It’s probably lazy generalisation but that’s how it often feels to me. The phrase “I liked their early stuff” rings alarm bells for me as it sometimes means “if everyone else likes it it must be rubbish, and my tastes are too discerning to be the same as the person in the street”. But then confusingly the same person will pluck some extremely popular bubblegum pop act out and declare that they wrote some of the best songs ever made. I don’t understand the rules of being edgy and music-literate sometimes.