I Swear I’m Gonna Make You Love Me: 15 Great Bands We Used to Hate

Chances are, you don’t love all the same music you were passionate about five, 10, or 20 years ago. Some artists seem like a perfect fit for us at first, but we slowly outgrow their work — and with others, it’s just the opposite, and the stuff we couldn’t stand to listen to winds up becoming some of our favorite music. It’s a common experience among music lovers, and one shared by the Bullz-Eye music staff in a new feature called “I Swear I’m Gonna Make You Love Me: 15 Great Bands We Used to Hate.”

Taste is subjective, of course, and we have all sorts of odd reasons for being rubbed the wrong way by music, whether it’s the vocals (in his essay about coming around on Coheed & Cambria, James B. Eldred describes lead singer Claudio Sanchez as sounding like “the bastard lovechild of Geddy Lee and Neil Young”), subject matter (Michael Fortes dismissed the Flaming Lips as “kid stuff” after hearing “She Don’t Use Jelly”), or even an allergic reaction to hype (Mike Farley was tired of Kings of Leon before he even heard a note). But it’s funny how our tastes change over time — we burn out on some stuff, experience new things, and develop an appreciation for what once drove us up a wall. Hence Jason Thompson’s slow-burning love for the Velvet Underground (“Life without them now would be pointless”), Taylor Long’s hard-earned Sleater-Kinney fanhood (“I like them so much now that I’m embarrassed it took me so long to “get” them”), and Jamey Codding finally overcoming his “irrational aversion” to Tom Petty.

And those are just a few of the artists mentioned in the article. See how the Bullz-Eye staff’s tales of musical evolution match up with your own by following this link!