Most Overrated and Underrated Musical Artists...

[bayoubill]

I'll start with a few on my list of Most Overrated... in no particular order...

Bruce Springsteen... yeah sure... he put out a few great tunes... but the "Boss"...?! nah...

Paul McCartney... put out a few pleasant tunes summa those times when he took the roll of lead composer back when he was with the Beatles... but then there were all those other tedious tunes he was guilty of... yeah, he was fun from time to time with Wings... but "Sir Paul"...?! gimme a break... St. Pauly = weak beer

Moody Blues... had a coupla good Top 40 tunes early on... but then they launched into tedious pompous pretentiousness... killed it for me...

Paul Simon... great composer early in his career... went off on a boring tangent soon after going solo... and sucked as a live performer...

Bob Dylan... another great composer who lost his way after the mid-70's... and sucked big time as a live performer...

Rolling Stones... one of the all-time great acts of the 60's... became parodies of themselves after the mid-70's... shoulda gone down in a plane crash after Exile On Main Street... Bill Wyman had the right idea gettin' out while he still had something left of his self respect...

Neil Young... was always a full-of-himself pain in the ass... and after Harvest, wasn't worth the plastic he was stamped on... gimme my money back, MasterCard...

Elvis Presley... will always rightfully have a special place in the pantheon of 50's rock 'n roll greats... but he really sucked in the 60's... and I don't even wanna talk about the 70's...


eta... feel free to disagree with me... that's what I'm here for...

 

[rightwinger]

Grateful Dead....just plain tedious

Eagles......Hotel California has been played to death

 

[bayoubill]

Grateful Dead....just plain tedious

Eagles......Hotel California has been played to death

oops... forgot about the Grateful Dead... but then again, they were forgettable...

and the Eagles...? I liked 'em a bunch in the 70's... loved Hotel California... until about mebbe the thousandth time I heard it on the radio... then they said goodbye forever and promised never to return... which I thought was an excellent career move for the individual artists... but then they came back again... and again... with their overrated and overpriced "Hell Freezes Over" tours... f*** 'em... go away already...

 

[JamesInFlorida]

I'll start with a few on my list of Most Overrated... in no particular order...

Bruce Springsteen... yeah sure... he put out a few great tunes... but the "Boss"...?! nah...

Paul McCartney... put out a few pleasant tunes summa those times when he took the roll of lead composer back when he was with the Beatles... but then there were all those other tedious tunes he was guilty of... yeah, he was fun from time to time with Wings... but "Sir Paul"...?! gimme a break... St. Pauly = weak beer

Moody Blues... had a coupla good Top 40 tunes early on... but then they launched into tedious pompous pretentiousness... killed it for me...

Paul Simon... great composer early in his career... went off on a boring tangent soon after going solo... and sucked as a live performer...

Bob Dylan... another great composer who lost his way after the mid-70's... and sucked big time as a live performer...

Rolling Stones... one of the all-time great acts of the 60's... became parodies of themselves after the mid-70's... shoulda gone down in a plane crash after Exile On Main Street... Bill Wyman had the right idea gettin' out while he still had something left of his self respect...

Neil Young... was always a full-of-himself pain in the ass... and after Harvest, wasn't worth the plastic he was stamped on... gimme my money back, MasterCard...

Elvis Presley... will always rightfully have a special place in the pantheon of 50's rock 'n roll greats... but he really sucked in the 60's... and I don't even wanna talk about the 70's...


eta... feel free to disagree with me... that's what I'm here for...

So glad I'm not the only one who thinks this.

 

[Trajan]

I'll start with a few on my list of Most Overrated... in no particular order...

Bruce Springsteen... yeah sure... he put out a few great tunes... but the "Boss"...?! nah...

Paul McCartney... put out a few pleasant tunes summa those times when he took the roll of lead composer back when he was with the Beatles... but then there were all those other tedious tunes he was guilty of... yeah, he was fun from time to time with Wings... but "Sir Paul"...?! gimme a break... St. Pauly = weak beer

Moody Blues... had a coupla good Top 40 tunes early on... but then they launched into tedious pompous pretentiousness... killed it for me...

