Most Overrated Bands / Artists

The drug argument is a bit odd. Virtually every music sounds better on drugs and almost all the great experimental music from the late 60s and 70s was influenced by and aimed at people smashed off their heads.

The Madchester scene was far from the first to benefit. People always hold special reverence for their defining age though. Mid 30s northerners tend to overrate the Roses IMO.
 
Wibble said:
They were pretty cuddly even when they first came out. And I don't like either The Who or The Stones much either.
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They werent compared to other mainstream acts, they were pretty hardcore in their Hamburg years. Epstein tried to tame them, but from Rubber Soul onwards they were anything but cuddly or tame.
 
Mockney said:
The drug argument is a bit odd. Virtually every music sounds better on drugs and almost all the great experimental music from the late 60s and 70s was influenced by and aimed at people smashed off their heads.

The Madchester scene was far from the first to benefit. People always hold special reverence for their defining age though. Mid 30s northerners tend to overrate the Roses IMO.
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Yes, I still like the Hungarian alternative bands of the 80s/90s, even if I know they are mostly crap in hindsight. But I was part of that scene, I had great memories and some of that music defined my teenager years.
 
Mockney said:
The drug argument is a bit odd. Virtually every music sounds better on drugs and almost all the great experimental music from the late 60s and 70s was influenced by and aimed at people smashed off their heads.

The Madchester scene was far from the first to benefit. People always hold special reverence for their defining age though. Mid 30s northerners tend to overrate the Roses IMO.
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It wasn't really an argument, more of statement.

I'm not mid thirties northerner either.

It's horses for courses. The best way to describe music I like is music which has layers. Both musically and lyrically and I think those two things are embodied in The Roses.
 
cinc said:
I had my fair share of acid, E, mushrooms, speed and a few other things.(Not anything for about 13 years now though.) I dont think thats the "problem." Degustibus non est disputandum, or what though. So dont attack people for not liking what you do

And if you look complexity and verve in Bowie, I've embedded the Outside album.
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I wasn't attacking, I just thought you were being slightly dismissive of The Stone Roses by calling it a nice summer album.


I'll give Outside a listen, If I finally get Bowie I'll be delighted.
 
Wibble said:
a) Daring or provocative
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your'e a bit silly

:lol::lol:

the beatles werent daring?

:lol:

wait are you talking about as in rescuing damsels in distress or musically?


as for provocative when was the last time any group you like had mass burnings of their records cause of something they said?


To get to the point where the groups you like were being daring and provocative took a culture shift and the beatles did that. Looking back what they did may same tame in your eyes but at the time their every word was hung upon and every song poured over for meaning and if you cant see elements of provocation in their music and what they did elsewhere, then we'll just have to agree to disagree.


safe in the knowledge that you know feck all
 
I am old enough to have been around for their last few years together. I know they were considered daring very early on and that some idiots burned stuff because of Lenon's Jesus statement. I even know they were ground breaking at the time (when light pop songs were new) and again when they discovered drugs but they are easy listening pop to me and always will be.
 
Snow said:
Kiss are only up there in sales because of the number of albums they've put out. They were great before Gene Simmons' Jew side took over his comic book loving sex maniac side. They were the first ones to release a live album and they've whored the shit out of those and the compilation albums ever since. But each album on it's own isn't a record breaker.

Before they took off their make-up they had some excellent albums. Before they gave into the 80's and started catering to the general crowd rather than just making music for the fun of it. Maybe it's something to with Criss and Frehley being off their rockers and getting kicked out for being drunk an/or high all the time. Mostly it's about their change of direction.

In the early years they were known for being great live. That's what they did. They wrote song with good choruses and guitar solos. They say write about what you know and that's why pretty much all their lyrics are about sex. Simple formula really.
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Cheers for the response, great point about their prolificness. 14 platinum albums still comes as a surprise to me though & even if no album sold a huge amount, the demand was obviously there for them to continue to make so much music that sold in its millions. I do dislike their sound (even the early stuff that I know) and consider that period a nadir for rock music, but that's just taste - bad taste you'd say! The extent of their success compared to their contemporaries just surprises me. What did you mean by first to release a live album please?

