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Most over-rated/disappointing bands or under-rated bands/artists.


lemonstar

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There's nothing wrong with only having a album or two that's really any good. That's an album or two more than most of us on here can manage.

Both Kraftwerk and Bowie managed to produce a vast amount of consistently good work all through the 70s so I can forgive them for making music that doesn't captivate me as much since then. They made plenty of music early on in their careers that I like and I'll stick with that. What they do afterwards doesn't bother me if I don't like it.

TBH I can't think of any band who have produced more that a handful of albums that have managed to keep me entertained with all of their musical output. At some point they will either start repeating themselves (while generally being less interesting) or go off in some different creative direction that I don't like.

Even one of my all-time favourite (and IMO very under-rated) bands: The Pretty Things who were constantly re-inventing themselves during their 50+ years of making music have produced a couple of albums that I have zero interest in.

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12 hours ago, Barking Spiders said:

My interpretation of 'overrated'  = hyped to the max by the music industry to the point of wetting themselves. Conversely, 'underrated'  = ignored by the music press, commercial radio etc

The Stones Roses and The Strokes are examples of the former. The meejah told us these were the second coming of rock n roll when in fact The Strokes were just some sub-Velvets garage band and all the Roses did was puts beat under some second-hand Byrds melodies.

Underrated = too many to name but I'll start with the entire Ninja Tune, Mo Wax and Warp rosters.

I had all those "If you like X you will like Y" algorithms trying to tell me I liked The Strokes at one point, probably when I was listening to The Hives a lot. I tried The Strokes more than once and was deeply unimpressed.

Totally agree about Stone Roses as well.

I would add Pearl Jam to the overrated list, I like a lot of "similar" stuff (including Temple of the Dog) but could never see what the fuss was about with them.

Underrated I'm not so good at, every time I think I've discovered a band it turns out everyone's heard of them. I need to get out more.... oh.

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30 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said:

Viz Furniture, two of their members went on to form an even better and more underrated band, Transglobal Underground which fused hip hop, house, Arabic, Indian, all sorts which got the tag 'world fusion'.

Transglobal Underground popped up on someone's top 10 all time list on another thread recently. Great band, lots of people I know rated them in the 90s but most people hadn't heard of them.

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4 minutes ago, cetera said:

Overrated: Coldplay, U2, Snow Patrol, Elbow, Billie Eilish, Stormzy and droning whinge rock or grime/rap 'artists'....

Underrated: Lake, Kayak, Lucifer's Friend, Corduroy, Kip Winger, Charlie, City Boy and many more you've never heard of.....

I agree that Coldplay and U2 and Elbow are over rated and most is not my cup of tea but they do have SOME really good songs. That Arabesque by Coldplay is really good, Vertigo by U2 is a decent song too. I like Winger and have most of their material.

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13 minutes ago, ubit said:

I was a massive fan when they came out and I was lucky enough to see them at Donningtion in '87. (The year two boys sadly got killed). They were superb and the crowd was going mental for them. I agree that now they are just a shadow of the classic line up.

I wouldn’t have hesitated to go and see them back in the day if I was a little older and my parents would have let me. Sadly now I have no desire to do so, although still enjoy cranking the old albums up. 😉

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8 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

There's nothing wrong with only having a album or two that's really any good. That's an album or two more than most of us on here can manage. 

So true. I’m reminded of a very sour obituary of John Martin I read. “During a long career he only produced one album that can be regarded as a classic”. 

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53 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

TBH I can't think of any band who have produced more that a handful of albums that have managed to keep me entertained with all of their musical output. At some point they will either start repeating themselves (while generally being less interesting) or go off in some different creative direction that I don't like.

Even one of my all-time favourite (and IMO very under-rated) bands: The Pretty Things who were constantly re-inventing themselves during their 50+ years of making music have produced a couple of albums that I have zero interest in.

I read after Slipknot had released an album years ago that people were accusing them of selling out because they had dared to come out with slightly less heavy songs with more normal singing. Do these people expect bands to just churn out different versions of the same album year after year? I know certain bands can do this successfully (AC/DC for example) but that is a formula that works. Most bands have to evolve and usually it isn't to everyones taste. It take a real über fan to like everything an artist has done throughout a 40 year career.

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13 hours ago, spectoremg said:

Agree with you re Kraftwerk. 

Overrated: The Clash. The band post punk pseuds love to love and of course The Ramones. 

Underrated: I'll get back to this...

 

Yeah the Clash's deadly earnestness and Strummer's voice made my teeth hurt.

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The most over rated band I have ever seen live was Sigue Sigue Sputnik. They were huge at the time and when we saw them they were terrible. It became clear that Tony James was the only real musician in the band and all the others had been recruited for their image rather than musical prowess They were not tight at all, making mistakes all over the place. It was actually embarrassing to watch. Maybe there was some under lying reason, drugs perhaps but they were rank rotten.

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6 minutes ago, ubit said:

The most over rated band I have ever seen live was Sigue Sigue Sputnik. They were huge at the time and when we saw them they were terrible. It became clear that Tony James was the only real musician in the band and all the others had been recruited for their image rather than musical prowess They were not tight at all, making mistakes all over the place. It was actually embarrassing to watch. Maybe there was some under lying reason, drugs perhaps but they were rank rotten.

