Most Overated Singer Or Band

[Shogun Gunner]

glad to see that there are others who don't go for Dave Matthews... Thought I was the only one in the world....

Now for my turn to 'fess up -- I misread "Velvet Underground" as "Velvet Revolver".

/me goes over to -Jrabbit and wipes beer off, picks up peanuts, and generally cleans up the area.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
(though I think "nearly every single proto-punk band" is a clear and deliberate overstatement on your part).

Mr Hyperbole strikes again!

ADD TO OVERRATED LIST
The MC5 -- (for reasons, see Velvet Underground notes)

I'm sure my coolness factor is going down in your eyes, but I really like "Kick Out the Jams."

[Agathon]

Why are people saying Van Halen were overrated?

You may not like their songs, but Eddie is the most influential rock guitar player of the last 30 years.

[Saras]

Originally posted by Agathon
You may not like their songs, but Eddie is the most influential rock guitar player of the last 30 years.

I lied.

Agathon

[-Jrabbit]

Re Eddie Van Halen -- I fully agree that he has been a hugely influential guitarist. (But I don't think that his influence has been a good thing. A generation of guitarists learning hammer-ons instead of chord structures...) Is he overrated? Well yes, but he is neither a band nor a singer, so technically that's off topic for this thread.

Re Van Halen the band -- Definitely overrated.

-----------------
People, the thread asks for "overrated" bands and singers. The fact that a band is/was hugely influential says nothing about their prowess.

"Influential" is not a synonym for "great."

[-Jrabbit]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I'm sure my coolness factor is going down in your eyes, but I really like "Kick Out the Jams."

There is nothing uncool about liking the MC5. And "Kick Out the Jams" is a pretty good song. Heck, I have a substantial list of guilty musical pleasures in which I occasionally indulge.

It's just good to be aware of the fact that the MC5 were much more effective as a political force than as a band. Their few recorded efforts are uneven at best. Guitarist Wayne Kramer is a friend of mine, and he freely admits that their reputation far exceeds their actual achievements. (Sorry for the name-drop, but it's true.)

[Elok]

Yay, other people dislike Dave Matthews! I think part of the reason I dislike him might be something I just suddenly realized: his voice sounds like the adults on a Charlie Brown special. Well, I always thought his voice was weird, but I was never able to really pinpoint what it sounded like. But he's got that profoundly-drunk-bullfrog-played-too-slow-on-a-turntable thing going on, and it's a really depressing voice even when he's singing about something happy.

[-Jrabbit]

History Rears Its Ugly Head

"KICK OUT THE JAMS"
By Lester Bangs
APRIL 05, 1969

Whoever thought when that dirty little quickie Wild in the Streets came out that it would leave such an imprint on the culture? First the Doors (who were always headed in that direction anyway) grinding out that famous "They-got-the-guns-but-we-got-the-numbers" march for the troops out there in Teenland, and now this sweaty aggregation. Clearly this notion of violent, total youth revolution and takeover is an idea whose time has come - which speaks not well for the idea but ill for the time.

About a month ago the MC-5 received a cover article in Rolling Stone proclaiming them the New Sensation, a group to break all barriers, kick out all jams, "total energy thing," etc. etc. etc. Never mind that they came on like a bunch of 16 years old punks on a meth power trip - these boys, so the line ran, could play their guitars like John Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders played sax!

Well, the album is out now and we can all judge for ourselves. For my money they come on more like Blue Cheer than Trane and Sanders, but then my money has already gone for a copy of this ridiculous, overbearing, pretentious album; and maybe that's the idea, isn't it ?

The set, recorded live, starts out with an introduction by John Sinclair, "Minister of Information" for the "White Panthers," if you can dig that. The speech itself stands midway between Wild in the streets and Arthur Brown. The song that follows it is anticlimactic. Musically the group is intentionally crude and aggressively raw. Which can make for powerful music except when it is used to conceal a paucity of ideas, as it is here. Most of the songs are barely distinguishable from each other in their primitive two-chord structures. You've heard all this before from such notables as the Seeds, Blue Cheer, Question Mark and the Mysterians, and the Kingsmen. The difference here, the difference which will sell several hundred thousand copies of this album, is in the hype, the thick overlay of teenage-revolution and total-energy-thing which conceals these scrapyard vistas of clichés and ugly noise.

"Kick Out The Jams" sounds like Barret Strong's "Money" as recorded by the Kingsmen. The lead on "Come Together" is stolen note-for-note from the Who's "I Can See for Miles." "I Want You Right Now" sounds exactly (down to the lyrics) like a song called "I Want You" by the Troggs, a British group who came on with a similar sex-and-raw-sound image a couple of years ago (remember "Wild Thing"?) and promptly disappeared into oblivion, where I imagine they are laughing at the MC-5.

Originally published in Rolling Stone Magazine
Bold type added for emphasis.

[chequita guevara]

But what did Creem say?

[-Jrabbit]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
I misread "Velvet Underground" as "Velvet Revolver".

* Shogun Gunner goes over to -Jrabbit and wipes beer off, picks up peanuts, and generally cleans up the area.

Very sporting of you, SG.

Of course, it's incredibly tempting to add Velvet Revolver to my overrated list.
But sadly, there's not enough evidence to make that call. Just one album.

[Solomwi]

Easily the Eagles and Dave Matthews. The only productive use of Dave Matthews music is if you're trying to nail a ninth grade chick. But then you go to jail.

[-Jrabbit]

Is nailing an underager really worth the pain of going to jail listening to Dave Matthews?

[Dis]

no

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
The Beatles, the Stones, the Beach Boys, G'n'R, anything else which I totally missed the cultural significance of and can thus look back on with the smug aura of hindsight and pronounce crap, 3EB, $0.50, U2, anyone who regularly tops the singles chart, RHCPs, Nirvana, The Smiths.

I suppose you like teh 5th symphony of fatty mcfat fat.

Radiohead have totally crapped out since Kid A (I dont care what people say its no OK Computer or The Bends), back in 97 however they were the most promising band in the world.

[MosesPresley]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
The Eagles. Period.
what the hell the big deal was about The Beach Boys.