This is something that’s always bugged me, and it re-bugged me in the current Prince thread.
Unless you have devised a way of quantifying the level of talent of an artist (which you haven’t) or consider yourself the ultimate judge of talent level (and you aren’t), how is any musical artist, writer, actor, etc., “overrated”? When people use this word to describe someone, are they seriously trying to imply that the multitudes of people who enjoy this artist actually don’t and are just pretending to? Instead of “overrated”, isn’t it just something that many people like that you don’t?
There are plenty of popular acts that don’t do anything for me. Country music makes me want to claw my ears off to stop the pain of hearing it. But who cares what I think? Just because I (or you) don’t like something, doesn’t make it “overrated”.
I always mentally change “overrated” to “I don’t like him/her and I’m annoyed people keep on going on about his/her art” when somebody says so about an artist. There’s always somebody who doesn’t like a thing no matter how popular or good it is and some of those people feel like their opinion is the only one that matters. So they pop in and give us their invaluable “eh, I don’t get the point and it’s all crap” in any longer discussion about works of art. Meh to them, I say.
I use the terms “overrated” and “underrated” a lot, but it is heavily implied that it’s just my own opinion, though I try to base it on at least some objective assessment too.
A lot of people base their judgement on what they love via nostalgia, awards recognition, sales, or fan worship, the zeitgeist; those matter but aren’t objective. Adjust judiciously and then see where they fit in the echelon. Many still come out favourably, most will not.
I personally don’t like the term “over-rated” much for the reasons you’ve stated. And, much of the time, the types of things that get singled out as being “overrated” I find are actually underrated or rated just right to me, anyway. (Similarly, I often find myself disagreeing with what people find as “underrated.” Under-rated by whom? A lot of things that are described as “underrated” I find are often held in quite high regard. I’m trying to think of an example–I think it was recently that I heard Mitch Mitchell referred to as a criminally underrated drummer. I always knew him as a guy that pretty much every music lover and drummer hailed as being great–and he is.)
That seems like a perfectly cromulent definition of the term, to be honest. In many, if not most cases, it’s certainly what I mean when I describe an artist as “over-rated”.
I have a similar problem with the term “genius”. IMHO it’s way, way, way overused.
For me, genius can only be used for at most 10 artists per discipline each century, if that. More than that and it becomes diluted to the point of becoming meaningless.
So, personally I don’t consider Bowie (who was the only “pop in the broad sense” singer-songwriter I really cared about) nor Prince (whom I really liked and respected) as geniuses. On the other hand I can readily consider someone like Mozart as a genius, although I’m not too keen on most of his music.
But that should be for another thread. I’m not even sure I could clearly articulate my views about it. But yeah, “genius this, genius that”? Annoying.
I don’t mind someone saying something is overrated, but I do consider it a meaningless opinion if, upon probing, there seems to be little compelling argumentation to back up that view. Also, I think there’s often a certain amount of cool-to-be-contrarian element in play that merits eye rolleyness.
Sushi is a good example. It seems to be the type of food that isn’t just liked. It’s extensively raved about by people who love it. The fact that it’s raved about seems to encourage a certain amount of cynical backlash by people who dislike it. Because their own taste isn’t being validated enough for their liking, they lift themselves up by crediting sushi fandom to hype and conformity. This, despite the fact that sushi isn’t a flash in the pan trend like most phenomenon that are the product of hype, and it’s not showing any sign of dwindling popularity. So clearly there is some basis for assigning it awesomeness, but it’s detractors often refuse to see this.
The same thing applies to Prince and other musicians.
When I see people refer to certain artists as geniuses when that isn’t a word I immediately think would apply to them,I usually assume I’m too ignorant of their stuff to really challenge that opinion. For instance, people have praised Lady Gaga a lot, but the few songs Ive heard of hers have not done anything me. At all. But I don’t own any of her albums, have never seen her perform live, and I’m not really hip to the sounds of what we would call cutting edge musical today. So the most I can say is that I’m not a fan based on what I’ve heard. It wouldn’t occur to me to call her overrated without giving her an honest listen…which means doing a bit more than listening to Top 40 stations and passively waiting for one of her hits to play.
This kind of rating always results in someone being under-rated or over-rated because vague subjective criteria tend toward exaggerated results. So the person who disagrees with the popular rating easily find excuses to justify their position. And as already said, it’s just motivated by annoyance with all the people who disagree with the critic.
I think of terms like “overrated” as referring to, not general popularity with the multitudes, but reputation with the critics, the “experts,” the people who are actually doing some rating and evaluating and comparing as opposed to just enjoying.
With many artists, their critical reputation does go up or down over time, which leads me to the conclusion that they may indeed have been overrated at times when that critical reputation was particularly high, and/or underrated when it was lower.
Overrated is a term to be applied very, very carefully. You better have your arguments together before you invoke it.
