Absolutely, I totally get that. Everybody has different tastes in art, and that's beautiful. We're all individuals, so it's perfectly logical that some people would like one thing but not another. That's what makes for diversity and good conversation and so forth. I'm sure we've all got examples of art we didn't care for, but later revisited it and found something we liked. That's totally normal and happens all the time.
However. Something that really bothers me, same church, different pew: unfortunately, there are also people who look down on or begrudge the mere fact of an artist's evolution. That's not what you're talking about, at all, but a whole other thing, and I think it's kind of ugly.
Change is vital, but often hard to accept, and some people are just having none of it. With every new and different piece of art someone puts out, there's always going to be people who don't understand that it's necessary for an artist's survival, and even for their sanity, to try making different things. It's how they stay fresh and active and challenge themselves, otherwise they have real trouble keeping their heads in the game.
Conversely, there's people who slack off by lazily phoning it in, just churning out the same thing over and over. But eventually, that blows up in their faces. Stagnation is death for any true artist.
I think about some of the artists I love, who have had long and/or diverse careers, and find themselves confronted with people who don't think they should ever do anything other than what they've previously done. Those opinions come from fans, non-fans, critics, a lot of people.
Probably one of the best examples I can think of is Elvis Costello, who is my very favorite musician. There are people like me who eagerly await how a musician evolves from album to album, and even from song to song, and then there's people who just want to live in the past. They get stuck on the old stuff and stubbornly refuse to even acknowledge the new. That's what leads to pigeonholing. Doing what he's wanted has cost Costello some fans, but it's also gained him many. Even some grudging appreciation from a few sticks in the mud.
It's just about giving new stuff a chance, and understanding that it's an artist's perfect right to do new things. That's particularly important because the art actually belongs to the artist; they're simply being generous enough to share it with the rest of us. There's no law that says they have to do that at all, so it honestly irks me when people slag stuff off without giving it a fair shake.
You can probably sum this post up this way: "Old woman yells at sky."