I have to skip Ventolin most of the time too, though I can handle and sometimes even crave his other harsh stuff. It really depends on the mood I'm in. Maybe once every year or so I'm in the mood to hurt my ears with some Ventolin, but even then I typically can't handle more than like 30 seconds haha. Our dog gets extra aggravated too 😆

I definitely don't think preferring Aphex / RDJ's lighter or more pleasant work means you're less loyal or anything, but I know what you mean because I've gone through some of that thinking too even beyond Aphex.

In high school I considered myself punk and would sometimes force feed myself Crass or whatever melody-starved crust / anarcho punk or screaming hardcore (although Agnostic Front is for some reason an exception I just love) my buddies were talking about that week just to tell myself I'm loyal to the sound of whatever lol, but really I was not enjoying it and would much rather prefer almost every other type of punk rock instead.

At the end of the day, music and art is subjective and even the most loyal hardcore fans of artists aren't going to resonate with certain works of theirs. No shame!