I have had rich discussions about Eric Clapton - he was essential as an ambassador and innovator as guitar transitioned from blues to rock. He copied the transition to light-gauged strings from folks like Buddy Guy to make bends easier, an pioneered the use of an overdriven amp as a desired, great-sounding lead tone. His legacy as a songwriter and creator of hits is unquestioned.
But as a guitar player, he is very good, but not amazing. He plays wonderful single-note lines very soulfully, but nothing particularly challenging. The fact that he copped Freddie King’s song Hideaway, and it ended up being Clapton’s Eruption and the song that launched the Clapton is God thing - guess what? He did a great job of kinda copying another guy. Woo-hoo!
His leads on Crossroads and Sunshine and a few others are deservedly iconic. But if he is ranked highly as a guitarist, it is due to his career and songs, not due to being a superior player.
So, yeah, your average non-musician’s perception that Clapton is regarded as one of the best is overrated. But having that discussion is fraught with landmines. But Clapton is God, right?! Not so much.
The term “overrated” is a mixed bag, particularly when it comes to music. A lot of people use it when they really mean they don’t like a particular artist. After all, many popular artists aren’t particularly talented, at least relative to possibly hundreds or thousands of other people that could take perform a particular song. At the same time, though, not too many people really argue that the pop star du jour is meaningfully more or less talented than the last one, just that they like him or her more or less than another one. That is, there is no accounting for taste, and no one has to justify why they like or don’t like a particular style or genre or song, no matter how popular or unpopular it is or difficult or trivial it was to create.
I don’t happen to agree, but I do think it’s a relevant discussion to have about someone like Prince. The things I’ve been hearing said about him aren’t “wow, I really like his music”–hell, his music generally doesn’t appeal to me–rather, people are discussing his genius, musicianship, etc. These are things that I think have room for debate beyond just “I like it” or “I don’t like it”. We CAN discuss the difficulty of the songs, the cultural relevance and impact of the lyrics, whether or not he innovated with new sounds, scales, rhythms, etc. I also think that reasonable people can disagree on just how good of a musician or how great of a genius he was. I think if someone can articulate an opinion about why he wasn’t as culturally impactful as the general consensus seems to have settled he is, then that person can reasonably say he’s overrated. Either way, like any assertion, it requires evidence and an argument to back it up.
And even in all of that, that’s something that isn’t best argued in a public way. There’s plenty of artists or movies or shows or whatever else I think are overrated and I’ll argue them with people I know are interested in arguing about it. It just seems very tone-deaf to me to argue that, even if it’s an honest and well-defined opinion, to people who are actively grieving his death. Though, I doubt most of the people saying that actually can reasonably articulate that opinion and, instead, just want to shit on people grieving.
I have the opinion that art (broad definition) has no value inherently and all of its value is based on people’s response to it. From that perspective, nothing can be overrated or underrated. At best overrated is saying “I’m not the target audience” and at worst it is saying “I don’t like it so everyone who does is wrong”.
In the case of Prince I’d say it’s because he was really only big for like five years and then we spent the next 20 years being told how much of a genius and musical pioneer he was. He never really got big again and he didn’t do us the favor of disappearing out of music.
I’d say it’s not that he was overrated talent wise it’s that he was overrated chronologically. We had to rate him, over and over again, every time he showed up for far to long.
To me, “overrated” means that I can’t escape the band. I actually listen to a lot of FM radio (I get off work at 5am, and it’s about a 45 minute drive to get home. I appreciate the traffic updates), and I hear a lot of bands that suffer from overexposure, which is a synonym for overrated in my book.
Maroon 5, for instance. Mediocre band, fairly one dimensional singer. But they’re everywhere on the radio. I don’t understand why. You can’t go 1/2 hour without hearing them on the air. They’re played so much that I now critique other bands as to whether they have been “Maroon 5’d” to death.
For me, that’s Justin Bieber. I can’t listen to Top 40 radio without hearing his song at least once in an hour. I’ve had it several times happen to me in the last two or three weeks where the same song were on at the same time on two stations (that “Love Yourself” song.) And if it’s not that, it’s “What Do You Mean” or “Sorry.” And, I hate to admit it, but I do find his songs catchy. But goddamn, it feels like my Top 40 stations play a total of about 10 artists.
Because my commute is about 45 minutes to an hour, all highway, but through some rural areas (in case you care, from my house to work takes me down 71 south to 264 east, then to 65 south, all in Kentucky). The traffic updates range from “accident at the on-ramp” to “motorcycle vs deer,” not to mention the road construction and lane closures. I’m 43 years old, and I cannot remember a time when 264 wasn’t being worked on.
The rural sections of the highway tend to load up quicker than the urban areas.
The radio actually DOES help with the commute.
Besides, I actually like to know what the kids are listening to these days when I tell them to get off my lawn.