Most overrated musical act of all time?

[Jeffster]

I'm starting to recognize how pointless this thread is. Every post is just "ZOMG THIS ARTIST DOESN'T MEET MY PERSONAL EXPECTATIONS FOR WHAT GOOD MUSIC SHOULD BE LOL"

which is pretty meaningless. If you're going to critique music, do it as objectively as you can by comparing the artist to other artists in a similar genre during a similar time period.

Frankly, most of you have a very parochial mold for what characteristics you expect "good music" to have and so you end up dismissing the vast majority of music by judging it in terms of some other genre that you like better. If you assume that all good music is supposed to sound like Lynyrd Skynyrd, of course Radiohead doesn't interest you. That doesn't make them bad; it makes you ignorant for saying so.

If you simply don't enjoy an entire genre, your opinion that x prominent artist from that genre is "overrated" or "bad" is just utterly meaningless, because you don't like that genre in the first place and so you have no idea how to evaluate the performance in meaningful terms.

It's like hearing 15 year old metalheads ramble on about how much the Beatles suck because when they listen to music they're looking for one very specific set of characteristics (in this case, fast, technically difficult, aggressive playing, chunky modern production EQd toward drums and guitars, and dark/menacing lyrics) and everything else just gets labeled "bad" because they don't understand how to judge a piece of music in the context of its own genre.

Not fitting your genre preferences doesn't make music bad. Stacking up poorly next to other artists in the same genre from the same time period in terms of objective critique does...if I hear another ISFP whine that "Radiohead sucks" for reasons that boil down to "they don't sound like AC/DC", I'm going to stab someone in the fucking eye.

"I listened to the whole Radiohead record, but I couldn't find one rockin' pentatonic blues riff, super cranked reverb-soaked arena drum beat, rippin' 128th note shred solo or lyric about gettin' drunk and lovin' my girl in my new '68 Chevy! This band SUCKS!" fucking

/rant

Upon reviewing this new evidence, I'd like to change my answer to Radiohead.

 

[simulatedworld]

Upon reviewing this new evidence, I'd like to change my answer to Radiohead.

Not enough songs about drunken debauchery?

 

[MacGuffin]

You've come here just to start a fight
You had to piss on our parade
You had to shred our big day
You had to ruin it for all concerned
In a drunken punch-up at a wedding

 

[simulatedworld]

You've come here just to start a fight
You had to piss on our parade
You had to shred our big day
You had to ruin it for all concerned
In a drunken punch-up at a wedding

haha wow you pwned me, nice work

Regarding Radiohead though, they're pretty inconsistent and have a fair number of songs that I don't much care for, but that's what happens when you experiment so much...you're bound to go wrong sometimes. But when they go right they do so much better than all their competitors that they're worthy of the adoration they get.

 

[ajblaise]

Radiohead doesn't suck. Radiohead fans suck.

It's like entry level music snobbery for people who haven't discovered indie rock yet.

 

[EJCC]

I'm starting to recognize how pointless this thread is. Every post is just "ZOMG THIS ARTIST DOESN'T MEET MY PERSONAL EXPECTATIONS FOR WHAT GOOD MUSIC SHOULD BE LOL"

which is pretty meaningless. If you're going to critique music, do it as objectively as you can by comparing the artist to other artists in a similar genre during a similar time period.

A compacted response rant:

There is no such thing as objective music criticism! There is no universal standard of musical quality! Literally - NONE! It does not work that way. Maybe it used to, back when there were fewer musical genres in Western society (and that was hundreds of years ago!!!), but it certainly doesn't now. This is how musical debates go, in my experience, regardless of what type of music you're talking about:

Person A: I love _____ music.
Person B: Really??? But they're terrible!
Person A: I don't think they are. I like them because they have ____ and _____ and they use a lot of _____ and a small amount of ______.
Person B: See, I hate that.

No objectivity there. The only way there can be objective music criticism is if there's an objective set of standards that bands/musicians must follow in order to be good, and there isn't one.

/rant

 

[wolfy]

Cheap shot? Not if Radiohead is actually overrated.

