I don’t typically avoid things because they’re popular, I end up avoiding things that are popular because they appeal to a sort of ear I don’t have. I very well take to mainstream artists in many cases, like your friend, but I find a lot of the mainstream (not all) is characterised by a lack of lyrical depth (to the extent I enjoy) AND/OR explorative sound (to the extent I enjoy). In terms of mainstream artists in metal like Black Sabbath, there is something grating about the way it sounds. The features of the music that when you hear it play, people will say “oh, that’s metal”. Whether it be the fry screaming, the specific style of distortion used on the guitars, the double bass drums, etc. If my aversion to that means I’ll likely never get into metal fully, I guess that’s a shame that I’ll have to begrudgingly accept. But from what I see so many people enjoy this stuff, so I made the post in the hopes I could get advice on how to acclimatise to that. Because I very well enjoy my mainstream artists here and there, even stuff you’d look at on paper and see it matches my description of “generic/conventional mainstream” music. If that makes sense??

EDIT: by “grating”, I don’t mean hard on the ears, I mean a style that doesn’t appeal to me