Posted on 03/25/2011 1:05:27 PM PDT by GSWarrior
There is no way to quantify if a band or artist is overrated. It’s more of a feeling than anything else.
There exists in popular music a hierarchy. It’s been created, and is constantly altered, by both natural and artificial means. At the top sits The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elvis, Michael Jackson, U2, and Madonna. At the bottom rests the 8th place American Idol contestant. Everyone else fall somewhere in between.
Determining which artists are overrated and which are correctly rated is not a science. It’s not even an art. It’s just an exercise to start a conversation. It’s a lot like asking the question who is the greatest guitarist of all-time or what rocker, if still alive, would be a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice.
For this article, Land of Punt will throw out five artists we think are overrated and why we think that way. Hopefully our choices will elicit a response other than apathy. Maybe you’ll cheer, maybe you’ll purse your lips in anger, or maybe you’ll do a little of both.
LOP’s intention with this list isn’t to denigrate the five artists enumerated below, but to examine the machinations and politics of music and the music industry. The hierarchy of artists we refer to is that of the macrocosm not the pecking order of your own personal microcosm.
Bob Dylan
Before you freak out and delete our bookmark from your favorites, hear LOP out. When we say Bob Dylan is overrated we are not disparaging his contributions to popular music. What we are saying is if Dylan is rated a 9 (for example) Land of Punt believes his rating should actually be an 8.3. He’s just a bit overrated but overrated nonetheless.
First of all, the dude has released over 60 albums in his career but has only sold 70 million units. Almost assuredly if you own one Dylan album you own them all. So if you do the math there are about 1.16 million Dylan fans in the world.
By the way, only five of his albums have reached number one. To put that in perspective, Dylan has the same amount of number one albums as Metallica and less than half the amount of Jay-Z.
Dylan has probably composed a gazillion songs in his life, but not once has he charted a number one single or written a bridge.
The reason why Dylan is so highly rated is Rolling Stone Magazine. They absolutely love the guy. Sure, he’s influenced a bunch of artists but the number of people who actually say “Hey, let’s listen to some Dylan” is rather small. Dylan is not synonymous with fun.
Of course, if you’re a songwriter or a poet you’re a big Dylan fan. But to most of us he’s like a Socratic dialogue. You know that it’s brilliant but you don’t want to experience it unless you’re getting college credit.
To prove our points, in 2004 Rolling Stone Magazine named Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” the number one song of all-time. That’s just Rolling Stone being sycophantic about a song that most people only need to listen to once in their life.
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac could launch an arena tour of America right now and sell out every show. They are one of the biggest bands from the 1970′s, they’ve sold over 100 million albums throughout their career, and the lineup of Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood is legendary.
Yet, they are a one album band. Rumors. 1977. That’s it!
Okay, their self-titled 1975 album was pretty good and 1982′s Mirage went number one, but most people drive to a Fleetwood Mac concert with Rumors blaring in the CD player.
The band has been around since 1968, and with the exception of a few years in the 1970′s, Fleetwood Mac has mediocre at best.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are members of the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame as both a group and as individuals.
How in the heck did they swing that?
For one, they are beloved by Rolling Stone Magazine. Secondly, they epitomize the bleeding heart liberalism of the 1960′s. Ignorant baby boomers, with their free love and ridiculous peacenik attitudes, love them some CSN&Y.
But the main reason CSN&Y are rated so highly is the guys were well-liked. They knew everyone. If rock and roll in the late 1960′s and throughout the 1970′s was a high school, then Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young was the popular kid who always wore the fashionable jacket.
That has to be it because how else would they have joined the immortals of rock and roll?
In more than 40 years as band they’ve released just 16 albums. That includes studio, live and compilations. They’ve only seen one of their studio albums reach number one and most of their stuff is just downright awful.
Their highest charting single is “Just a Song Before I Go” which reached #7 in 1977. Their only other top ten hit was “Wasted on the Way” which peaked at #9 in 1982.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young recorded some good stuff but certainly not enough to warrant a place in the hall of fame.
Tom Petty
This one is easy. Is Tom Petty a big enough star to perform at a Super Bowl halftime show? The answer is no. But he did as much in 2008 at Super Bowl XLII.
Now, Petty has been extremely successful throughout his career. He’s sold more than 50 million albums worldwide and Tom Petty concerts continue to sell out year after year.
But, he’s never had a number one album or a number one single.
One of the reasons why he’s on our list is because ever since his 1981 album, Hard Promises, all his stuff sounds the same.
Another reason why he’s overrated is he doesn’t elicit much enthusiasm. He’s not very exciting. Yes, LOP likes him and you probably do too, but when you hear the name Tom Petty your eyes don’t light up and your heart doesn’t flutter. More than likely you just shrug your shoulders and say “meh.”
Green Day
Furthermore, the Bay Area punk trio is often credited with ushering in the 1990′s wave of punk-pop bands. Music critics often cite them as progenitors of a whole new generation of punk.
And that’s why they are on our list–their association with punk music. For as we all know, they’re not punk rockers they’re pop stars. They write catchy tunes that feature whining lyrics about contrived political oppression.
Yet, they have more in common with Burt Bacharach than they do in Johnny Lydon.
If they lost the ridiculous eye makeup, dropped the bogus teenage angst, and shopped at the Banana Republic they’d make one heck of a pop band.
Only two types of people think Green Day is actually punk. The first type is record executives who want a safe, accessible brand of pop/rock music they can label and sell as punk. The second type is kids who want to listen to punk music as they drive around in their parents BMW.
