Overrated Bands (Opininonated!)

TheCaptain wrote: One more for Pink Floyd. The closer any band gets to being seen as perfection, the more likely it is overrated. They had one excellent release (Animals) but plenty of mediocre stuff.

Jim Garten wrote: "not entirely" eh? And there was me thinking you'd been taking the irony pills again...

It would have been rather too elaborate a deception to write so much and not mean a word of it, so one strikes a balance and leaves the rest to imagination.

Jim Garten wrote: I have to applaud this post on what is a predictably circular and ultimately (given the subjective nature of those terrible words "underrated" & "overrated") pointless thread; although you've mentioned virtually all my favorite bands in your post, do I detect just a hint of irony there? Are you, perhaps, sending up this thread?? Fess up

It was not an entirely sarcastic and disingenuous post, a lot of the things like W&W being boring and DT's influence on prog metal are honest opinions.  But:

a)They are all bands I like to varying degress.
b)They are all POPULAR bands.

Goes to show this business of overrating is all about people not liking popular bands and/or thinking they get too much credit.  Never mind that bands usually become popular because by virtue of a few things falling in place, they accessed a larger audience; it has nothing to do with how divine or undivine they are. Do you ever see people mention Comus or Museo Rosenbach among overrated bands? Not that I personally consider them overrated but just saying...

rogerthat wrote: Rush.  But much of this overrating seems to be in retrospect, now that Portnoy can't salute Peart quite enough, everybody knows who Peart is and so Rush has somehow become the best old prog rock band ever. I am a fan and I like Geddy's vocals   but they are really not quite as marvellous as they are made out to be. Porcupine Tree.  It's been said before, they are alright, but simply not the white knights of modern prog that they are talked of as and I would say it's a fair discredit to modern prog bands if PTree is supposed to be their messiah.  Much more comfortable with the overrating of Mars Volta.  Camel...well, now, surely, you didn't expect anything else?   I think the sort of thing that has happened with Rush has happened with Camel. Opeth fans find out about their band's influences, hit upon the name Camel somewhere and on listening, are absolutely convinced music like this was never made before (true, actually! ) and you can move heaven and earth before you can convince them otherwise.  Even magician Peart lost out to them yesterday, see what I mean!  Genesis.  Yep.  They are brilliant, magical, superlative, I can go on  but sorry, overrated they are, let's say they are not quite as magical as people think they are, you know, degrees of magicality or something.   I have said it before, it's just plain wrong if Wind and Wuthering has a higher rating than Three Friends, not because Three Friends is an absolute masterpiece - though it is an excellent album - but because W&W is no more than a good album at best and can be pretty boring in places...oh, now look what I just did!  Pink Floyd.  Somebody above just said that the closer a band is perceived to be to perfection, the likelier it is to be overrated and this is true.  I love every album from AHM to Wall but again even they can't live up to the hallucinatory perceptions of us Floydians.   I am going to not mention Dream Theater here, it can be argued that they are not all the fans talk them up to be, but they are so influential in the prog metal scene that it is sort of like calling King Crimson overrated, which some people have in this thread by the way.   As for Gentle Giant being overrated, hey, aren't the fans ever allowed to even think in their dreams that their favourite band is the best in the world?   Blame it on the new thread claiming GG to be more influential than Genesis!   Actually there are a few more bands I can think of but that's enough heightened tempers for a day.

I have to applaud this post on what is a predictably circular and ultimately (given the subjective nature of those terrible words "underrated" & "overrated") pointless thread; although you've mentioned virtually all my favorite bands in your post, do I detect just a hint of irony there? Are you, perhaps, sending up this thread??

Fess up

Led Zeppelin         

Edited by ModernRocker79 - March 18 2009 at 00:06

micky wrote: innovators?... innovation means little in itself  until someone puts it into practice.  Nirvana is who did that... who took Grunge and had Joe Six-pack in Sh*t Falls Alabama listening to it.....they receive the credit they deserve for doing that...

being best has nothing to do with it.... best according to who....  means nothing...


innovators?... innovation means little in itself  until someone puts it into practice.  Nirvana is who did that... who took Grunge and had Joe Six-pack in Sh*t Falls Alabama listening to it.....they receive the credit they deserve for doing that...

your point should not be that Nirvana is overrated but groups like 7 Year Bitch are underrated....not getting credit enough for helping start Grunge hahha. 


Edited by micky - March 17 2009 at 15:46

micky wrote: a figure of speech....  don't take offense to anything I say hahah. sure they were not best... didn't start it... but what they were was the face of it...  we can argue the why's and whether they should have all day long.. but that does not change the fact that they were and heralded a changing of the guard in rock music.. popular music.   Whether one likes it or not is not the point.. the fact that they were is indisputable... thus calling them overrated is silly.

So you agree that they weren't the best band and that they weren't the innovators...Considering this, their position as the faces for the changing of said guard is insubstantiated and hence they are overrated.

micky wrote: the_binkster wrote: Red Hot Chili Peppers Metallica The Who Radiohead ELP Nirvana AC/DC Anything 80s and remotely hair metal (GnR, Whitesnake, Motley Crue, Van Halen...etc) Oasis Slayer I find it very difficult to put prog bands in an overrated category because prog is such a maligned genre not enough people like any of it for a band to be overrated (ELP are the exception which proves the rule). there are two parallel discussions going here....  groups that are felt to be 'overrated' without regard to liking them or not.... and the usual crap  *see the previous Nirvana comment* where someone who doesn't like something ignores everything and just assumes because they don't like it.. and others do... it is thus *drumrolll*  overrated. I'll state this for the record... anyone who thinks Nirvana is an overrated group doesn't know crap for music.  Liking them or not has nothing to do with that.

(In fact I enjoy listening to all of those bands there when I am in the mood for them.)

It's not that I don't like them...I just think that the level of popularity they garner is unjustified. They didn't start the grunge movement, they didn't make the best album of the period, rather they hit it big with an anthem which although musically boring resonated with popular culture. There was little variation (the beginnings of Lithium and Rape Me I swear are exactly the same) and, I know it sounds callous but, if Kurt hadn't blown his brains out I doubt they would be the "influential", godfathers of Alternative Rock that they now seem to be.

I seriously object to someone thinking that because I consider Nirvana to be overrated, I know "crap for music".




Edited by the_binkster - March 17 2009 at 15:27

the_binkster wrote: Red Hot Chili Peppers Metallica The Who Radiohead ELP Nirvana AC/DC Anything 80s and remotely hair metal (GnR, Whitesnake, Motley Crue, Van Halen...etc) Oasis Slayer I find it very difficult to put prog bands in an overrated category because prog is such a maligned genre not enough people like any of it for a band to be overrated (ELP are the exception which proves the rule).

there are two parallel discussions going here....  groups that are felt to be 'overrated' without regard to liking them or not....

and the usual crap  *see the previous Nirvana comment* where someone who doesn't like something ignores everything and just assumes because they don't like it.. and others do... it is thus *drumrolll*  overrated. I'll state this for the record... anyone who thinks Nirvana is an overrated group doesn't know crap for music.  Liking them or not has nothing to do with that. 


Edited by micky - March 17 2009 at 15:16