Hah! I think it is, because the way it was put it brings into question the capacity to rate the band in the first place. Anyway, like I said, it is more about the fandom surrounding the band than the band itself. The Beatles were overrated in their heyday. That is why they said they could fart on stage and the audience would applaud.

 

[simulatedworld]

A compacted response rant:

There is no such thing as objective music criticism! There is no universal standard of musical quality! Literally - NONE! It does not work that way. Maybe it used to, back when there were fewer musical genres in Western society (and that was hundreds of years ago!!!), but it certainly doesn't now. This is how musical debates go, in my experience, regardless of what type of music you're talking about:

Person A: I love _____ music.
Person B: Really??? But they're terrible!
Person A: I don't think they are. I like them because they have ____ and _____ and they use a lot of _____ and a small amount of ______.
Person B: See, I hate that.

No objectivity there. The only way there can be objective music criticism is if there's an objective set of standards that bands/musicians must follow in order to be good, and there isn't one.

/rant

fail

 

[EJCC]

fail

Okay, there's rationally debating your point, and then there's pointless trolling. This post proves which one you prefer.

Screw this thread.

 

[Jaguar]

Okay, there's rationally debating your point, and then there's pointless trolling. This post proves which one you prefer.

Screw this thread.

Sim plays his little guitar and gives people music lessons rather than deliver pizza. (Delivering pizza was his old job.)
And because he plays his little guitar and gives music lessons, he thinks it gives him the right to tell off everyone in this thread.
If you start a thread on pizza, he will 'slap you around' on that topic as well.
After all, he is an "expert" in music and pizza.

 

[EJCC]

Sim plays his little guitar and gives people music lessons rather than deliver pizza. (Delivering pizza was his old job.)
And because he plays his little guitar and gives music lessons, he thinks it gives him the right to tell off everyone in this thread.
If you start a thread on pizza, he will 'slap you around' on that topic as well.
After all, he is an "expert" in music and pizza.

But can't you still rationally debate a topic you're an "expert" on? Even if it ends up being condescending, it's still debate.

So now, a question for Sim: Why be so dismissive instead of showing me how exactly I'm wrong? One notable thing about ESTJs is that if you give them enough evidence to the contrary, or if you simply convince them through the logic of your debate, they'll change their mind, even if it's about something as deep-seated as religion. Therefore, I could easily be convinced of whatever you thought the hole in my debate was...

 

[highlander]

Dave Matthews Band

 

[highlander]

Lady Gag Gag

Who in the hell listens to that crap?

Me

 

[highlander]

Bono has become a caricature. It's very depressing and irritating. I can't even watch PBS without him popping up there.

Michelle Branch (cannot sing for toffee)

Evanescence (she, like Shakira, sounds as if she's being strangled)

Kanye West (gets another mention because I can't say it enough)

No

 

[pure_mercury]

I would like to add Wilco and Vampire Weekend to my previous nominations.

Pshaw!

[YOUTUBE=YcaGlJGijj0]Wilco - Outtasite (Outta Mind)[/YOUTUBE]


[YOUTUBE=bccKotFwzoY]Vampire Weekend - Giving Up the Gun[/YOUTUBE]

 

[pure_mercury]

I was thinking about this the other day, and honestly... John Lennon.

I love the the Beatles, and they collectively probably are among 10 greatest musicians of the 20th century. Now, some say that the Beatles themselves are over-rated, and with the almost religious status they have, I can see why someone would say that. But they really are awesome, and incredibly influential. Over-rated perhaps, but not the most over-rated...

But let's look at their solo work.

They all had successful solo careers. I can't think of any other band where that happened. Of course everyone wants to scoff about Ringo, and I'll just let that go, and say that yeah, aside from the quality of his music, the fact that he didn't write much of his work is a major strike against him in terms of ranking him... so we'll put him in fourth.

But I may be one of the few people that would then put Lennon's career in third. In the 10 years he got to live after the Beatles, Lennon was the least prolific, and as far as I'm concerned, did lower quality work than George or Paul.