Paul Simon... great composer early in his career... went off on a boring tangent soon after going solo... and sucked as a live performer...

Bob Dylan... another great composer who lost his way after the mid-70's... and sucked big time as a live performer...

Rolling Stones... one of the all-time great acts of the 60's... became parodies of themselves after the mid-70's... shoulda gone down in a plane crash after Exile On Main Street... Bill Wyman had the right idea gettin' out while he still had something left of his self respect...

Neil Young... was always a full-of-himself pain in the ass... and after Harvest, wasn't worth the plastic he was stamped on... gimme my money back, MasterCard...

Elvis Presley... will always rightfully have a special place in the pantheon of 50's rock 'n roll greats... but he really sucked in the 60's... and I don't even wanna talk about the 70's...


eta... feel free to disagree with me... that's what I'm here for...

So glad I'm not the only one who thinks this.

me too, I never got the allure.

 

[rightwinger]

I'll start with a few on my list of Most Overrated... in no particular order...

Bruce Springsteen... yeah sure... he put out a few great tunes... but the "Boss"...?! nah...

Paul McCartney... put out a few pleasant tunes summa those times when he took the roll of lead composer back when he was with the Beatles... but then there were all those other tedious tunes he was guilty of... yeah, he was fun from time to time with Wings... but "Sir Paul"...?! gimme a break... St. Pauly = weak beer

Moody Blues... had a coupla good Top 40 tunes early on... but then they launched into tedious pompous pretentiousness... killed it for me...

Paul Simon... great composer early in his career... went off on a boring tangent soon after going solo... and sucked as a live performer...

Bob Dylan... another great composer who lost his way after the mid-70's... and sucked big time as a live performer...

Rolling Stones... one of the all-time great acts of the 60's... became parodies of themselves after the mid-70's... shoulda gone down in a plane crash after Exile On Main Street... Bill Wyman had the right idea gettin' out while he still had something left of his self respect...

Neil Young... was always a full-of-himself pain in the ass... and after Harvest, wasn't worth the plastic he was stamped on... gimme my money back, MasterCard...

Elvis Presley... will always rightfully have a special place in the pantheon of 50's rock 'n roll greats... but he really sucked in the 60's... and I don't even wanna talk about the 70's...


eta... feel free to disagree with me... that's what I'm here for...

So glad I'm not the only one who thinks this.

me too, I never got the allure.

Love the E Street Band........never liked Springsteens vocals

 

[manifold]

Most underrated, or at least most under appreciated, is JJ Cale.

 

[Oddball]

Most underrated:

 

[Oddball]

Overrated:

Oasis

Hootie and the Blowfish

Sugar Ray

Coldplay

Radiohead

R.E.M. after "Green"

Phish

 

[bayoubill]

Most underrated, or at least most under appreciated, is JJ Cale.

agreed that it's more a matter of under-appreciated... most folks have never even heard of him...

here's a coupla favorite tunes...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcY5SQECqks]J.J. Cale - Crazy Mama (Studio) - YouTube[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1nGnCiRsgo]MAGNOLIA ~ JJ CALE ~ (Lyrics) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[bayoubill]

Most underrated:

as if he cared a fig...

 

[manifold]

Most underrated:

You misspelled overrated.

 

[rightwinger]

Have to go with Elvis as the King

The King of overrated

He had four good years of Hillbilly Rock where he was cutting edge. From there he sold out to Hollywood and Vegas

By the end he was just a cartoon character

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Most underrated:

You misspelled overrated.

When people start to listen, they start feeling embarrassed about the "Clapton is God" spraypaint they did on the handball court.

"Q: What you were playing yesterday, and I think you've done it many times before, but yesterday was very very obvious, you're playing very much what I could describe as Contrary Notes; not going according to the melody. The guitar notes that you were playing were like a totally different song altogether. Do you ever shut the rest of the rhythm section from your ears and actually concentrate on actually . . .