With The Stone Roses I just don't think they produced enough to be held up as the icons of a movement as they often are. I think the effect of drugs is a fair point in that the production of that whole sound is engineered to sound great on stimulants. I think very little of that Madchester scene stands up musically but thankfully others think that view's complete bollocks & we're back into discussing different tastes.

Re: performers, straight out of an A&R handbook: songwriters are ten a penny while stars sell records. Can't properly comment on Elvis myself as I can't stand rock & roll but those I know who love his music do view him as a genius. I think the truly great performance deserve the reverence they're held in, performance is a huge part of music.

I think the black/white discussion of 60's music can go too far the other way, which is still better than ignoring the discrimination and exploitation that went on. You only have to hear the likes of John Hammond talk about that period to realise just how much great music we missed out on due to the racial divide. But completely dismissing rock & roll and many of those early rock bands as white exploitation of black music misses the point I think, that the music was transformed and something new eventually emerged. I think it's just the pattern music has always taken where something is first imitated before a unique new sound emerges. The Stones/Led Zep etc. weren't just cover artists.

I subscribe to Danny Baker's view that even while considered the greatest group ever, if anything the Beatles remain underrated. I've always thought that they produced enough for there to be at least something that everyone likes, but again I guess that's the great thing about taste. In terms of lacking edge, I Want You (She's So Heavy) is probably my favourite song of theirs & and is proof if needed that they could rock. And something like Long, Long, Long is about as far from cookie cutter pop as you can get. On their musical innovation, Alan W. Pollack's musicological Notes on...Series is still freely available (I hated it when I read it): http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-notes_on.shtml
 
Wibble said:
I am old enough to have been around for their last few years together. I know they were considered daring very early on and that some idiots burned stuff because of Lenon's Jesus statement. I even know they were ground breaking at the time (when light pop songs were new) and again when they discovered drugs but they are easy listening pop to me and always will be.
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The Beatles also had their very edgy moments. They put out the original Butcher album cover which was so over the top it was banned:

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I'd say their "look" on the Hey Jude cover was pretty edgy as well for 1968, especially considering their "wholesome" image of just a couple years before:

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Their embracement of the drug culture and psychodelic estetics was totally edgy as well, and references to drugs and Revolution #9 experimentation. It was obvious these guys had gotten way outside of the conservative mainstream. The Beatles pushed the envelope way out there, something easily taken for granted today. Stuff like A Clockwork Orange and Last Tango in Paris were being banned back then, which would seem like a joke, even back in the 80s. What Richard Nixon denominated the "silent majority" was still very widespread, it just wasn't as loud and colorful of the whole 60s thing.

The Beatles scared conservative Amerika and probably Western Europe though not to the same extent. Look at the battle Richard Nixon put up to keep John Lennon out of the US. There's a great documentary on it, The United States vs John Lennon, or something like that.
 
Can a singer be regarded as an artist? I think not...but what's a singer then? a performing artist? An entertainer?
 
I think it should probably be defined by how much creative control the person has, so those who write their own music are more artists (to phrase it horribly) maybe, than those who do not. But I'd still call anyone who performs an artist as I agree that it's still creation of some sort.
 
cinc said:
No, a great singer (I'm not talking about Madonna or Rihanna, or Chris Brown) makes any song his or her own adding an extra layer of emotions to it.
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I think that's the difference between an average singer and a great one. It depends on your interpretation... I think art is a form of expression...and the expression should be the artist's. Having said that, performing artists, are a type of artist by definition...but I'm not sure I'm happy in giving Nicki Minaj that particular distinction.
 
R.Nilsson7 said:
I really need to explore The Beatles at some point, to see what everyone's raving about. Haven't listened to a single album of theirs.
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In someways a good place to start is actually with John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band album, basically everything that is good about his late Beatles songwriting is encompassed on that album.

If I'm right about your music tastes that is.

Starting at something like Revolver can be a bit too pop like for the modern listener.
 
