"Overrated" largely a generational concept?

It must be about the hundred time you get angered on the terms of "overrated"/"underrated", Peter. 

and it's the hundred time I say I don't have the simplest of care on these words.

this thread is overrated. hah i made a joek!

I'm cynical enough to use "popular" and "overrated" as interchangeable terms - after all, if the existence of one band overshadows other equally talented bands - which they almost always do - then it's justified to me. And honestly if you're moved defensively to assume immaturity on the part of a poster who feels differently about your favourite music then you should get some thicker skin grafted on to you. ;)

I dont like the terms overrated/underrated for the same reasons as Peter, and do my best not to use these terms (I may have done in my earlier reviews before I full thought about the meaning of the terms). I take music on its own value and, for those classic albums, for their historical value. The problem is, the classic era of prog effectively came to and end 30 years ago, so their is going to be a lot of people that werent there when they were released so cant full appreciat and realise the effect they may or may not have had, being 21 I'm one of those. When writting reviews I just try to find out what kind of impact teh album had on the music scene when it was released, and also consider what effect the music has on me now. Its probably the best way to go about it and completely forget the overrated/underrated debate.

Again, folks, the focus here is not meant to be the word "overrated" (perhaps the topic title was misleading -- sorry!), but the ratings themselves.

Edited by Peter Rideout - March 21 2007 at 13:38

Maybe the plainest meaning to these words are the fact that a lot of attention get in front of one's disgreement, and viceversa, a lot of deceptions in the eyes of mine comes as unexplainable to one very addicted listener. The fact of generations, of oldsters taking it personal on the youngster's new perfected ways, or viceversa, the fine recent music listeners getting less the taste of the extensive past.

To me,agressively, the "trend of words" can be a low-deserved and unfair in all scratched annoyment expressed towards an opposite expression or a massively-appreciated thing. If we have to say it so loud, maybe it can be in the human-nature to bicker unnecesarily. But let's put such a thought aside...

About Beethoven's Ninth, if you mentioned such an ageless thing, nevertheless as an example of estranged music to keep in mind these days, to the extent desired, I dare say it's about people enjoying or daring to take such a leap "back" (as if it's a regression of a music, not the best effort in art, by sound and composition, EVER) to classical music. Didn't "what the heck is Mozart compared to <<Schrapnel Gang>> I'm listen to" (or rather, in an opposite way, the thing of knowing classical music only by Mozart or by the "catchy" things spotted on) get sometimes to awful to everyone's years. not to "offend" myself anything now. But, again by impact, it's pretty rudimentary to make people think of their oldest roots, in a comfort they have no idea (or no interest of). perhaps.

(I'm just saying this because, only a few days earlier, some member described the four-notes motif on Beethoven's Fifth as the mindblow of humanity - in its way, rather unsubtle. Then asked if prog music or rock plethora ever came in close to such a thing - a compliment, but rather an underappreciation to everything that "Beethoven's Fifth" ment.

What actually about ratings. Don't they come as the last resort of an appreciation's outlook. Those, the words inside a rustling case of "under-appreciation" or "over-heaped euphoria" (generic) being mentioned, discussed, digressed or bickered?

Time should be irrelevant, but it isn't.


Edited by Ricochet - March 21 2007 at 13:47

Another (extended) analogy: When I read a Charles Dickens novel, for example, I read it for the story, certainly, but also largely as a sort of "time machine" or window on the past that can teach me a lot about a time well before mine, which nonetheless shaped my time. I know when the 19th Century science is wrong, and I grew up in an era when you marry for love, not class or money.

Edited by Peter - August 04 2007 at 23:47

TheProgtologist wrote: After your post in the LA Woman thread I was expecting this...........

^ BTW, Sleeper, that was a good, insightful, considered response -- thanks! I really appreciate hearing your (much!) younger thoughts on this issue.

Angelo wrote: Peter, I think you have a point here, but only if older prog is concerend. Otherwise I cannot see how this deals with the fact that Dream Theater is overrated as well, and already? No DT bashing intended, I once bought all their albums myself. (and I think it was Ugly Kid Joe who sang that 'sex is overrated too' about 15 years ago )

Edited by Peter Rideout - March 21 2007 at 14:52

Jim Garten wrote: Given the above, therefore, it's not altogether surprising that this generational divide works the other way - my parents loved Jim Reeves, The Joe Loss Orchestra & Country & Western... My reaction to such music has rarely been so polite as to consider them "over-rated" - ergo, it's only natural that so called "classic" albums from our "golden era" may seem to some younger listeners as dated, or +++that word+++ just don't sweat the knee jerks