Zappa: Well I always concentrate on what I'm playing but I can hear the rhythm section and I have the type of discipline where I can either play their rhythm . . . Actually, what was happening last night on some of the solos I was using a digital delay that had a single chord stored in it, and it was on a loop, and every time that loop would come around it would have a certain rhythm which was totally irrelevant to what the rhythm of the bass and drums were doing. So I have a choice of two different established rhythms that I could play, plus the option of choosing a third one that was completely between those.

There's no reason why the human mind shouldn't be able to compute that kind of math when they hear it and it leads you into some interesting harmonic and melodic directions.

For example, a melody functions in a harmonic climate. The chord that is being played is the harmonic climate - if it's an augmented chord it's a mysterious climate; if it's a diminished chord it's a little tenser; if it's minor it's serious; if it's major it's happy; if it's major seventh you're falling in love; if it's augmented 11th it's bebop. You know these are all established harmonic aromas that people recognize whether they do it consciously or not, that's what's built into you. So a melody functions against a harmonic climate in terms of what is the fractional delay between the time that you hit a note that is tension to that chord, to the the time that you hit a note which is inside the chord which creates the resolution - that's how melodies work. How many notes are you playing in your line that rub against the chord versus how many notes are inside the chord that takes the tension to rest. Your ear is computing that, ok?

Now, if you're playing a straight disco number where everybody is marching along to the same beat, well, your options for the amount of intrigue you can create with a melody improvised against a chord are pretty limited. Because the minute you stray from an exact 16th note fluctuation, the disco consumer loses interest because he wants everything to sound like it came out of a Casio rhythm machine. But with the type of stuff that I do, once the solo begins, unless it's a fixed 12-bar thing like I did two choruses on "Penguin In Bondage" in the key of D - that's that. But if it's an open-ended solo that starts with a single tonality, I can do amazing things in that context if you understand what is happening musically - what's going on.

Some people listen to it and say "That's awfully weird," or "That scale is strange," or "Those notes are weird," but there's a reason for doing it and there's a lot of skill involved in choosing those notes and there's also a lot of skill involved in the rhythm section being able to accompany me in what I'm doing. That bass player [Scott Thunes] is great at following me. He's one of my favorite bass players to work with because his harmonic concept, um - he understands what I'm doing when I do those things.

Q: Do you personally think that you're under-rated as a guitarist?

Zappa: I think that I shouldn't be rated as a guitarist. Rating guitar players is a stupid hobby.

Q: You're a composer.

Zappa: I'm a composer and my instrument is the guitar. If you like the composition, fine - I mean, my technique as a guitar player is ... fair. There are plenty of people who play faster than I do, never hit a wrong note, and have a lovely sound, okay? If you want to rate guitar players - go for them. But there isn't anybody else who will take the chances that I will take with composition, live onstage in front of an audience - and just go out there and have the nerve, the ultimate audacity to say "Okay, I don't know what I'm gonna play, and you don't know what I'm gonna play, and that makes us equal so let's go, we'll have an adventure here." And, that's what I do. There's no way to rate that. You either like that kind of stuff or you don't."

Frank Zappa Page Two

 

[bayoubill]

Q: Do you personally think that you're under-rated as a guitarist?

Zappa: I think that I shouldn't be rated as a guitarist. Rating guitar players is a stupid hobby.

Q: You're a composer.

Zappa: I'm a composer and my instrument is the guitar. If you like the composition, fine - I mean, my technique as a guitar player is ... fair. There are plenty of people who play faster than I do, never hit a wrong note, and have a lovely sound, okay? If you want to rate guitar players - go for them. But there isn't anybody else who will take the chances that I will take with composition, live onstage in front of an audience - and just go out there and have the nerve, the ultimate audacity to say "Okay, I don't know what I'm gonna play, and you don't know what I'm gonna play, and that makes us equal so let's go, we'll have an adventure here." And, that's what I do. There's no way to rate that. You either like that kind of stuff or you don't.

thanks for that, Frank...

 

[Harry Dresden]

I'll start with a few on my list of Most Overrated... in no particular order...

Bruce Springsteen... yeah sure... he put out a few great tunes... but the "Boss"...?! nah...

