Most Overrated Prog Bands Of All Time Poll

Jeffro wrote: Manuel wrote: iluvmarillion wrote: Manuel wrote: The "Overrated" title seems a bit radical to me, since most people don't even have a clue on how to play an instrument, what to speak of writing a song, and yet, decide that somebody's music is good or bad, pretentious or overrated etc, based on our personal taste and opinions, which are as faulty, if not more, than the people who wrote the music we criticize. Based on personal taste you have every right to criticise an album if you don't like it. What you don't have any right to do, particularly if you don't play a musical instrument, is to criticise the artist's playing of their instrument. Based on the list I don't happen to like Egg or Riverside, based on my own personal taste, but I'm open minded enough to listen to their next albums and change my mind if the music suddenly appeals to me. Yes, if you like or don't like something, you can express it in every way you want, that is a given, but to go to the extreme and give the "overrated" title just because you don't like it, that is a little too far, at least on my book. It's line if you don't like an album, but if you don't know how to write music or even play an instrument, it's like judging a piece or architecture, or literature, or even a painting, without knowing what it takes to create it.That applies to every aspect of life, and unfortunately, it happens more often than not. I don't agree. I dislike REM. Extremely dislike their music. To me, they are the epitome of overrated.    There is plenty of art that I think is overrated and I would still think it's overrated even if I knew what went into making it.  Let's say I hated Fripp's guitar playing, I don't but let's just say that I did. I don't play but if I learned how and then studied his work, I might still come to the same opinion. If something is aesthetically unpleasing to me, simply knowing the work that went into it isn't suddenly going to make me like it. I may very well come away respecting the artist more but liking it? I don't think so. It's still overrated to me. I can respect the artist while not respecting the art. You go down a dangerous road by basically saying to people, "You can't criticize if you aren't an artist." I've heard the same thing from sports figures who say to the effect, if you've never played, you can't know what it's like to (insert sports activity here). Most of us will never know how hard it can be to play professional sports. I guess we can fire all the beat reporters and the sports columnists. Where does it end? Can we not criticize politicians if we aren't a politician ourselves?  I might even like the art but still find it overrated. There are plenty of musicians that I can say I like but I still find them overrated. Aerosmith is one.

iluvmarillion wrote: Manuel wrote: The "Overrated" title seems a bit radical to me, since most people don't even have a clue on how to play an instrument, what to speak of writing a song, and yet, decide that somebody's music is good or bad, pretentious or overrated etc, based on our personal taste and opinions, which are as faulty, if not more, than the people who wrote the music we criticize. Based on personal taste you have every right to criticise an album if you don't like it. What you don't have any right to do, particularly if you don't play a musical instrument, is to criticise the artist's playing of their instrument. Based on the list I don't happen to like Egg or Riverside, based on my own personal taste, but I'm open minded enough to listen to their next albums and change my mind if the music suddenly appeals to me.

iluvmarillion wrote: What you don't have any right to do, particularly if you don't play a musical instrument, is to criticise the artist's playing of their instrument.

I've mentioned this in an earlier post in this thread, but I disagree with this position.

Just to be clear, I am not claiming that everyone is an expert at reviewing musicians' skills or that a musician will not be able to provide more insightful reviews, but simply that even non-musicians can use their previous exposure to music in order to compare a musician' performance to that of others or even other performances by the same musician.

I'm going to try to prove my point using a video of a Marillion concert, where all the music has been overdubbed with deliberately bad playing (there's an entire category of "Guitarist X Shreds" videos available on YouTube).



I don't have to be a guitarist (which I am not) to find humor in the noodling.

The Portsmouth Sinfonia is another example of poorly played instruments. It was an orchestra where all the players did not know how to play their own instruments.



You may dismiss these examples as trivial, but you made a very broad statement and I wanted to demonstrate that even someone with no musical training can recognize the musicians' performances as being substandard.

Prog is a genre that places emphasis on instrumental virtuosity and band can record multiple takes in the studio, so any professional recording will at least sound competent. However, even professional musicians can have an off night or there may be cases where line-up changes affect a band's sound, positively or negatively.

To offer a concrete example, I've read multiple reviews that preferred Glenn Cornick or John Glasscock's bass playing in Jethro Tull to Jeffrey Hammond's and that Anderson had to teach Hammond the basslines.

dr wu23 wrote: Blacksword wrote: .....  Gentle Giant springs to mind, not as necessarily being pretentious but certainly quite contrived and annoying, at least for my ears. Like a mob of music professors making 'clever' music to prove they can. Very little entertainment value for me. I have to agree with you.....I have always thought the same thing about GG.

Upbeat Tango Monday wrote: ELP is the most underrated prog band ever. Hated even inside these circles for being ...well.... very, very prog.

Pink Floyd and Porcupine Tree are extremely overrated, IMO.

ELP is the most underrated prog band ever. Hated even inside these circles for being ...well.... very, very prog.
Dream Theater is underrated nowadays for whatever reason I fail to comprehend, since people hate DT for its fans, but I haven't seen a really annoying DT fan since 2006 or so.

Damnant quod non intellegunt (They condemn what they do not understand).

De gustibus non est disputandum.

Anyone who was a teenager in the late 70s will know how much prog was despised.  I read somewhere how Anthony Phillips met a fan who had to pretend he didn't like 'Geese and the Ghost'. We gotta stick together!  I personally can't stand Rush or Dream Theater but I 'get' why some people like them in the same way as Dolly Parton or Justin Bieber.  Each to their own.

Blacksword wrote: I have never heard Egg! Oh well... Nothing on that list is any more pretentious than any othjer prog, and I don't have a problem with pretentiousness in music. If every artist "kept it real" every band would be like the f***ing Housemartins.... Gentle Giant springs to mind, not as necessarily being pretentious but certainly quite contrived and annoying, at least for my ears. Like a mob of music professors making 'clever' music to prove they can. Very little entertainment value for me.

Gentle Giant; very little entertainment value for me either.