice chap.

Is it JUST me but, Radiohead.... oh god they are shite arent they? no? just me then.

as well, I mean for gods sake cant he hear his own voice?

that I'm the first to mention the overblown, self important, sneering, "we've got something to say and we're going to say it" waste of space that is the Manic Street Preachers with their predictable, plodding nonsense, fake intellectual socialism and private toilets (please respect this statement).

Special mentions for the Beach Boys, Ian Brown, Belle & Sebastian and Depeche Mode.

I'm not fond of the Rolling Stones either...

There. I said it.

or "Dylan" as he is annoyingly known to some....

Maybe it's because everyone HAS to like them but I find them intrinsically dislikable. The sing-a-long, all-together-now, stadium rock cliches put me off Queen in the same way as they do with U2.

Fans often do the same thing 'oh, you don't like another one bites the dust/ vertigo? but everyone loves we are the champions/ streets have no name'. No. I also have no time for Bohemian Rhapsody, the Bicycle Song or the Flash Gordon soundtrack.

I would like to think the dislike is not based on ignorance, I honestly have heard enough Queen to last me; possibly this over-exposure plays a part, though I must of heard Bowie's Heroes a gadjillion times and I still wobble my neck skin along to that one every time.

Time was when you'd rather eat bark than to confess to liking them... I think there is admirable musicianship but no actual art or a misconception of artistic process. I notice that in the UK there is a kind of consideration of Queen as a serious band but that is not the case in the US and certainly in Australia they don't rate a mention.

I would take them over the Go-Betweens, though.

.. what a shit voiced moany old saggy faced c*nt he is... there i've said that too!