Paul McCartney... put out a few pleasant tunes summa those times when he took the roll of lead composer back when he was with the Beatles... but then there were all those other tedious tunes he was guilty of... yeah, he was fun from time to time with Wings... but "Sir Paul"...?! gimme a break... St. Pauly = weak beer

Moody Blues... had a coupla good Top 40 tunes early on... but then they launched into tedious pompous pretentiousness... killed it for me...

Paul Simon... great composer early in his career... went off on a boring tangent soon after going solo... and sucked as a live performer...

Bob Dylan... another great composer who lost his way after the mid-70's... and sucked big time as a live performer...

Rolling Stones... one of the all-time great acts of the 60's... became parodies of themselves after the mid-70's... shoulda gone down in a plane crash after Exile On Main Street... Bill Wyman had the right idea gettin' out while he still had something left of his self respect...

Neil Young... was always a full-of-himself pain in the ass... and after Harvest, wasn't worth the plastic he was stamped on... gimme my money back, MasterCard...

Elvis Presley... will always rightfully have a special place in the pantheon of 50's rock 'n roll greats... but he really sucked in the 60's... and I don't even wanna talk about the 70's...


eta... feel free to disagree with me... that's what I'm here for...

i only disagree with ya about the Moody Blues and Neil Young.....

 

[Harry Dresden]

Have to go with Elvis as the King

The King of overrated

He had four good years of Hillbilly Rock where he was cutting edge. From there he sold out to Hollywood and Vegas

By the end he was just a cartoon character

and unlike guys like Berry and Holly.....he did not write anything.....but he did have one of the great Guitarist of the 50's playing behind him....Scotty Moore.....

 

[Harry Dresden]

i dont feel Deep Purple get the respect they should get.....
Layla was tremendously overplayed and there are some other songs on the LP that are much better that never get played.........
all the so called experts always talk about Fleetwood Mac with Stevie Nicks forgetting about the fact that the Original group was one of the best Blues bands ever 68-70.....most people think Santana did the Original "Black Magic Woman"..........
Foghat i feel is underrated.....
Grand Funk Railroad was creating waves in the hard rock world in the early 70's with very little airplay....yet they dont get mentioned much...
Johnny Winter i feel is underrated....
Love was pretty Influential....but you dont hear about them to often....

 

[manifold]

The Kinks are vastly underrated.

They virtually invented the power chord. How many rock and heavy metal bands don't play power chords today? zero? or maybe... zero?

 

[Harry Dresden]

The Kinks are vastly underrated.

They virtually invented the power chord. How many rock and heavy metal bands don't play power chords today? zero? or maybe... zero?

History of the Power Chord........

There is disagreement over which was the first record to feature power chords. Link Wray is commonly cited as having introduced power chords with his 1958 instrumental hit "Rumble". Wray used a pencil to punch holes into the loudspeaker of his amplifier in order to replicate a distortion effect first improvised at a show in Fredericksburg, Virginia.Wray pioneered electric guitar distortions, like overdrive and fuzz, and was the first guitarist to use power chords to play a song's melody.

However, power chords can also be found in earlier, less commercially successful recordings. Robert Palmer has argued that blues guitarists Willie Johnson and Pat Hare, both of whom played for Sun Records in the early 1950s, were the true originators of the power chord, citing as evidence Johnson's playing on Howlin' Wolf's "How Many More Years" (recorded 1951) and Hare's playing on James Cotton's "Cotton Crop Blues" (recorded 1954).

A later hit song built around power chords was "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks, released in 1964. This song clearly demonstrates the fast power chord changes that would become typical of heavy rock riffs:

Early heavy rock bands such as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple also helped to popularize power chords. Examples include Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water" while examples from other genres in the 80s include the Cars' "You Might Think". In these genres rather then being emphasized through distortion the "austerity" of a power chord may be emphasized, "by muting the strings and plucking the chord repeatedly."

Pete Townshend, having been influenced by Link Wray, is often credited for introducing the term and the power chord in general and is an avid user of them. "My Generation", live versions of "I Can't Explain", and "Baba O'Riley" are good examples of the sound produced.