Kings of Leon
The Followill brothers burst into the scene with their brilliant debut album, Youth & Young Manhood, in 2003. Their brand of bluesy, southern-style garage rock with those quirky but captivating vocals had us all loving the band. Follow-up albums went down well, though by their third album, a shift in style was raising a few eyebrows and concerns.
Oddly, it’s the success of their fourth album, Only By The Night, that has turned heads and left many early fans feeling colder towards Kings Of Leon. To be more precise those fans usually point to the big single hit “Sex On Fire” as the problem. It brought them a mass market set of listeners but lost many of those original followers.
I like the song and the album, perhaps it was too commercial for others. There is also a trend at times for people to like having an upcoming band as a secret pleasure which they feel they have lost when it’s time to share more widely. That feels like the case for Kings Of Leon.
Journey
It’s hard to get your head around just how staggeringly successful Journey has been. They have over 100,000 album sales worldwide, an incredible total. There’s definitely a market for a well-crafted power ballad, but there’s also a time limit.
That song type could be part of the key to why the band has attracted much disdain in later years. They are often referenced as selling out for commercial needs. Their style over their later years became extra cheesy and almost mock sentimental. Jonathan Cain carries some of the burden for that, his writing often led them down that path.
Steve Perry also takes some credit for the brickbats. His great voice was matched by many annoying traits, including being labeled as self-indulgent. Fans reckoned the band became too corporate and chased the money over the music. Lastly, as if all that wasn't enough, their biggest hit, “Don’t Stop Believin,'” became one of those overplayed tunes that began to irritate each time you hear it.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
This band may be slightly different. Plenty of people will claim they never liked the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the first place. But with over 120 million record sales worldwide, they were very successful, and that doesn't come from everyone hating you. Their original approach to adopting various styles of music and mixing them up meant we got doses of funk, rock, punk, some metal edges, and even hip-hop all thrown into their albums.
That was different enough to attract interest and a strong fan base, but over time, views changed. I reckon the main reason people went off the band was as simple as realizing they weren't very good. It could also have been their juvenile grossness, which pervades their songs and stage shows.
Or maybe that their cross-mix of styles and genres just doesn't work on any level. They may have had a shock element driving their early live shows, but that's long gone and their incessant noodling and jamming on stage became another irritant. Sure, they still fill arenas and draw fans in, but at times it looks and sounds like they are phoning it in for the money.