Doesn’t a band have to be rated before they can be overrated?
I agree to this. When you look at the other popular entries in the “Top 5” thread for Best Rock Band ever, the Floyd towers over the others in that they actually are all that. (Now, if they were actually recognized as The Best rather than just top three or five or whatever, then I’d say they were overrated, although they’re my favorite band ever. Pretty much anyone who’s thought to be number one is by definition overrated in the lopsided system that is Classic Rock.)
The Beatles holds a unique place for me: not only are they one of my favorite bands, I also think they’re overrated (see the last sentence of the first paragraph.) If rock were more egalitarian, I might not think that way about Their Holinesses.
I’ve seen him live (1975, at the peak of the initial Springsteen frenzy, and it was quite a show) but I put him on my list anyway.
Too much of what he’s come out with over the years is repetitive/pretentious/boring, and the good music (of which there is a fair amount) doesn’t justify the massive hype it’s gotten from critics of the Rolling Stone variety.*
Thanks to a couple other posters for mentioning REM and Bob Seger. They have been added to my Overrated Honorable Mention list.
*For a gold mine of overratings, check out Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Rock Albums of All Time (I think that’s the title - I read a library copy awhile back). At least half of the albums generate a massive WTF?, even some of the ones by groups who are among my favorites. Part of the problem is the reviewers, some of whom should not be allowed to rate music of any kind (for instance, Yoko Ono, who holds the distinction of being overrated even though she has never done anything remotely worthwhile). They do worship Springsteen, though.
It’s good that you mention Rolling Stone. I grew up in a household with Rolling Stone subscribers and I read every word of every issue when I was a kid. A lot of my feelings toward “overrated” stem from reading the long and often boring opuses on rock music churned out by hopelessly dated hippies clinging to the few 60’s and 70’s era acts that survived into the 80’s. Rolling Stone has been absolutely clueless since 1982 or so. Just totally lost.
I should point out for your list that you have to be rated before you are overrated. You picked a bunch of nobodies.
I’m surprised at all the votes for Aerosmith. Are they really overrated, or just popular? I guess I’ve never heard anyone claim that they were really all that great or innovative or anything. Maybe I missed it, though. I thought that they were considered largely derivative from the beginning.
That’s a good way of putting it. I totally agree. Up until a couple of years ago, I considered Rush overrated, but one day I just sort of “got it.” I guess I don’t really “get” Pink Floyd, though I do like them a lot. I can’t stand the Doors, but I accept that I probably just don’t get them either.
My votes:
- The Eagles–Intolerable pabulum.
- U2–A good band, but not that good!
- Nirvana–hugely influential, but not so much because of the music.
- Bruce Springsteen–Oh, how it pains me to say that!
- REM–Michael Stipe should just shut up already.
- Rolling Stones
- Nirvana.
- Jimmy Buffet
- DMB
- Grateful Dead
The Doors? The world’s most boring band. they are a cure for insomnia. The Doors can put an otherwise alert person to sleep within a minute. 
I don’t have a list (but the Doors would be on mine) but i have to nominate Bon Jovi. Maybe…and i don’t know, Jon Bon Jovi is a nice guy in real life. But the bubblegum style music that is Bon Jovi makes me want to punch my own radio.
- Any band including the over hyped jingle writer Paul McCartney
- REM -** Green Bean** had it right - Stipe, quit whining!
- Journey - corporate rock
- Foreigner - Corporate Rock Clones
5 - Metalica - Formula = Sing with a deep voice and heavy baseline, whine that your target audience is stealing your music
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The Doors - Robbie Krieger is a talented guitarist, but the cult of Jim Morrison knows no bounds. Musically interesting in spots - lyrically pretentious. He ensured the band’s place in the rock pantheon by dying young.
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Rush - Take a power trio, add lyrics inspired by a combo of sci-fi jerk-off material and Ayn Rand objectivist bull shit, stir in a liberal dose of eardrum shredding yelping by Geddy Lee and you’ve got the makings of a mediocre band.
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Aerosmith - Sorry, guys. The Stones (and the Faces, and the Kinks, and any other number of swaggering, drunken, blues-based bands) beat you to the punch by nearly 10 years.
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KISS - They really should get more respect for riding a completely non-musically related gimmick (wearing make up) to the heights of superstardom.
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Led Zeppelin - Yeah, they sold a billion records. The fact they had to be sued to give credit to the people they ripped off in selling billions of records is a big hurdle to overcome.
Good one. Lots of bands that I like and respect are total KISS nuts, but for me the music never lived up to the spectacle. As a young metalhead in the mid 80’s KISS *looked * like they should absolutely rock, but it’s some of the most ho-hum stuff ever done.
The Doors
Wings
Stones
The Kinks
Dave Matthews
I’m sure I’ll get some disagreement on this one but by far and away my vote for most over-rated of all time:
Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Steve Miller Band (Abracadabra makes me want to gouge my own eyes out.)
Allman Brothers (Yawn.)