Oh god yes indeed, absolutely. Utter Dross Given the late Magenta Divine was involved I guess large quantities of Narcotics were in the Mix.

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1 hour ago, Len_derby said:

So true. I’m reminded of a very sour obituary of John Martin I read. “During a long career he only produced one album that can be regarded as a classic”. 

Well I can think of 3 for Martyn,but the later Albums when he was on the sauce with Phil Collins are curate's eggs at best. Still have them cos of his gorgeous Voice.

Edited by JottoSW1
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17 minutes ago, MacDaddy said:

Overrated:

Nirvana.

Great drummer & producers, from the second album, but sadly overrated and mythologised.

Cobain is summed up by Uber junkie William Burroughs' reaction after a chat with him. "I don't know what's wrong with that Boy"

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I am amazed that people think they can’t see past their likes or dislikes to decide if someone is over rated or under rated. There are some amazing performers out there that just aren’t for me, doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate their talent. Equally there are some bands I love that I realise are from demonstrating musical genius and can see that they don’t deserve the status they have when compared to other bands.

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2 hours ago, Barking Spiders said:

Agree with all the 'over-rated' noms here. Guns n Roses, like the Stone Roses, are just another band whose fame rests on the success of one overhyped album, which had maybe 2 or 3 ok tracks and lots of filler.

Oh I liked the album enough, its just they sounded nothing like it.

2 hours ago, ubit said:

I was a massive fan when they came out and I was lucky enough to see them at Donningtion in '87. (The year two boys sadly got killed). They were superb and the crowd was going mental for them. I agree that now they are just a shadow of the classic line up.

Not sure what the classic lineup was, but these were both in 1987  (wasn't donnington 88? - was there in 86).

34 minutes ago, JottoSW1 said:

Oh god yes indeed, absolutely. Utter Dross Given the late Magenta Divine was involved I guess large quantities of Narcotics were in the Mix.

They were bad but fun singles at the clubs!

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22 minutes ago, JottoSW1 said:

Cobain is summed up by Uber junkie William Burroughs' reaction after a chat with him. "I don't know what's wrong with that Boy"

A troubled genius! Yes I did/do love Nirvana. Another band that didn't set the world on fire wit their musicianship but the lyrics and hooks were superb and they were instrumental in starting the grunge scene.

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3 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Not sure what the classic lineup was, but these were both in 1987  (wasn't donnington 88? - was there in 86).

You are correct sir. One year out. There was rather a lot of things taken round then so my mind is cloudy 😉

I was standing round about level with this cameraman but on the right hand side of the stage. We were right down the front at one point. How that guy held a camera, which would have been big back in '88, I will never know because it was a real struggle to keep your feet at some points!

 

 

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I've got to take issue with the use of the word 'genius', with regards to popular music.

True genius in music is exemplified by Bach, Mozart, and many of the great composers. There are many in popular (and not so popular) music who are extremely talented, but 'genius'? No.

Perhaps this is for another thread...

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Most disappointing band: Red Hot Chilli Peppers in 2012 at Knebworth. I even considered leaving early. I LOVE the Chilli's, still do, but couldn't hear the vocals, the whole thing was a flat atmosphere and Josh on guitar just didn't seem to fit. Even the 35 quid t shirt I bought wasn't printed straight and it shrank and the printing disintegrated too quickly. Have never been so excited for something to be let down so badly. 

Most Underrated... Amy Winehouse when she had her first album out, Frank. Only 15 quid a ticket to see her in Nottingham and I couldn't find a soul who'd go along with me so I ended up missing it. I should have bought two tickets and taken the hot Swedish girl from work who was massively out of my league and wouldn't touch me by accident. When Back to Black came out people would kill to see her live. 

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I must be easily pleased, the only time I've been really underwhelmed by a band ( that I wanted to see, I've seen my fair share of small venue sh*te)  live was Third Eye Blind a few years back. They were well past their peak but I loved the first 3/4 albums, but live they didn't appear to know the audience was there or care. Shame.

Underrated is a tough one because some bands just don't resonate with 'the masses' for some reason so don't get the commercial success I'd thought they deserved, two of my favourite rock acts ever are King's X and Tesla, both of whom could be considered underrated because I think they are way better, within their genre, than many many bands who did a lot better financially.

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5 minutes ago, sykilz said:

 live they didn't appear to know the audience was there or care. Shame.

 

I went into a bar once and I saw a band playing. The singer had his back to the audience. 😕

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29 minutes ago, ubit said:

I went into a bar once and I saw a band playing. The singer had his back to the audience. 😕

Sadly I can never remember the bands name but I saw the same at Rock city years ago, I went to see Therapy? And Silverfish but there was another band on the line up who were being tipped as the next ‘big thing’ and loved by NME etc. The singer never faced the crowd and the set was terrible. They disappeared shortly after. Annoyingly I have never been able to remember who they were, it would have been in 1991 or possibly 92.

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