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.
My favorite use of I Ron Butterfly is when Bart substitutes the organist’s music at church on the Simpsons. The old lady plays it through while everyone falls asleep then she falls off the bench.
Wow — I know the beatlemaniacs are out there-kinda reminds me of the trekkies.
No they were mass produced pop pap. That’s the truth, sorry you can’t face it, but that’s not my problem. At least you finally discussed the early albums to defend the early albums, that’s a step in the right direction.
They aren’t “somewhat conventional in form” they are typical straight off the mimeograph heard one heard them all generic chaste love songs. Period.
And there you go again back to the Revolver and later. Already said they got interesting when they started doing drugs, said it a dozen times.
WOIIFTM was more than possible before Sgt Pepper, Money isn’t even half as experimental as Lumpy Gravy, one of the concept albums that existed BEFORE Sgt Pepper and, according to Paul himself, INFLUENCED Pepper. If FZ after Freak Out can’t hold your attention it’s because you’ve been clouded by too much listening to the Beatles and their 100% sanitized always typical straight from the form verse chorus verse chorus guitar solo verse chorus pop. Freak Out was a warmup album, he hadn’t even really figured out his form, you can tell because it’s the only one of his albums with blackholes.
Your regard for the Beatles is a direct quote of the press touts. You say everything Jann Wenner says. What happened is I enjoy watching how badly Beatles fans freak out when you point out that they stink. No other bands have fans that go as ballistic at Beatles fans. They act like you peed on their mother, it’s hilarious. It’s really the Beatles fans that make the Beatles annoying, in and of themselves the Beatles are just another pop band making crappy pop tunes, which is annoying but no worse than N’Sync or Boyz 2 Men or Paul Anka. It’s the Beatles fans with their insane worship and their need to say patently ridiculous things like “the Beatles were the most creative band in rock history” that makes all the stupidity.
I’ve known stoned metal heads who wouldn’t get half as worked up if you told them Judas Priest sucked as you’ve gotten here. And they have the excuse of being stoned.
The Beatles never played rock and roll. They were a pop band. The idea of them being a rock band is the great lie Wenner ever proffered upon the world.
I’m complaining, as I’ve said repeatedly, because they spawned the prefab pop that the record companies have been trying to recreate ever since. While pop will almost never be really good music (almost, there’s the Marc Bolan and Tony Carey exceptions of course but outside of them), it’s never been allowed to progress past the Beatles. Once they made all that money the record companies keep wanting it to happen again.
Teen Angel IS I want to Hold Your Hand. They are exactly the same prefab mimeographed pop song and anybody that can’t see that is deliberately looking away from the truth.
The Beatles never made rock, so it’s not possible for them to have reignited it. The great lie of the British invasion is that rock was dieing. It was only dieing in the New York radio stations, out on the street rock was fine.
When Elvis wasn’t being forced to “Pat Boone” (make sanitized uncredited covers of kick songs by black artists) he was great. All the way up until he went all sequins, then he became a sad mockery of himself. But he knocked out some kick ass rockabilly in his day. Never really sure he earned that whole “king of rock and roll” thing, but he could pound out the rockabilly with the best of them.
Never read Jann Wenner so I can’t help it if he is correct from time to time.
I haven’t gotten worked up at all as I said the Beatles weren’t my favorite band. I liked several more than them but I recognize their seminal role in the development of RR.
Nor does my lack of regard for Zappa’s self indulgence crap after Freak Out have anything to do with the Beatles, all I have to do is point to “300 Motels” which was hideous on every level and makes “Hard Day’s Night” look like a work of cinematic genius.
Apparently you have a unique definition of Rock. But, in fact, the definition the rest of the world uses includes the Beatles as the greatest rock band ever. Not my favorite but the rest of the world overrules me.
I would suggest you go to an audiologist quickly maybe it isn’t too late to hear a lot of great stuff you have been missing.
The Beatles were unique in many areas and the world loved them for it.
You’ve never read Rolling Stone magazine?! Really. All this yapping you do about music I’ve you’ve never even cracked one open?! I find that hard to believe, even putting aside the fact that you basically word for word parrot everything Wenner has ever said the Beatles, it’s freaking Rolling Stone, I mean yeah once you finish puberty you realize the magazine is horrible, but by then most of us have read at least a couple dozen issues.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, 300 Motels is brilliant, if you’re smart enough to pay attention, or know guys in working class bands. It is Spinal Tap before Spinal Tap. And hey the most creative drummer in the history of rock (at least according to Beatles fans) is in the movie for like 5 minutes.
When it comes to the Beatles it’s very easy. All music that exists for the sole purpose of making pubescent girls “bubbly” is pop, not rock. Rock is music for boys, pop is for girls. Just gotta look at any Beatles concert footage to see, they were a pop band.
