Most overrated albums

Tom Ozric wrote: I guess one could find many albums to be 'over-rated'.  Personally, I'm not a massive Beatles fan.  Influential as they were/are, they just strike me as a clever 'pop' band.  I do like Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's and Magical Mystery Tour for sure, but I find these vastly over-rated, all 4 stars for me.  Close, but no cigar...........

See, had you just modestly said 'I don't like them Beatles as much as some folks do', no-one would have moral grounds to argue against this personal preference... but since you chose to deploy this heavily over-(ab)used expression 'over-rated', here is some reasoning why I think Beatles do hit the five full stars overall. 

Let's remind ourselves what Beatles achieved about 50 years ago: They helped establish the UK as a mighty pop/rock empire that has been punching way above its weight in music ever since the Beatles and Rolling Stones era. 

I believe many musical titans of the past 30-40-50 years have quoted Beatles as being their notable influence. 

Also, Beatles improved the quality and the standing of the pop music to the point where it began to attain permanent cultural values: meaningfulness, coherence and depth of thought, relevance to the real world. In other words, the journey from 'Please, Please Me' to ‘Let It Be’ is comparable to progress from a shellac record to an MFSL LP.

Also, a few genres that we enjoy these days also were prototyped by Beatles. Would it have been possible to reach for the top shelf of ITCOCK without standing on a tall ladder of Sgt. Pepper and its follow ups?

