"Uncool" bands that you happen to love.

[Infinity183]

Oh my god, don't even get me started here. To come clean, I really don't care how "cool" an album, song, or artist is, so long as I enjoy it. I personally love melodious, ultra-polished pop, often with a tweeness. While my top 100 is still predominantly populated by high-ranked albums by legit musical visionaries, I still won't hold back if a commercial pop album is so delightful that I find myself listening to it all the time. This is how Branigan 2 wound up in my top 100, Mariah Carey's self-titled earned a place in my top 50, Debbie Gibson's Out of the Blue slipped into my top 20, and Rachel Stevens' Come and Get It landed within my top 10.

There are plenty of bands and artists throughout the ages that I'm a lot more forgiving to the most here, from Styx, to Toto, to Jim Steinman, to Take That, to early Avril Lavigne, but probably by far the biggest case of me flat-out adoring an "uncool" musical act would be with S Club 7. They are a purely manufactured group, singing songs as polished and melodiously happy-go-lucky as possible, almost all of it written by professional songwriters rather than the band itself. And I absolutely love them. They actually really stand out compared to other pop acts from around the same time, as the songs they were handed tended not only to have the catchiest hooks, but also, like Simon Fuller's other huge pop ensemble the Spice Girls, a really broad range of musical styles within the cheesy pop category, especially on their final studio album, Seeing Double. The willingness to toy with a diverse range of sounds is a huge asset for a full album, and the performers in the group and the team of producers and writers for them really knew how to juggle these various elements while still sounding wholesome. The lyrics to S Club 7 songs are often cheesy and relationship-centric, but they're never really to the point where I feel insultingly manipulated and, unlike the bulk of pop songs today, are not at all narcissistic, sleazy, crass, or extravagantly hedonistic; they're the absolute perfect balance of carefree silliness and heartfelt earnestness, making them highly resonant with me personally. Believe me, I know just what it's like to feel misunderstood and isolated, like a lot of grittier, artsier musicians reflect in their work, but I also see a ton of value in something upbeat, carefree, and willfully cheesy, so long as it's crafted well, and S Club 7, for me, embody everything I do in fact like about manufactured pop, making them practically my go-to music act to cheer myself up with.

[buzzdainer]

U2 and Coldplay are the low-hanging fruit for me, since they are so widely (and in my opinion, unjustly) reviled. Also Macklemore, who deserves better treatment from hip hop lovers.

[bobbyb5]

[Infinity183]

[bobbyb5]

[glynspsa]

I like the Spin Doctors and the Fat Boys, I also like Huey Lewis and the News another band many consider cheesy. Oh and Bobby I just learned U2 was now considered cheesy. I like some of their albums.

[Luigii]

I also want to add how U2 album in 2014 was added to many itunes owners without even buying the damn thing.
But on the situation of Uncool band that I liked, mine would probably be the Black Eyed Peas. Even thought I do think some of the hatred is justified considering that there album from 2010 was one of the biggest piece of shit that I have ever heard.

[bobbyb5]

[Fischman]

All you youngsters...
...none of these groups can even begin to compare to the levels of uncool of yesteryear

In my day, it took real guts to stand up and declare your love for ... The Carpenters!

[bobbyb5]