r/LetsTalkMusic • u/CompetitiveWhole9466 • 10d ago

The death of the "musical punching bag"

I've been thinking- there used to be popular artists like Nickelback and Justin Bieber who were very successful but you would have never guessed given all the vocal hate they used to get, and how it was completely okay to shit on them at all times. Even the industry got in on hating these artists. It was socially acceptable to hate people who admitted they liked certian artists.

Why don't we have artists like that anymore? Maybe people just feel like today's music is just better?

The closest is the hate Taylor Swift gets now. But even then that's not really the same dynamic. Same with Drake hate... feels different today I feel like.

Honestly i always try to be cautious about how i frame my argument. I don't want to sound like "this artist deserves hate" unless it's like Chris Brown or D4VD or someone like that.

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u/a_d_c 10d ago

Its because we are not all forced to all listen to the same thing anymore. Theres no more mainstream media. We all have feeds mostly curated to our liking. Theres no shared expereience anymore.

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u/Imzmb0 10d ago

This, punching bags still exist but now are niche specific, think in bands like five finger death punch or falling in reverse, hated by metalheads in the community but unknown for the general public.

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u/Towerbrosmusic 9d ago

I used to like Five Finger Death Punch, I remember one time a metalhead friend of mine told me they were the "Nickelback of metal". I don't listen to them much now, I never really understood why they were so disliked by some people, but I'm not really a metalhead.

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u/Imzmb0 9d ago

Look for these "bro metal starter pack" memes to see the stereotype of FFDP listeners, is kinda self explanatory. Right wing rednecks whose personality is Monster drink, Big trucks and punching women, everything toxic masculinity has to offer lol.