The Chad Kroeger example is a little extreme, but if he in fact did something like that, it's still his artistic right. Where artists attempt to explore new things, they tend to at least research the medium before focusing their creativity in that direction. Some don't and the results are mixed. They could end up discovering latent aptitude and influencing other artists to explore further. Or it could be a dismal failure.
It's easy to forget that artists need to push themselves in varying directions, to challenge themselves, in order to keep themselves interested. That happens way before the audience ever hears it and by the time the fans buy the album, the artist has little sense of perspective, having lived with the work for weeks, months or years. Hopefully they're happy with it at the end, or at least satisfied that it says what they wanted it to say. Sometimes it doesn't, or after a period away from the work, they look at it again say, "what was I thinking?"
The audience does the artist (and themselves, I believe) an injustice by dismissing the effort without understanding what is behind it. If the artist admits the effort was flawed, superficial or base, that can help paint our view of the end result, forcing us to ask if it really is art and if the representation of ideas has merit. Still, though, the artist doesn't owe the audience depth, just as the audience doesn't owe them their hard-earned money.
rhyeking