In the shopping mall of popular music, Green Day is the store “Hot Topic.”
After all, what do a bunch of American kids born in 1972 have to rebel against? Not having cable? No Goonies 2? Sega Dreamcast not given enough of a chance to succeed?
Bottom line, the last thing any punk band would ever want is their music used in a Broadway musical. If punks thought mainstream music was commercial and corporate (both anathema to their world view), they should know Broadway is ten-times worse.
Hey I was at that one. Got there early and got Bono’s autograph on my ticket stub—still have it. Still have all my ticket stubs from the 80’s. Went with my little bro.
Bruce Springsteen. Drivel.
Chicago, Bloood Sweat and Tears and Steve Miller all sucked enough to account for the vacuum of space
Oh my goodness, I so agree with you there.
John Lennon without the Beatles.
Not to mention that Dave Matthews is personally a hot-head, arrogant little punk. He’s as mean as Gary Busey who we once kicked out of our 4 star hotel and tore up the bill. Was worth it to kick his abusive butt out.
When Dave travels he checks in as Richard Tator! No lie.
Some celeberties actually get creative with the names we list on the rooms.
My personal list of overrated bands. These are groups that friends of mine love love love, but which sound like garbage to me:
Queensryche
Soundgarden
Nickelback
Creed
Bands I’m sick of hearing on the radio (not overrated, just overplayed):
Hendrix
Clapton
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Eagles
Yeah, I like bands that use lots and different good studio musicians. Steely Dan was like that so much they rarely toured.
And besides, you else has the gonads to turn the flute into a lead instument?
Top of my list, "The Smithereens" - Pat DiNizio crafts perfect power pop songs.
Again this is just MHO, but . . .
To me SRV is the Pat Boone of the Blues (or maybe the Kenny G). He took an important musical form and diminished it down to soulless,boring, bland, vanilla pap. He created cookie cutter pop that was devoid of emotion, intelligence and artistic merit.
He also would not make my list of top 5 rock guitarist (or top 5000000 for that matter). There is a huge difference between being a technically great guitarist and being a great guitarist. Give me Bo Diddly over Yngwie Malmsteen any day.
Neil Peart on drums. Unbelievable. He earns his nickname “the octopus”.
I could live without the high Geddy Lee voice but great musician.
And it’s only three guys. Some of their stuff gets repetitive over time.
I saw them first in 1975 and being 16 it was awesome to me so some of my like for them results from that. But I love a lot of their stuff, especially the album 2112 and the song Tom Sawyer.
Their early stuff was more hard rock. Peart joined and got into the writing and gets into stories like Zeppelin did. Check out the story of “Trees”, it’s a pretty good message against identity politics and freedom.
Neil Peart on drums. Unbelievable. He earns his nickname “the octopus”.
I could live without the high Geddy Lee voice but great musician.
And it’s only three guys. Some of their stuff gets repetitive over time.
I saw them first in 1975 and being 16 it was awesome to me so some of my like for them results from that. But I love a lot of their stuff, especially the album 2112 and the song Tom Sawyer.
Their early stuff was more hard rock. Peart joined and got into the writing and gets into stories like Zeppelin did. Check out the story of “Trees”, it’s a pretty good message against identity politics and freedom.
If you play guitar (as I have for well over 40 years) you will understand what Hendrix did for the electric guitar was absolute genius, irrespective of his drug abuse. Try playing six-chord blues riffs on a Fender Strat strung upside down and making it sound as fluid as a Bach minuet because your fingers could easily span five frets and you knew every scale in every key by heart. The only one who comes close in my mind is Stevie Ray Vaughan, who also died far too young.
His voice hasn't been that high since "Permanent Waves."
Overrated:
1) Tom Petty
2) ZZ Top
3) Bob Seager
4) All things Eric Clapton (though it’s cool to say you like him)
Underrated:
1) Crissy Hynde of the Pretenders
2) Styx
3) Train
Jimi Hendrix-overrated? The greatest electric guitarist in the rock genre? What about the songs he wrote? brilliant.
I was a fan of the Eagles for close to a week. As it happened, around the age of 12 or so, I bought a copy of their greatest hits at a library sale. The purchase set me back about five cents. I listened to it quite a lot and then figured that maybe some of music from that era might be almost as good. So I got some stuff from my dad and gave it a try. I was halfway through Simon and Garfunkle’s Bookends when I realized that I’d been had. I immediately marched back down to the library and demanded my nickel back.
One disagreement on Clapton; if you like Blues try his “From the Cradle” album.
ZZ Top is good with the older stuff (again, good Blues) and the commericial stuff is just fun. Great in concert. I’m biased though because at a high school BETA convention a bunch of us ran into them staying at the same hotel.
We partied in their suite.
No mention of Billy Joel yet?
Fair point, how about the following line in “Thunder Road” though:
And my car’s out back if you’re ready to take that long walk
From your front porch to my front seat
Think how much easier it would be for him, for any musician really, to make the line: From your front porch to my BACK seat. Think about the difference that makes in the song, in the meaning of the line, in the respect that it shows for the person he’s singing the song to.
For example, compare him to the myriad of wretched rock singers out now, the whole “Nickleback” genre, Theory of a Deadman, Creed, all the guys who front those bands can SING, but they end up sounding empty and phony compared to what I hear in Springsteen’s singing.
I’m not a singer and am incapable of judging people’s ability to sing and I’ve always liked the way Springsteen sings. There’s an honesty in his voice and lyrics that appeals to me.
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