• Agalloch - Ashes Against the Grain: Not necessarily overrated here on PA, where all their album ratings are pretty close, but in the metal community this or The Mantle are usually hailed as their masterpiece. I hear a cold, clinical post-metal album with a few great melodies but a lack of passion and some pretty yawn-inducing clean singing.
• The Beatles - Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band: Any album that receives the label of "best album ever" is bound to disappoint a bit, but I feel that this is the weakest album of their "mature" (1966-1970) phase. Don't get me wrong, it's still great, but there's a pretty miserable stretch from "Lovely Rita" to the title track reprise and I'm not 100% fond of some other songs. As a side effect of PA being pretty cautious on Beatles albums in general, the rating is rather reasonable here.
• Black Sabbath - Paranoid: For a supposed 70s classic I find this rather underwhelming, even though it might just be my favorite Black Sabbath record. It's hardly in my nature to dis more 'radio-friendly' songs just because they're more accessible, but the title track is nothing special (and unfortunately it's the type of song that suffers massively from overplaying). Even worse is "Iron Man", which goes to show that the best way to ruin a great riff is to have Ozzy sing along to it. It's not always a problem (hey, "Electric Funeral" does the same and it's awesome!), but here it sounds incredibly stupid. Much of the rest of the album is pretty great though.
• Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath: Good god, I can't stand this album. The first two tracks both sport great riffs, but everything else belongs to the trash pile as far as I'm concerned. Nothing against Sabbath branching out, but just about everything goes wrong here.
• Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica: The cult status of this album doesn't become apparent on PA because it's the only Beefheart album that non-fans have rated and that brings down the average. But to those who hail this as his magnum opus I say: Even though it's good, he's done better. Much, much better.
• Cynic - Focus: I just can't stand that vocoder voice, sorry. Despite the many great moments on this disc, I want to puke every time I hear that voice. Plus, it reduces all vocal melodies to the same indiscernible muck.
• David Bowie - Hunky Dory: I count four great songs ("Changes", "Oh! You Pretty Things", "Life on Mars?", "The Bewlay Brothers"), two decent ones ("Fill Your Heart", "Andy Warhol") and a lot of songs that I can't find a good melody in.
• Dream Theater: Let me just say "their entire catalogue besides I&W" and be done with it.
• Eloy - Ocean: Even the fact that I'm German myself doesn't make me oblivious to the unintentional comedy on this album. Funniest part: The first eight minutes of ridiculously titled last track, which are dedicated to a bunch of synthesizer noise and some kind of cosmic ritual spoken in amazingly broken English. Also, lyrics such as "overbearing secular creature" and "Intrinsic virtues awake!". Too bad that in between the broken English and the tons of pseudo-atmospheric non-music you can find some great stuff.
• Frank Zappa - Hot Rats: This famous excursion into jazz fusion is good indeed, but I never understood why it's regarded as one of the classics of the genre. I love "Peaches en Regalia" as much as anybody, but apart from that the album doesn't have much classic material. Not even "Willie the Pimp", whose solo is easily dwarfed by, say, the solo to "Inca Roads".
• Frank Zappa - Broadway the Hard Way: Zappa's rants about the political situation in America circa 1988 might be funny lyrics-wise (although even tzhat is debatable), but musically it's as uninspired as Zappa has ever been.
• Genesis - Trespass: This album's rating must be suffering from 'Genesis inflation': "Every album that is a) by Genesis and b) prog must automatically have its rating boosted by 0.5 points." It has its moments ("Looking for Someone", "Dusk", "The Knife"), but it can't hold a candle to the following albums. Plus, I never liked "Stagnation" anyway.
• Genesis - Foxtrot: Unfortunately "Supper's Ready" leaves me rather cold, which sets me apart from 90% of this community. Even more unfortunately, so do "Time Table", "Get 'Em Out by Friday" and "Can-Utility and the Coastliners".
• Genesis - Wind and Wuthering: See what I wrote about Trespass, except with fewer 'moments' ("Eleventh Earl of Mar", "Blood on the Rooftops"). "One for the Vine" bores me to death.
• Iron Maiden - Brave New World: A lack of energy and good melodies and an overabundance of one-sentence choruses don't make a classic Iron Maiden record.
• King Crimson - Lizard: What, oh what do people see in this mess? Does the fact that it's full of stupid ideas and that the instrumentation is all over the place somehow make it valuable due to its 'progressiveness'. Most of the time I chalk up my discrepancies with the rest of PA up to my differing tastes. Here I'm just completely confused why anyone would like this album except for academic purposes.
• King Crimson - Starless and Bible Black: Do people actually listen to jams like "We'll Let You Know" and the title track? I mean, I have nothing against jamming per se, but I don't hear anything interesting going on in these particular ones. I do like the bookending tracks, "Trio" and to a lesser extent "The Night Watch", but otherwise this can give me one hell of a headache.
• Metallica - Death Magnetic: Gladly this mess isn't viewed too favorably here either, but elsewhere it's hailed as a glorious return to form. Absolutely not! Apart from the massive clipping that pervades pretty much all drum tracks, there are also a lot of embarrassing ideas on this album ("Cyanide", "All Nightmare Long").
• Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother: Everything I don't want in a Pink Floyd album, wrapped up into one package. This might be the worst album I have ever listened to enough to pass judgment. The two suites are embarrassing and clumsy, and the 'solo' songs are boring.
• Pink Floyd - The Wall: Adolescent fantasies of a 36-year-old man? No, thank you. There are some great songs on here, but also lots of filler and some prime rubbish. I'm not the only one who feels this way, but the overall rating is still pretty high.
• Radiohead - The Bends: Indie rock hallmark or not, most of these songs strike me as rather listless. Save for "Street Spirit", which might the gloomiest song ever recorded.
• Rush - 2112: Kind of the opposite of Tarkus. Both records have an acclaimed epic on side one and a bunch of usually ignored songs on side two. But whereas I found both sides of Tarkus strong, I find both sides of 2112 only kind of okay.
• Rush - A Farewell to Kings: The first two songs are great. The rest... Not so much.
• Van der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts: This album has a lot of gratuitous noise on it. Sometimes I wonder if that is the very reason people like it so much. Me, I think "Lemmings" has some great ideas that were mistreated, "Man-Erg" is pretty good and the title track is an absolute mess.
• Yes - Tales from Topographic Oceans: Even though it's quite controversial, this is a mandatory item on this list just for how dearly a few folks love it. I won't take the opposite view and trash it, but a good part of it leaves me rather cold.

