nothingfails

10 Ways Musicians Piss Off Their Fans
June 19, 2008

We've all come in contact with that drunken guy at the party (hell, perhaps you've been that drunken guy) who corners you and makes you listen to a song that's "changed his life." Because music has this ability to really affect its listeners, the creators of said music are often worshipped or idolized. This fan worship can often go straight to the musicians' heads, and can cause them to do things that are considered to be very schmuck-like by their fans. Frankly, these things have the ability to piss us right off and, to put it politely, can make us think uncharitable thoughts. Very uncharitable. Such as the recent incident at the Bonnaroo Music Festival where Kanye West didn't play his set until 4:45 in the morning, making fans wait 2+ hours! Mmhmm - schmuck-like, indeed. (In response to this, one fan told Kanye to "S my D.")

So what follows is a list of things that musicians have done that has caused outrage and scorn among listeners and, if you get right down to it, are pretty asshat things to do.

Canceling Shows



Listen, we get that crap happens, and that the odd show cancellation is unavoidable and completely understandable. But, if Kanye West can perform a show ONE WEEK after his mother died, we don't want to hear any of your hangover/laziness excuses. (I'm looking at you Justin Timberlake. Clearly, the Smirnoff Ice has, once again, proven to be too much for you.) Anyway, if your fans take the time out of their schedules to buy tickets to your show, the profits of which helps support you and your cool rock star lifestyle, and you can't even bother to show up, well, you can just colour them not pleased.

See also: Avril Lavigne

Refusing to Play Old Hits



There's a reason that you're popular, and it's because you've written some songs that make the people's hearts sing. So, really, most of us don't care how many times you've sung that same old song, if we want to hear Like A Virgin, then dammit Madonna, you best be playing it.

See also: Radiohead - Creep

Letting Record Distributors Conduct Pissing Wars with Your Music


Digital Rights Management (DRM) is content protection software used to lock up digital media. Basically, what this means is that if you buy CDs from certain labels, they won't work on your iTunes. Instead of stopping pirated copies, it interferes with the legal usage of your purchased music. So, really, although this isn't technically the artists' fault, the only losers in the whole scenario are the fans. If we want to have the CD and the mp3 we have to buy the music twice. Screw that noise. Musicians should be putting the kibosh on this whole situation, and figure out a new way to distribute their music so their fans stop getting the short end of the stick (like Pearl Jam did with Ticketmaster...ah love). Thank God the music industry is now offering some DRM-free options.

See: Nickelback

Retiring Over and Over and...Over Again



Often fans pay a lot more money to see a show when they know it's the "last" tour. If you continue to have a "last" tour every two years, frankly it gets to be a little annoying. It gives the impression of being a tad money-grubbing, and let's face it, most of the time you aren't improving your sound at all. (In fact, it might even be on the decline.) Sometimes, it's a better idea to just put the horse out to pasture. It's more gentle and quick that way.

See: Celine Dion, Cher, Jay-Z, 50 Cent

Being Extremely Egotistical



Thinking that you're the greatest thing since sliced bread is fine. Continually reminding anyone who will listen is not. When Noel Gallagher from Oasis said, "With every song that I write, I compare it to the Beatles. The thing is, they only got there before me. If I'd been born at the same time as John Lennon, I'd have been up there," I think we all grow a little purple with rage. Granted, Oasis is a good band, but it's beyond irritating to hear someone say they'd be better than a band they were clearly inspired by.

See also: Kanye West, Axl Rose, P. Diddy, Brandon Flowers

Becoming Wussies



Can I just ask what the hell happened to Aerosmith? I mean, Dream On, Sweet Emotion, Same Old Song and Dance...genius. Then we get Don't Want to Miss a Thing. What the hell is up with that? Listen - experiment with your sound, do what you got to do to mix it up a little, but don't become complete and utter wussies. How might you know if you've become wussies? When your biggest fan base switches to soccer moms and wedding singers, you just know that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. At that point, fix the situation as it's become embarrassing for us to watch.

See also: Bon Jovi, Rob Thomas

Ignoring Who Your Fans Are



Nothing pisses your fans off more than when you say or do something that is contrary to some of the cores of their beliefs. For example, whether or not Natalie Maines from the Dixie Chicks was correct in what she said about George Bush, the fact is that a huge number of her fans were southern, Republican and extremely patriotic. Sooo, of course they were going to get riled up - it wasn't exactly a surprise. Musicians have just as much right to free speech as anyone else, but if you want to keep your album sales up, you might want to do a little research into the likes and dislikes of your fans.

See also: Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears

Money Grabbing


Everyone should get paid for their work, but there's no need to be obscene about it. There are some artists that charge ridiculous amounts for tickets to see them in concert (i.e. Barbara Streisand has charged $2,500 for certain shows). Hello? That's the price of an old car or a mortgage payment or two. There's really no need to charge that much money for a concert, and it's a big indicator to fans about where their favourite musicians' priorities are.

See also: Madonna, Miley Cyrus

Becoming Uselessly Drunk or High Before a Show



As Amy Winehouse has proved time and time again, it's not a great idea to get so inebriated before a show that you can't perform. Fans tend to get a little angry when they've paid a lot of money to see a show, and the musicians in question makes a fool of themselves on stage. We're not there to watch a drunken ass grope blindly around the stage, cause if we wanted that we could have gone to any bar and seen that show for free.