Jimmy Buffett (He’s not a band, I know, but he’s too perfect not to include. Cheeseburger in Paradise?!? Really?? I think he’s got a restaurant by that name now - what a fucking corporate sell-out.)
Van Halen (Eddie’s a good guitarist, no doubt, but come on.)
**The Eagles ** (I think I like Glen Frey’s cheesy solo stuff better.)
Metallica - Even though I’ve enjoyed some of their albums, when I saw them in concert they brought the definition of suck to a new level.
Beatles- I just don’t get all of the love for these guys.
Bruce Springsteen- his picture should be in the dictionary under overrated.
Kansas- Whatever man.
U2- Get over yourselves.
Hmmm - not sure what to post, but couldn’t not engage.
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I never know what to do with lists - they can lead to interesting conversations, but rarely have much value beyond that. Ultimately, people have their POV’s - who am I to say they are wrong or right?
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From an interesting conversation standpoint, I am surprised to see The Beatles and Stones mentioned so much. I suppose I shouldn’t be - they are so legendary in their place in the rock pantheon, it can tick folks off. But man - would I love to have a more thoughtful discussion about why they deserve their places on the Legends list - the better stuff in their catalogues is entirely worthy.
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I am also surprised to see the Sex Pistols and Nirvana - I mean, sure, folks are welcome to not like them personally, but they had so much influence on the music coming after them. Each of their main albums - Bollocks and Nevermind - ended up being hand grenades tossed into the middle of the music world.
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I am not surprised to see Pink Floyd, because they can so easily be put in the box of psychedelic, pretentious crap - but, IMHO, they have so much more to offer.
I suppose if I were to put forth a list:
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The Doors: I wish Morrison hadn’t died so they wouldn’t have gotten a Dead Guy Bounce into legendary status. The material doesn’t support their rep by a long shot.
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The Eagles: I really, really respect their songcraft and musicianship, but they aren’t a rock band; there is no - I repeat: NO - danger in what they do. And to me, danger is in the DNA of rock music (The Doors were dangerous in the beginning, but Mr. Mojo Risin’ became an easily-dismissable, pseudo-evil, Bad Boy caricature pretty early on…)
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The Grateful Dead and the 60’s SF Haight-Ashbury Scene: Whenever I listen to their music, I just assume you had to be there. But the other bands I am familiar with? Really not that great. I love Janis Joplin, but Big Brother and the Holding Company stink! Jefferson Airplane - a few good songs, but nothing more…I think back to when the Brit blues guys came out to SF to connect up and ended up realizing that the SF guys really couldn’t play. The Brits loved many U.S. players…
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Billy Joel: He is a great singer and strong in songcraft, but I have no interest in the world he needs to sing about. Big Shot, Pressure, My Life, and on and on - not my cuppa. And I would lump him in with the Eagles - he really doesn’t rock. He is rockless, rock-free, non-rocking, unrockable, lacking in the rock category and otherwise sans rock.
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Open could go with any number of bands here. Kiss is a joke or at most a guilty pleasure. The whole 80’s hair metal scene is silly. The Dave Matthews Band - ugh. I will keep this open for now…
- Rolling Stones - I just don’t like 'em. Just don’t.
- The Doors - Boring! Jim Morrison is no poet, also.
- Kiss - They could fill one record with very good songs. that’s the most complimentary thing I can say.
- REM - Don’t get it, never liked them.
- The Clash - also, just don’t like 'em.
joe
Ooh, good one! I liked some of their early stuff, but it seems like they’ve been writing the same song over and over for well over a decade now. I’ll further venture to say that if Anthony Keidis wasn’t good-looking, they wouldn’t have done diddly. He can’t sing his way out of a wet paper bag. But playing-wise, I think they’re solid. Songwriting…not so much.
Just about all the bands mentioned here do in fact have some very good stuff. The problem is a lot of them have some very bad stuff too.
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Led Zeppelin** plagiarized a lot of their lyrics and riffs, and for that reason I would place them number one.
Where’s the line between pop and rock? Otherwise their’s a lot of bad shit out there?
Stones - Were great in the 60s and early 70s. (Should have packed it in after "Some Girls.)
REO Speedwagon - Good start to their career, and then they discovered commercialism.
Foreigner - (I want to know what love is, barf, barf…)
Queen - I’m sorry. Too screechy, squealy, and pompous for me.
Well being “influential” can work both ways…
The Pistols’ helped to usher in a rather short-lived but very lively musical renaissance, even if their own music was half-baked and mainly designed to shock. They weren’t the be-all or end-all of punk tho, just the most notorious.
Nirvana helped to usher in a shitload of trendly crap ripoff bands, which ultimately led to the demise of many of the movement(s) sparked 15 years earlier by the Pistols et al., as anything which wasn’t “grungy” enough immediately drifted off the musical map into oblivion. That probably is dumping a bit too much guilt on their doorstep tho, as other factors were already hard at work eroding away at the various alternative sub-genres.