Wonder Christmastime was in that span... and it's hard to forgive Paul for that, but it was about at the end, '79, so I'll let it slide. More often it's when I listen to much of Lennon's work, it sounds like he just phoned it in. The form too simple, the instrumentation too sparse, the lyrics often sound like an idea which was then never re-polished for musical format. A good example of that is his contraversial song, Woman Is the Nigger of the World. Yeah, I get the idea, but it sounds like he's sort of cramming the lyrics in there, like he never made the effort to turn prose into something melodic.

And that, of course, is relatively conventional. Then there's all of that garbage that he did thanks to the influence of Yoko Ono. Some people (and they are rare) insist that the stuff Ono did was genius. I never get this avante-garde, performance art stuff, myself. The problem is that it's often so alien that I don't even know what to rate it on, so I'm only left with my visceral response, and that tells me that it sounds like shit.

As far as technical skill, it's plain to see that George and Paul are both better musicians. They both could play more instruments than John, and they mastered some particular instruments better than John did with any. Ringo is also sadly underappreciated for what a good drummer he actually was.

Anyhow, what I think is the fact that John earned himself more social and political prominence post-Beatles than the others did, the fact that he seemed so experimental and innovative (even if it was all garbage), and of course the fact that he got shot, are the main reasons he's praised so much now. He is loved as a persona in a way that actually over-shadows his music.

Again, the Beatles are great, and being the third best of them still makes you a very good musician, so I'm not saying Lennon is bad, and I certainly love what he contributed to that band. But I really don't think he is the genius or the master that it has become so common to say he is.

Solo John Lennon is definitely overrated.

 

[lunalum]

Evanescence (she, like Shakira, sounds as if she's being strangled)

Did you mean to put this one in the 'underrated' section?

Evanescence, to my recollection, was never really mega popular, even though the music is a lot more beautiful than most top 40 stuff.

-----

Also, I think I should remind people here.

Overrated/=Bad

It is simply about whether a particular act is more popular than one would expect for the quality of their music and performances.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

U2

Nirvana

 

[simulatedworld]

But can't you still rationally debate a topic you're an "expert" on? Even if it ends up being condescending, it's still debate.

So now, a question for Sim: Why be so dismissive instead of showing me how exactly I'm wrong? One notable thing about ESTJs is that if you give them enough evidence to the contrary, or if you simply convince them through the logic of your debate, they'll change their mind, even if it's about something as deep-seated as religion. Therefore, I could easily be convinced of whatever you thought the hole in my debate was...

I didn't really feel like explaining at the time, but okay, here you go.

You're correct that there's no such thing as truly objective criticism of any art. We cannot actually prove empirically that any given art is good or bad, as these are technically subjective value judgments.

However, we can evaluate it with some degree of objectivity, even if not total objectivity, based on a number of different factors, including but not limited to:

--What the artist intended to accomplish with the work and how well that goal was achieved
--How many people enjoyed it
--How it compares to similar artists from the same genre during the same time period
--How much innovation/originality the work represented during its time
--The collective opinions of people who have put a lot of study into that area of art

etc. etc...so while we can't really show an empirical test to "prove" that, say, I'm a better painter than Rembrandt, if I run around claiming that I am, it's generally understood that I'm a moron.

When you get to really high levels of skill it becomes harder to judge objectively, because comparisons come down to just stylistic differences. It's hard to say whether Eric Clapton or Pat Metheney is a better guitarist, for instance, as both are masters of their respective styles.

It's not hard to say, however, that both of them are clearly superior to me, and if I claimed to be better than either, we can say with some degree of objectivity (though not total objectivity) that I'm wrong. Technically we can't show quantifiable evidence that Clapton is a better guitarist than me, but it's generally understood by anyone who has any idea what he's talking about that he obviously is.

Make sense?

 

[KDude]

I tell you with all objectivity that Randy Rhoads is a better guitarist than any of them


ahem.. no really, i'm with sim somewhat.. although i don't really care if others are subjective. to each their own. with myself though, i tend to judge artists according to their focus/genre/maybe some comparison to a favorite within that genre/style.. something like that.