See also: Pete Doherty

Be Metallica



If there's one thing Metallica knows how to do really well, it's raising the ire of their fans and of music lovers everywhere. Metallica is considered to be mostly responsible for the shutdown of the beloved Napster, and in fact printed out a 60,000 page document of all users sharing their songs. Lars Ulrich became the spokesperson for the RIAA, and frankly, annoyed the crap out of people everywhere. Metallica now plans to sell some of their music on the internet, but it's not really receiving a very positive response as people have long memories. When it came down to MP3s or Metallica, most people chose MP3s, and they haven't forgotten that it was Metallica that made them make that choice.

http://blog.muchmusic.com/archives/2008/06...ays_musicia.php

EdTheRipper

One thing that irks me is when a band drastically changes their sound, claiming to have grown up and "really matured" since the last record. They want to focus more on their lives now as opposed to just writing about the same old things. The mature cd comes out, flops dramatically and alienates the fans who have been there all along. A year later, a press release comes out saying that their next cd is going to be a return to their signature sound.

wendersfan

I don't have much problem with the list, but I'm perfectly fine if Radiohead never want to play "Creep" again for the rest of their career.

Boba Fett

I think you should an an 11th one to that list:
Be Prince

nothingfails

rofl, as much as I love Prince, that is so true. The YouTube thing probably did as much to hurt him as Napster did Metallica. Maybe even moreso since YouTube isn't really stealing anything

Rockmjd23

12th: Shoving a political opinion down our throats, even if we agree with it.

astrochimp

First thing i thought of was long hiatus's.I dont really like waiting 3 to 5 years for a new album.

DeanoBKN

Yes! The same thing goes for movie/television stars as well.

macnorton

Two words Chinese Democracy...that will piss off your fans. And Axl is also notorious for most of that list.

My biggie though is going after your fans. I was so pissed at Metallica for years. Did they all the sudden forget how they got to where they are? I only started listening to them again because St. Anger was cheap and they gave away some free live music...but that is still a sore spot for me. You go after the people who made you, expect a backlash.

cungar

Playing a new "concept" album all the way through in a concert. Pink FLoyd and The WHo got away with this because the Wall and Tommy were great albums. Pete Townshend playing "Psychoderelict" did not because it's a crappy album.

cungar

Talk to THe Eagles and Steley Dan about that.

Hollowgen

nickelback has a fan base?

nothingfails

I am mixed on that. I don't mind a 3-4 year hiatus if the album proves worth the wait (plus sometimes it can be too much of a good thing if an artist drops a new album every year), but if the album is a piece of junk, I don't want to wait four more years for another mediocre effort (think the past decade with the Rolling Stones.

sadly I believe they do. All The Right Reasons is pushing 7 million and is the biggest selling album in the past three years in the states.

Jason

But do record sales really translate into a fan base? How many of these people went out and bought the entire catalog? How many will buy the next one? How did the tour do?

Rocketdog2000

Their catalog still sells extremely well, and their tours usually sell out. Hell, the mere fact that they've been able to maintain not only a career, but in this day and age a successful one, too, speaks volumes. They're averaging something like 3 to 5 hit singles an album - which these days is also nearly unheard of. I imagine their next record will likely sell gangbusters, as well. Especially if someone like Daughtry (who's pretty much a Nickelback sounding clone music wise) can have one of the top selling albums in recent history.

You may not like their music, and nor necessarily do I, but that doesn't mean that millions of others don't. Consider the fact that most of us posting here are pretty much well learned music snobs - yet the reality of that is we're actually a minority amongst music fans. Well what do you think the majority of the rest of those people (in the US, at least) listens to? They listen to bands like Nickelback - catchy, meat & potatoes rock with zero pretensions. They are like the musical equivalent of Wal-Mart. While you and I may never want to step foot in one of their stores, they are ubiquitous.

nothingfails

exactly. Nickelback is the new Creed, no more, no less.

redhenry

11. Re-release an album six months after you faithfully bought it on Day one, with extra tracks/extra Cd/DVD, acoustic tracks/demos etc.

12. Release a "Best of..." with one or two new tracks.

nodeerforamonth

Loved this one: "Become Wussies: see Bon Jovi"

Uh... when was Bon Jovi NOT wussie!?!?!??! LOL!

sergtv

how about releasing greatest hits after greatest hits.. like kiss and aerosmith.. i think some pop stars have greatest hits or best ofs and they only have a handful of albums.

Michael Corvin

see: Soul Asylum

I saw they had a GH album and thought, there was Runaway Train and... erm... uhhh... surely there was another song that was popular to warrant a GH.

This is also the reason why I think the following album title is so genius(no delusions of grandeur):

cdollaz

Yep, good title. Too bad the shitty track selection isn't very genius-like.

macnorton

We call that getting "Roadrunnered".

Talkin2Phil

OD'ing

kakihara1

Who was the first band Roadrunner did that with? I remember getting really pissed off everytime a new Fear Factory "Digipak" got released.

Gdrlv

"Somebody to Shove," "Black Gold," "Misery," "Just Like Anyone," "Cartoon," and "We 3" were all minor hits. In fact, "Black Gold" and "Misery" were fairly big radio songs.