When A Big Hit From a Rocker was Hated by the Fan Base

Even the biggest rock stars can put out a dud of a single, hoping to hit big....sometimes, they've been successful with record sales with those tunes, even though their most die-hard fans absolutely hated the tune....just some of the examples: Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," Cheap Trick's "The Flame," which the band had someone else write for them, and it was a huge hit, just not with the Cheap Trick faithful....R.E.M.'s "Shiny Happy People," which loyal R.E.M. fans pretty much thought was garbage....Paul Stanley's attempt at writing a disco song for Kiss with 1979's "I Was made for Lovin' You", which did indeed get played in clubs and discos...and another huge hit: the Beach Boys' "Kokomo." More about those, plus more big hits the loyal fans hated, here.