Spoony Kobayashi said:
I think that's the difference between an average singer and a great one. It depends on your interpretation... I think art is a form of expression...and the expression should be the artist's. Having said that, performing artists, are a type of artist by definition...but I'm not sure I'm happy in giving Nicki Minaj that particular distinction.
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How would you class this:

 
Brel wrote his own shit though. Fantastically. No wonder that Bowie covered the Walker Brothers cover of two of his songs. One of themwas a highlight of the Ziggy and the Earthling tour.
 
Yeah, he was an artist. I dunno, though...could a comedian be regarded as an artist? Was Jacko an artist?
 
Spoony Kobayashi said:
I think that's the difference between an average singer and a great one. It depends on your interpretation... I think art is a form of expression...and the expression should be the artist's. Having said that, performing artists, are a type of artist by definition...but I'm not sure I'm happy in giving Nicki Minaj that particular distinction.
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Its the same in every artform, whether its writing, singing, dancing, acting, directing, photographing, painting, drawing, sculpting. If its good, its art, if its not its filler, or shit, or kitsch or whatever.
 
Spoony Kobayashi said:
Yeah, he was an artist. I dunno, though...could a comedian be regarded as an artist? Was Jacko an artist?
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comedians? surely, I'd say Louis CK is an artist for example.

Jacko is harder though, if he died in the mid eighties instead of 2010 I would have said yes, he wrote and made some great-great songs, but he became a caricature so now I'm a bit reluctant.

But what the feck, yes. One that got mad.
 
cinc said:
Its the same in every artform, whether its writing, singing, dancing, acting, directing, photographing, painting, drawing, sculpting. If its good, its art, if its not its filler, or shit, or kitsch or whatever.
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Then it's subjective. Anyway, in that case we could say some are talented artists...whereas others are talentless hacks eg Cheryl Cole. Again, I think singing's a tool to express art...like a sculptor's chisel. I dunno...it is a difficult one, otherwise 'What is Art?'...wouldn't need debating...by the virtue of having a definitive answer.
 
cinc said:
comedians? surely, I'd say Louis CK is an artist for example.

Jacko is harder though, if he died in the mid eighties instead of 2010 I would have said yes, he wrote and made some great-great songs, but he became a caricature so now I'm a bit reluctant.

But what the feck, yes. One that got mad.
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By your definition he's clearly an artist, the debate wouldn't be whether he's a good or a bad one.
 
cinc said:
Thats my point, for me being an artist is not an occupation but a badge of quality.
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I know what your point is... It's just too subjective, it'd be much easier to say...Bowie was a great artist, whereas Cheryl Cole was a talentless one (artist). For me an artist is a person who expresses themselves through any medium.
 
It is all subjective which is why it is so much fun to argue about these things no matter how pointless it all is.

Did I mention that the Beatles make me want to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and that The Stone Roses are shit?

I think I may have but I'm not sure. ;)

P.S. Bono for president
 
Spoony Kobayashi said:
I know what your point is... It's just too subjective, it'd be much easier to say...Bowie was a great artist, whereas Cheryl Cole was a talentless one (artist). For me an artist is a person who expresses themselves through any medium.
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You can say that with musicians. Bowie is a great musician while Cheryl Cole is a talentless musician. Bowie is also a great artist.
 
cinc said:
You can say that with musicians. Bowie is a great musician while Cheryl Cole is a talentless musician. Bowie is also a great artist.
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Cheryl Cole's not even a musician, but yeah Bowie is an artist by my definition, the other one is a talentless entertainer.
 
Or is an artist a person who can evoke pathos? Surely the ability to create empathy is of paramount importance. In that case performers can fit into the category.
 
The singer artist thing really twists my mellon. I'm inclined to give no one who doesn't write their own stuff the artist label, but that's obviously fallacy, since there are some who deserve it. But how do you define it? Voices are largely subjective. If Winehouse didn't write would her voice be worthy of artistry? Some think so, many not.

It's a bit of a cluster feck. I'm inclined to say feck it. Tony Mortimer > Elvis, and be done with it.

Alright?
 
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