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

[lemonstar]

OK one half of the premise for this thread sounds like a local radio invitation to a heated debate - the other half might make some of us curious about what we've been missing.

I'll keep it to one of each and come back for another bite of the cherry later on perhaps.

Kraftwerk - I'll file under disappointing. WTH were the doing in their Kling Klang studios for years!? They produced so few albums and only a few of them are really that great imho. I'm reading "I Was A Robot" Wolfgang Flur's memoir - the world of Kraftwerk is as strange as you might like to imagine but some of Flur's accounts of sexual exploits are hard to believe tbh - anyway - with all the big issues they could have addressed in a concept album e.g. global warming - they could have left a lot more music to know them by.

Under-rated - not sure how well known or otherwise the Australian band Smudge are in general - Tom Morgan is the key member - songwriter/singer - they are a late 80's/early 90's grungy/indie band - Tom co-wrote a lot of songs with Evan Dando of the Lemonheads which helped the sweet singing poster boy up the ladder to global success. Dando is a great talent but a normal faulty individual like the rest of us but Tom Morgan is a great lyric writer imho. Some well known Lemonheads songs are actually Smudge songs or ones co-written - e.g. Outdoor Type, Down About It, Tenderfoot, Divan, No Backbone, baby's Home...
Here's a link to a collection of Smudge songs.
Album recommendation: Manilow

 

[Mykesbass]

OK, just for fun, overrated in my book has to be Bryan Adams. A 27th rate Bruce Springsteen, and yet everyone loves THAT song.

Underrated - an amazing band who had a fabulous hit in the 80s but also have a great body of work that nobody else except @BigRedX have heard of, Furniture.

 

[Barking Spiders]

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.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Barking Spiders

[TheGreek]

Over-rated: Controversial I know but.....David Bowie

IMO everything he did after he stopped taking drugs (Scary Monsters) was well below par.

Lets Dance - poor, Tin Machine - absolute disaster. He should have been shot for what he and Jagger did to "Dancin' in the street". In fact, they both should have...

Under-rated: Corduroy - the founding band on the "Acid Jazz" label. Some wicked basslines and amazing grooves. Totally unacknowledged by the majority of music listeners.

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by TheGreek

[Mykesbass]

6 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

Under-rated: Corduroy - the founding band on the "Acid Jazz" label. Some wicked basslines and amazing grooves. Totally unacknowledged by the majority of music listeners.

 

Good call!

[Ricky 4000]

8 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

Under-rated: Corduroy - the founding band on the "Acid Jazz" label. Some wicked basslines and amazing grooves. Totally unacknowledged by the majority of music listeners.

Also a vastly under-rated trouser fabric. 👍

[T-Bay]

Another vote for Bowie as over rated and throw in pet shop boys for good measure - bland euro pop

Under rated - Bob Mould, an amazing multi talented musician, supreme lyricist and all round music god. Yet most people outside of music circles have never heard of him or Husker Du, Sugar etc

[spectoremg]

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...

 

[TheGreek]

6 minutes ago, spectoremg said:

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

Can't say I've heard of them!!??😕😕

[FinnDave]

1 hour ago, Mykesbass said:

OK, just for fun, overrated in my book has to be Bryan Adams. A 27th rate Bruce Springsteen, and yet everyone loves THAT song.

Underrated - an amazing band who had a fabulous hit in the 80s but also have a great body of work that nobody else except @BigRedX have heard of, Furniture.

 

I knew the guys in Furniture quite well - took a bunch of photos for them and the drummer lived in a flat in the same building as I did. I played with some of them in earlier incarnations of the band around  Acton in the early 80s. Ofte saw them play around west London.

[Bassfinger]

Jaco Pastorious. Just puttin' it out there.

[Mykesbass]

23 minutes ago, FinnDave said:

I knew the guys in Furniture quite well - took a bunch of photos for them and the drummer lived in a flat in the same building as I did. I played with some of them in earlier incarnations of the band around  Acton in the early 80s. Ofte saw them play around west London.

I knew Jim briefly when he worked at Mojo. Nice guy.

[MacDaddy]

Overrated

Bon Jovi. Live, they sound like a band doing Bon Jovi covers.

Underrated

Gene Loves Jezebel. Product of their time, but should have been massive.

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, Ricky 4000 said:

Also a vastly under-rated trouser fabric. 👍

As a child I found wearing corduroy as some form of cruel and unusual punishment.

I'm pretty sure I have some sort of high sensitivity to touch. Manifested as a deep dislike of some textures and feeling certain sensations for an extended period. Aside from being a bit weird when you touch something and can still feel it for a while (generally until I get distracted) it can have its benefits as pleasant touch sensations can last as well.

[ubit]

11 hours ago, T-Bay said:

Another vote for Bowie as over rated and throw in pet shop boys for good measure - bland euro pop

Under rated - Bob Mould, an amazing multi talented musician, supreme lyricist and all round music god. Yet most people outside of music circles have never heard of him or Husker Du, Sugar etc

I love Bob Mould, Sugar and  Hüsker Du but I also love The Pet Shop Boys. Bowie I can take or leave 

[bassace]

Here we go again. Is anyone bothered?

[FinnDave]

There's a simple answer - everything I don't like is obviously over-rated, and everything I like is obviously under-rated.

[Leonard Smalls]

Not sure if you could say Kraftwerk are over-rated; after all they're responsible (directly and indirectly) for a number of musical genres - not something you can say about many  individual bands! And they could have churned out tons of Kraftwerk-by-numbers songs but I think I respect them more for not doing that! And live (if you can say that!) they're about the best band I ever saw... Still, each to their own!

Still, if it's going to be a list of bands you don't like - possibly just because you don't like 'em or possibly because everybody goes on about them to such an extent that you're sick of them - I'd say over-rated:

Beatles. Fleetwood Mac. 😁

And to continue the list with bands you do like, but they haven't managed world domination - Under-rated:

Monochrome Set

Stump - though I can understand their lack of mass appeal!

 

[Woodinblack]

Guns and Roses. I have never seen a band that hyped so bad. The first time I figured with the following they had it must have been a bad night. The second time I saw them they were worse.

[Barking Spiders]

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'.

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.

[28mistertee]

14 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Guns and Roses. I have never seen a band that hyped so bad. The first time I figured with the following they had it must have been a bad night. The second time I saw them they were worse.

I was a massive Guns fan as a teenager yet I never saw them live as I was too young first time around, now I just don’t want to see them as I know they’ll disappoint from talking to everyone I know who have seen them live.

[28mistertee]

9 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said: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.

How dare you? Lol 😂

[ubit]

11 minutes ago, 28mistertee said:

I was a massive Guns fan as a teenager yet I never saw them live as I was too young first time around, now I just don’t want to see them as I know they’ll disappoint from talking to everyone I know who have seen them live.

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.

[cetera]

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.....

[ubit]

It's clear that if you like something its under rated. If you don't, it's over rated. I think the Beatles are over rated. I can't stand The Doors or The Who. I do appreciate the music they have made has been loved by millions and they have inspired thousands of other bands, it's just that I don't care for them. There are plenty of artists in my collection that people would hate. My collection goes from Mozart to Infant Annihilator with a fair smattering of genres in between.