Five criminally overrated bands (in your opinion) and five criminally underrated bands (also in your opinion)...

It's a tough question but here's my thoughts on things... firstly, a lot of my favourite bands have been listed as 'overrated' - Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Pearl Jam, Guns n' Roses etc all of which are, IMHO, great bands. So for that reason I'm not going to go for overrated bands though there are a couple of huge bands that I don't quite get the hype about such as Coldplay and U2. That said they're huge, huge global bands and that's for a reason even if they aren't to my tastes.

Anyway, some underrated bands / artists IMHO...

* Longpigs
* Leigh Nash
* Manic Street Preachers
* Annie Lennox
* Placebo
 
Johnny Vincents Motorbike said:
Prince
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Fukk right off right now. :mad: The little purple fkker was a bona fide genius, song writer without parallel and virtuoso multi instrumentalist. He could out-shred any "Guitar Hero" you could name (with possible exceptions of Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Hazel)

Aet290204 said:
There’s some right sh1te bands listed on here
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Yup, that's the point innit. Come on fella, let's hear your choices then! (y) It's just a bit of fun.
 
Lemmy_kilmister said:
What about Majestica? Tommy with the lovely hair?
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I had to look them up, you're ahead of me there! They're down as symphonic power metal which is something I don't mind as long as it's done right and not too incredibly cheesy 🧀🧀 Will have a listen to them later 👍
 
Johnny Vincents Motorbike said:
Overrated

Prince

The Pixies
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I can get how a lot of people don't like the pixies (I do though), and lots of their songs are pretty poor (or annoying), but they also have come crackers.
When Kim Deal was with the band they were at their best, they started great with Surer Rosa and Doolittle, but there wasn't much good after that imo.

I'm not a mad Prince fan, not really "my kind of music/ songs" , but I can still see how he probably wasn't rated highly enough. Most people I know that really know their stuff about music don't stop banging on about how much of a genius he was.
 
Teesside_Steel said:
Overrated
Oasis
Coldplay
Kassabian
Ed Sheran
Foo Fighters

Underrated
Def Leppard
System of a Down
Flyleaf
Alter Bridge or Slash, Myles Kennedy and the conspirators
Sugarcult
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SOAD underrated? Everyone I know who likes that genre (or who has heard of them) rates them!

The only people I know who don't/ won't like them are people who hate that sort of music, it's not underrating the band though, I don't think as they don't know of them to apply a rating, as they don't listen to that genre.
 
A couple that I've not seen mentioned yet, that I like (largely), but a lot don't (even in their genres) are Bush, Smashing Pumpkins, Blink 182, REM.

I always thought Audislave/ Chris Cornell/ Soundgarden should have got more airplay in the UK too.
 
I think it's best to be positive and stick with bands that maybe didn't get the sales or recognition by the general public that their talent and musical metier deserves.

1. Echo and the Bunnymen, more musically interesting and edgy than their contemporaries U2, Simple Minds and The Cure who managed to elevate themselves to stadia stardom, the internal band dynamics that drove them also destroyed them, at their height McCulloch ego made Bono and seem like a shy retiring type. Drugs and death ultimately ended their time as perennial musical dauphins and the reformed Bunnymen have never neared the heights of their original output.

2. Talk Talk, the influence of Talk Talk and Mark Hollis is writ large through contemporary music, at their sales peak they were seen as non-conformist, non-genred, almost MOR and safe, neither past or present, but their, since then the re-evalutation of their oeuvre has shown them to be the nascent influencers and musical path finders that seemed hidden in their commercial pomp.

3. That Petrol Emotion, of the time were the best of their genre, a hard edged political new wave alternative to the Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, Happy Mondays type bands that rose to prominence, they balanced accessible pop sensibilities with flint hard alternative music, as well as treading a deliberately provocative politic stance on Northern Ireland that saw them as outliers to the main stream.

4. Joy Division/New Order, there isn't a band that exists today that will not have been influenced by one or the other, reinvented music, created the indie dance genre, Joy Division are the root through which all modern guitar bands grew, the demise of Factory, whilst keeping a public focus on JD/NO in a way detracts from the musical soundscapes that can be traced back to both of these bands, both bands changed the way music was, made, produced, promoted and ultimately their DNA is on just about everything released in the last 20 years.
 
Andy_W said:
SOAD underrated? Everyone I know who likes that genre (or who has heard of them) rates them!

The only people I know who don't/ won't like them are people who hate that sort of music, it's not underrating the band though, I don't think as they don't know of them to apply a rating, as they don't listen to that genre.
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Maybe it’s just my circle. Friends who like this music know BYOB, Toxicity etc. but not their others.
 
Andy_W said:
Yeah, wasn't digging at you, but you "overrated" some of the bands that literally everyone I know has watched headline about 5 festivals each, and pretty much all loved (some surprisingly). Largely those bands even appeal outside their own genres, which is some doing. That's from Indie/ Alt/ Rock/ Pop types anyway.

Obviously, if you like metal and the heavy stuff, then the chances are that sort of some won't be heavy enough for you?
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Nah it's not a case of that, I listen to loads of stuff that's nowhere near heavy (Lighthouse Family, Simon & Garfunkel, Don McClean, 90s Dance etc), I just find them extremely average and struggle to see how they've garnered the success they have.

Edited as I sounded like a reet snob. I do apologise.
 
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Seen a few choices in both camps which I agree with, together with the reasoning.
This won't be everyone's cup of tea, but here goes:

Overrated:

The Rolling stones
The Who
Oasis
Led Zep
Meat Loaf

Underrated:

Talk Talk (Massively)
Camel
10CC
Steve Hackett
Big Country
 
American_Mary said:
I think it's best to be positive and stick with bands that maybe didn't get the sales or recognition by the general public that their talent and musical metier deserves.

1. Echo and the Bunnymen, more musically interesting and edgy than their contemporaries U2, Simple Minds and The Cure who managed to elevate themselves to stadia stardom, the internal band dynamics that drove them also destroyed them, at their height McCulloch ego made Bono and seem like a shy retiring type. Drugs and death ultimately ended their time as perennial musical dauphins and the reformed Bunnymen have never neared the heights of their original output.

2. Talk Talk, the influence of Talk Talk and Mark Hollis is writ large through contemporary music, at their sales peak they were seen as non-conformist, non-genred, almost MOR and safe, neither past or present, but their, since then the re-evalutation of their oeuvre has shown them to be the nascent influencers and musical path finders that seemed hidden in their commercial pomp.

3. That Petrol Emotion, of the time were the best of their genre, a hard edged political new wave alternative to the Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, Happy Mondays type bands that rose to prominence, they balanced accessible pop sensibilities with flint hard alternative music, as well as treading a deliberately provocative politic stance on Northern Ireland that saw them as outliers to the main stream.

4. Joy Division/New Order, there isn't a band that exists today that will not have been influenced by one or the other, reinvented music, created the indie dance genre, Joy Division are the root through which all modern guitar bands grew, the demise of Factory, whilst keeping a public focus on JD/NO in a way detracts from the musical soundscapes that can be traced back to both of these bands, both bands changed the way music was, made, produced, promoted and ultimately their DNA is on just about everything released in the last 20 years.
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Superb post, funnily enough I've only recently got into Echo and the Bunnymen's early stuff (it's great) and Talk Talk feel an obsession waiting to happen from my limited exposure.

Agree re: Joy Division, arguably the UK's Velvet Underground in terms of inspiration on others and future generations.

Off to check out That Petrol Emotion...
 
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