• Agalloch - Pale Folklore, Marrow of the Spirit: Again, not necessarily underrated here on PA, but elsewhere the former is often ignored and the latter was moderately controversial when it was released. These are their more metal-oriented releases, which means less clean singing (good!) and less sterility (better!). Marrow of the Spirit might be my favorite metal album.
• The Beatles - Let It Be: A 3.20 rating (it was 3.21 before I changed my admittedly exaggerated 5-star rating to 4 stars)? I know that it has some obvious imperfections (and although I've never heard Let It Be - Naked, I assume it's better), but it's nevertheless one of my favorite Beatles albums. I'm a sucker for the roots-ish sound they adopted on the white album and kept until the end.
• Black Sabbath - Vol. 4: Yes, this album does have "Changes" and "FX". And yes, they both suck. But apart from the rather perfunctory "Cornucopia" and "St. Vitus' Dance", the rest of the album strikes me as the best music that ever came from this maddeningly inconsistent band.
• The Doors - Morrison Hotel: A rating of 3.11? This baffles me. After all, this album has "Roadhouse Blues", "Waiting for the Sun", "Peace Frog" and "The Spy" (plus a number of gems that aren't as well-known).
• Eloy - Colours: The vocals and lyrics are both better than usual (which means they're tolerable) and the band writes some songs instead of cosmic symphonies. The result stands heads and shoulders above anything they did before (don't know about since). Thankfully, the bonus track "Wings of Vision" provides with at least SOME unintentional comedy. The synthesizer riff is so stupid it would make late-period Grobschnitt proud and the lyrics quote "Firth of Fifth", for chrissakes! The first time I heard this album, I feel asleep somewhere in the middle (not the album's fault, I was really tired), but this song is so bad that it managed to wake me up.
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus: Actually, it's not underrated in the numerical sense because most reviewers seem to have the mercy to award it four stars DESPITE the second side, but I vehemently disagree that the second side is weak. I don't have much use for "The Only Way" ("Why did he loooooose/six million Jeeeeeeeews?"), but apart from that it's magnificent. And yes, that includes the two 'funny' numbers that bookend it.
• Frank Zappa - Burnt Weeny Sandwich: This, not Uncle Meat, should be regarded as the masterpiece of the Mothers. The 28 minutes from "Holiday in Berlin" to "Little House" are some of the best music ever recorded and the rest of the album is a hilarious exercise in tension and release.
• Frank Zappa - Apostrophe ('): Usually considered 'just another good Zappa album'. I think it's one of his very best.
• Frank Zappa - Sleep Dirt: Again, one of my favorites, but sadly the fact that for a long time this album had vocals turned people off of it. Thankfully, the only version in print right now doesn't have the vocals.
• Genesis - Duke, Abacab, Genesis: There's also 'Genesis deflation': "Every album that is a) by Genesis and b) NOT prog must automatically have its rating lowered by at least 0.5 points (or more, depending on how straightforward it is)." There's nothing more close-minded than dismissing the non-prog output of a prog band for what I assume are primarily historical-social reasons. These albums are good, sometimes very much so!
• Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind: How come an album that kicks so much ass has such a low rating? Especially since there's enough for the proghead to love ("Where Eagles Dare", "Revelations", "To Tame a Land").
• Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow: Nothing particularly proggish about it, but possibly the least dated album to capture the spirit of 1967.
• King Crimson - Islands: The rating is still relatively high on PA, but elsewhere this record receives little mercy. Like with Lizard, the instrumentation can get messy at times, but the melodies are there. And it has a nice 'mediterranean' flavor to it.
• Radiohead - In Rainbows: One of my favorite albums of all time, sadly ignored by a community that probably has little connection to this kind of music. Elsewhere it's hailed as a masterpiece, so maybe I shouldn't include it here.
• Soft Machine - Volume Two: This and Absolutely Free are the two avant-garde masterpieces of the 60s. I like this one even more, but sadly it's kind of ignored in favor of the albums that bookend it. The rating itself is pretty high, it just doesn't seem to attract a lot of attention.