Here’s an outline about what this category is all about. Are there big selling/highly regarded artists that do not exist in your collection? For example, there must be someone out there who doesn’t own any Pink Floyd, not even Dark Side. Even The Beatles may be missing!
In my own case I have no Fleetwood Mac (not even Rumours), Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, Eagles or the Who, just to name a few. Even for The Rolling Stones I only own 40 Licks. Maybe I can just get my fill of popular artists off the radio or is it that I just prefer less commercial/more challenging music?
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How do you know it’s not challenging if you’ve not listened to or owned it?
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There are loads of popular artists I don’t have in my collection, at least in part because I simply don’t like their music, whether that is actively disliking or simply not liking enough to want to bother playing when there is so much else I actively like. The fact of popularity does not mean any particular individual will like - take jazz for example, very popular on this forum at least, much of it I dislike, some intensely, with only very few things I’ve heard being even tolerable (and I could include other genres, e.g. soul or funk). And even within genres I generally like I am discerning, not having a blanket “like” - music has to appeal to me in some way to listen/buy, and if I hear and nothing about it makes it click - or, worse, something makes me cringe instead of enjoy, then why would I bother getting it?
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That’s a very challenging statement 
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I my case its the Rolling Stones, I have never been into them at all no idea why ?
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Where to start….? Eagles, Grateful Dead, Queen, Genesis, Yes, all rap, Elvis, many more although I own multiple albums by bands & artists of similar styles or genres, just not this lot
If I included all the popular artists I don’t own anything of in my list, it would probably exceed the length of a post that they are allowed to be.
Also, is the question about artists that are popular with members of this forum, the population of your country of residence or the population of the planet?
As for why, it is either I don’t like them enough to buy anything from them or I dislike their music.
No Springsteen , no Yes, no The Who. I like rock but have no AC-DC. Can’t stand the singers.
No Elvis .
Very little after 2000, except for Ryan Adams and John Mayer who I both rate highly.
If you look at a list of best selling artists in the last 20 odd years the list of who I don’t have starts to get very long.
I guess there were and awful lot of artists where I have liked one track or hit, but never wanted to invest money in a whole album. Now with a streaming subscription I am catching up on, and enjoying older music from artists I never previously bothered with. Streaming has opened up a whole new (to me) selection of artists. On the other hand Genesis still annoys ever since ‘Trick’. 
I’ve got a list as long as your arm. 
I’m an old jazz fart. 
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No Yes, ELP, Soft Machine, REO Speedwagon, only one Genesis, Simple Minds, Madonna, Kinks, Sex Pistols, Clash, INXS and others, some I just don’t like and then there’s just stuff you just don’t get around to. You can’t own or indeed appreciate everything.
But I guess streaming will change all this, there’s always the option of going back and trying again.
I could name many, but Dire Straits is the one that comes to mind first. They are so boring and why do so many HIFI shops use them to test systems. It becomes too analytical and sterile.
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Listing those popular artists I own nothing by is simple. Most of them I would guess. We presumably like music because we believe it to be good rather than basing our taste on what is popular? I am sure there will be exceptions to this but I’m not one of them.
Listing them is also pointless in terms of ownership. Nowadays I locally stream my CDs from the SSD within my Innuos Zenith Mk. III and for the past near 5 years I have streamed from Qobuz and Tidal and have purchased significantly less in consequence. So, less ownership anyway.
Why I don’t have this stuff?
Very broadly indeed… I am broad minded and try to listen to anything recommended in any scenario. That covers a lot of stuff I feel I ought to like but, when push comes to shove, I don’t. I might admire it, get under the surface of it to try and understand why it’s good or why it appeals it but if it doesn’t make my few remaining hairs stand on end then nothing will persuade me to like it.
Personal bias? I have always struggled with most metal and prog. I can absolutely see the appeal of, say, AC/DC but it’s not for me. I feel like I ought to like Zep and Sabbath but it leaves me cold despite some Robert Plant being very agreeable indeed. I quite like some Steven WIlson and some of his former band but it’s more admired than loved if you like.
Not sure there’s much more to be said. These things inevitably became a contest of “… but why don’t you like that?”. I think I’m better than most at explaining why and generally refuse to retreat into a defensive shell with “because” but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. This stuff is all nature, nurture, chemical reactions etc.
For example, I totally get why people would start with some of the mega artists such as say Dire Straits. I absolutely agree about the tediousness of their being audio show music etc. but but but… nothing will persuade me from my perspective that Makin’ Movies was a very good album indeed, Love Over Gold was pompous and overblown and yet they just about got away with it. Their legendary first album, for me, is just dull. The only thing I’ve heard worse than it was Copmmunique.
Your mileage may vary.
I’m reminded of The Wild Ones…“what d’ya got?”
Taylor Swift. There’s more chance of me supporting Sunderland than buying one of her albums which is strange because I’ve never knowingly ever heard her. That said I would never criticise anyone who does like her.
There is a huge number of artists I own nothing by, if one considers the last 60 years in full. It’s simpler for me to name those by whom I have nothing and wouldn’t have nothing, even for free:
- Queen (the epitome of kitsch to my ears, basically Village People with a good guitar player)
- Dire Straits (boredom musified. Brothers in arms is the ancestor of all audio-show audio-torments)
- Oasis (don’t even know why)
- Diana Krall (see Dire Straits)
- Pink Floyd (respectable, but not for me. I have two Roger Waters albums though).
From a more distant past:
- Rolling Stones (they recorded ten songs I don’t dislike, the last one of which around 1970)
- Velvet Underground, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane/Starship (boredom then, suicide boredom now)
- Santana! A mix of heroin and Caraibic umbrella drink, never understood his charm. And in Samba Pa Ti his guitar’s high E is annoyingly sharp though the whole song.
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Well it is strange indeed.
Most here will have not purchased stuff because they heard it and it did nothing for them, which is fair enough.
Not hearing stuff but deciding you would never like it is more akin to cutting your nose off to spite your face.
Go listen to Folklore and eat your own hat. If you don’t like it then fair enough but listening is usually the starting point for not liking.
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I heard them in my home town in 1984. It was nearly impossible not to be taken body and soul by that rock. It’s the only hard rock I’ve ever truly liked, safe for a fistful of Zeppelin songs - but that, mainly merit of John Bonham.
I think it’s a case of not liking the artist (for whatever reason) and then feeling unable to listen to their music. I think there are a number of artists who could fall into this category.