Overrated and Underrated Bands
I was listening to some music today on one of those digital TV classic rock stations. And it made me start thinking about which bands I really think are big time overrated and underrated. To whit, when I think of this topic, I have to say that to qualify you have to have been a really big band, Hall of Fame worthy. Because its too easy to find smaller bands that you know. So here are my picks for most overrated and underrated great bands of all time:
Overrated:
The Eagles.
They had one great song, "Hotel California," which I admit has one of my favorite guitar solos of all time. But the rest? Crap. Laid back crap.
The Doors.
A great baritone who liked to rhyme a lot over pretentious music. Never got it past the singles.
Yes.
The worst of progressive music this side of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Awful. One good album in Fragile and that's it.
Grateful Dead.
Hammill on Trial had one of my favorite jokes about the Dead: "What does the Deadhead say when he comes down off his acid trip? This band sucks!" Two great albums in Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, but the rest is lame and their popularity can be chalked up to really stoned fans.
The loser: The Eagles. They sucked.
Underrated:
Mott the Hoople.
This was a great English band that set the stage for glam rock. "All the Young Dudes" is a classic. They never got the due they deserved.
New York Dolls.
The prototype of punk, even if they were glam. They shredded every song they did and the combination of David Johanson's voice and Johnny Thunder's guitar is classic.
The Kinks.
How does this great band not get the credit it deserves? Ray Davies was a true poet, and songs like "Waterloo Sunset" are the greatest ever. With the albums Something Else and The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society, this was transcendental music. Critics gave Ray Davies crap for being nostalgic, but I always thought he did it with a wink and a nod.
The winner: The Kinks. No contest.
Overrated:
The Eagles.
They had one great song, "Hotel California," which I admit has one of my favorite guitar solos of all time. But the rest? Crap. Laid back crap.
The Doors.
A great baritone who liked to rhyme a lot over pretentious music. Never got it past the singles.
Yes.
The worst of progressive music this side of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Awful. One good album in Fragile and that's it.
Grateful Dead.
Hammill on Trial had one of my favorite jokes about the Dead: "What does the Deadhead say when he comes down off his acid trip? This band sucks!" Two great albums in Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, but the rest is lame and their popularity can be chalked up to really stoned fans.
The loser: The Eagles. They sucked.
Underrated:
Mott the Hoople.
This was a great English band that set the stage for glam rock. "All the Young Dudes" is a classic. They never got the due they deserved.
New York Dolls.
The prototype of punk, even if they were glam. They shredded every song they did and the combination of David Johanson's voice and Johnny Thunder's guitar is classic.
The Kinks.
How does this great band not get the credit it deserves? Ray Davies was a true poet, and songs like "Waterloo Sunset" are the greatest ever. With the albums Something Else and The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society, this was transcendental music. Critics gave Ray Davies crap for being nostalgic, but I always thought he did it with a wink and a nod.
The winner: The Kinks. No contest.
posted by cc at
11:16 PM
8 Comments:
The Who doesn't make the list because they are in no way overrated or underrated. Their position in the pantheon of greats is well established, as you know.
By the way Dave, not all progressive is bad. King Crimson kicked some pretty serious ass.
I should note that even if I can a band "overrated" doesn't necessarily mean I don't like them, or much of their work. I just don't think they deserve the praise they get historically. Except for the Eagles.
Oh, cool. Never have seen them.
Doug here, Steve.
My parents owned three records, and two of them were by the Eagles. I have a weakness for them, but I would only defend them to the point of saying they aren't as bad as people make them out to be.
Sure, the Doors were just a singles band, but they put out enough to make a pretty great double album for a Greatest Hits collection, and in only 3 and a half years. I like the Doors, but I wouldn't go to the mat for them in any way.
Grateful Dead, you pretty much nailed for me.
I would add Bruce Springsteen. Don't get me wrong, he's very good in many ways, and I respect him in many ways. But you'd think his name was Bruce "Jesus" Springsteen.
I just got the NYD album (the first one) a few weeks ago. I understand what the legendary hype is about, but I'm not sure they qualify as "underrated" so much as just short-lived and poorly publicized.
The Kinks are quite possibly my favorite band, and the relative obscurity they have lived in for all these years is criminal, though there are reasons for that. Hands down the most underrated band of all time; the British (and thus, American) pantheon of classic rock should have five bands instead of just four (Beatles, Stones, Who, Zeppelin), and they may have left the best one out. Of course Davies' nostalgia was tongue-in-cheek; all of Village Green is a send up of stuffy British tradition, so effective (I think) because Davies lived in it and observed it so keenly. Sometimes when I look at pictures of myself as a child, or of my children, I think of both "Picture Book" and "People Take Pictures of Each Other", and it's almost brings tears to my eyes. (Just to prove that we really existed, just in case someone thought we had missed it...)
I think the Police are underrated. I get that they sold out and Sting was kind of a dink whose later career doesn't give him much credibility, but I think they get a bad rap. I also think the Pretenders, specifically Chrissie Hynde, are underrated. And so is X. Why X were never huge stars, I don't understand. I guess because people like me were content to listen to the Police and Rush, I suppose...
Doug,
Agree about the Kinks, obviously.
The Police I thought about. But I don't know if they were truly underrated. After all, they were the shit circa 1981-3. Pretenders is a good call, another band I thought about. Their first album is an absolute classic. And, come to think of it, so it "Learning to Crawl." "Back on the Chain Gang" is one of my most favorite songs to play the Strat to. I wasn't such a fan of X, though their live version of "Burning House of Love" is another favorite to play guitar with. But I understand the compulsion toward X. It's like me and Husker Du, who I should have probably put on the list.
Doug again. I never listened to Husker Du much, though I do have Zen Aracade and Warehouse and get why people like them. It's funny, but even here in the Cities I don't hear many people talk about Husker Du the way I do the Replacements or Soul Asylum, although Bob Mould still gets a lot of coverage here.
Also, I meant to comment on Prog Rock. Rush was probably my favorite band from 1981 to 1983, and I also had several Yes and Genesis records (but only from the Phil Collins era, unfortunately, which wasn't really Prog Rock at that point). I listened to those bands for a long time before I realized what Prog Rock was, so the stigma never had an impact on me. I couldn't really listen to Yes or Genesis today, but I could listen to Rush, provided it was Moving Pictures or earlier. I don't own Permanent Waves anymore, but I think that was a pretty kick-ass album. True Prog Rock confessions, I guess. But then I found Heavy Metal and then U2, and Prog Rock was cast aside forever.
I have to admit, as a white boy in suburban Colorado in the the early 80s, Rush was my first exposure to music. And I still have to admit I like them. A lot. I have lots of opinions about their overrated and underrated albums, but it didn't seem important enough to put on my list. But that is definitely one section of my CD's that get listed as "guilty pleasures." For me, Permanent Waves was the top. Great album.
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