There's nothing like a Radiohead event to awaken that dormant, pointless anger in me I used to get all the time when I was 19 years old* and it got me thinking, why do they annoy me so much?

It's not because they got more obtuse after OK Computer, as I rate 3 albums they've done since above it. Or that they're popular, because I have huge affection for loads of big bands such as REM and Blur.

I think it is partly their fans.

They remind me of Apple hardcore nuts. They'll buy anything and everything the band does, proclaim every last idea as amazing and entirely overlook any negatives. Such as mistaking hiding a picture of Tony Blair inside your plastic record sleeve as BRINGING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT.

It was also the whole 'In rainbows' saga. I thought the band came out of it looking like right bellends myself.

Release the album so you pay what you want for it? Nice idea, but to state in interviews that everyone else should do it is insane, given that they'd had 10 years of conventional EMI Support. Then they said there'd not be a physical release of it, and so everyone paid to download it. But then came the (slightly rushed looking I felt) limited edition, extortionate box set which loads of people bought, which totally went against their stance at the time of being ethical and not touring. It was essentially a big empty, heavy box. And then miraculously, the normal old CD did follow after that despite claims it wouldn't, pissing some people off who'd thought it would never emerge.

I dunno, I can't really explain why it annoyed me so much as plenty of other bands are hypocrites, but that whole era left a bad taste in my mouth, partly because I think their slight 'worthiness' is amplified tenfold when reiterated by one of their adoring fan base.

It doesn't even affect me or anything, but I find that with most hardcore Radiohead fans there's no talking about the band or daring to suggest that other bands have done what they've done at times better, just a wall of stubbornness.

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ANYHOW...

Which bands have you utterly loved, followed the world over and then one day realised were utter plums? This isn't so much 'they made 2 bad records', more you realised they were just largely irritating people or not what you thought they were.

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* It's worth noting that as I get older, this sort of shit really doesn't fill much of my time anymore and I'm generally a lot more tolerant of most bands and their life journeys. Hence why I just wrote about 1000 words about Radiohead...