They weren’t unique, that’s why the world loved them. The world isn’t into unique, the world is into known quantities. People like to know what to expect. Prefab pop satisfies that urge very well. As soon as the song starts you know what to expect, a clean verse about love, a catchy chorus with an addictive pop hook, another clean verse, the chorus again, a solo of some form that is again non-threatening, one more clean verse, the chorus and we’re out. It’s not unique, it’s a formula.
So I guess you’ll complain because Mozart’s symphonies contain four movements. Or Frank Sinatra singing conventional pop songs.
Your complaint simply isn’t true about the Beatles’ music being just for girls. “Roll over Beethoven” hardly makes the girls “bubbly” nor do many of the other songs on the first two albums. And the girls were screaming as loudly at the Rolling stones concerts as at any Beatles concert. They were no where near as cute either.
If pre-fab songs were so easy to write and produce hits why has no one repeated what the Beatles did? Or even come close?
What other rock group of the time innovated in the studio as much as the Fab Four? Who used sitars, swarmandals, mellotrons, claviolines, string and brass ensembles like the Beatles? They also pioneered the music video.
While my favorite albums are from Rubber Soul on the earlier ones are not deserving of your disdain either. Four of the greatest album ever recorded came from the Beatles: Rubber Soul, Revolver, Abby Road and Sargent Peppers. Those alone establish their fame.
I might have read a couple of articles twenty or thirty years ago but cannot swear to it. Mostly the articles are too tedious to go into and I don’t really care what any of their writers think about anything so why bother. I haven’t read Downbeat in thirty years or so either.
If what you say is true I should have been a writer for RS all these years.
You confirm my suspicion that 300 Motels is all a big inside joke. It should not be mentioned in the same breath as Spinal Tap.
You’re really taking this to the point of idiocy. You really need to stop adding to what I say, stick to just what I write. It’s not a “complaint” that the Beatles make pop songs using the structures of pop, it’s pointing out that they aren’t unique. And Sinatra did make conventional pop songs, he just did it with a great voice and overall sense of style.
And I never said pop was “just for girls” I said pop was for girls. There’s a difference. And Roll Over Beethoven is a sanitized cover of a Chuck Berry tune. That’s what I referred to earlier as doing a Pat Boone.
The only thing the Beatles did that hasn’t been reproduced is the level of success. The prefab pop is still being mass produced today.
Just about everybody innovated in the studio as much at the fab four. You want studio innovation look to Les Paul and Queen that’s REAL studio innovation. Half the prog rock movement used those instruments, better.
The earlier ones do deserve my disdain. Revolver is the only of those album I find even listenable. And they earned their fame a long time before those albums. What they have never earned is the slavering suck up fest the worshipers bestow. They simply were never the creative force you want them to be.
300 motels is only an inside joke in the way that any joke to something you’re too lazy to get familiar with is inside. It absolutely should be mentioned in the same breath as Spinal Tap, there’s be no Tap with 300, No comedy music with FZ.
What you write needs all the help it can get. It is odd to find someone as obsessed with destroying a rock band as you are. A simple “I don’t like them and never did” would have gotten no response from me but yards and yards of sheer crap about why they are so bad demands a response.
I point out plenty of exceptions to your blanket condemnations and you try and cover the falsehood with some lame excuse. You are simply wrong about almost everything said about the Beatles and their continuing influence shows just how wrong you are and just how significant they were. It must really eat your liver to know this and you do.
Their creativity was obvious to any one who cared to listen without a gigantic bug up their butts.
Virtually every word of that response is nonsense. Had 300 Motels never existed the entire world would have never noticed it had NOTHING to do with Spinal Tap at all.
Comedy music existed LONG before Frank Zappa as well. Do I have to give you titles?
Except your “help” is making stuff up I didn’t actually say, it’s erecting straw men.
I didn’t put out yards and yards of anything until YOU showed the typical Beatles fan obsession. All I said was they were the most overrated band ever. One simple little sentence, YOU went with the yards and yards.
Their lack of creativity is obvious to anyone that hasn’t wrapped up a whole bunch of their own sense of self worth in a band they weren’t even part of.
BQWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You’re funny. Apparently you’ve got a bunch of ego tied up in Spinal Tap too. The good news for you is I love Spinal Tap. The bad news is that by saying 300 motels had nothing to do with it you proved you know absolutely nothing.
And there’s a big difference between comedy music and novelty music. The big part being the music.
“Their lack of creativity is obvious to anyone that hasn’t wrapped up a whole bunch of their own sense of self worth in a band they weren’t even part of.”
What planet are you from?
We have different tastes...we don’t all like the same flavor of ice cream, but to say the Beatles lacked creativity is moronic.
You could say you never cared that much for their music, wasn’t your cup of tea...but you really make yourself look foolish to suggest they lacked creativity.
Because they WEREN’T creative. They were just another pop band following the pop structures. There’s nothing creative in that. Even when they did some drugs and branched out they still translated previously existing acid rock into basically pop ballads. It’s not creative, and no amount of insults thrown by you will make it creative.
Well, yeah, that last one was pretty upsetting, I have to admit.
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