# The term "overrated" applied to artists **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 25, 2016, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-term-overrated-applied-to-artists/753061 "2016-04-25T03:53:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-term-overrated-applied-to-artists/753061/21 "2016-04-26T10:36:16Z")
> [@Anamorphic](#): > > 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 wouldn’t say that most people who call something “overrated” are good judges in that regard, but I think that the implication is meant to be that they don’t feel that the art will withstand the passage of time. It’s time in the limelight is limited and it will not be judged favorably as the years and decades progress. For example, I just went to our local art museum a few months ago and there was a modern art exhibit. One piece was simply a computer generated tone gradient shift from purple to green or something, printed out onto canvas by a large computer printer. And yet, there it was in a professionally curated exhibit at the major art museum of a major American city. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that in a hundred years time, that particular piece is going to be lost to history (aka, the garbage bin). Its current level of success is beyond what it deserves in my estimation. I may be wrong, but I don’t feel like I’m being unreasonable to hold that position. It’s okay for people to have opinions. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-term-overrated-applied-to-artists/753061/22 "2016-04-26T12:21:50Z")
There is one possible objective criterion of whether an artist is over- or under-rated - what happens to the reputation of their work in subsequent ages. Take, for instance, Jane Austen > [@wikipedia](#): > > Austen’s main novels are rarely out of print today though they were first published anonymously and brought her little personal fame with only a few glancing reviews during her lifetime. A significant transition in her posthumous reputation as an author occurred in 1869, fifty-two years after her death, when her nephew published A Memoir of Jane Austen which effectively introduced her to a wider public and reading audience. Austen’s most successful novel in her own lifetime was Pride and Prejudice which went through two editions during her own life. Her third published novel was Mansfield Park which was largely overlooked by the professional reviewers though it was a great success with the public still within her lifetime. I would argue that that sort of a reception while she was alive, coupled with her enduring popularity for more than two centuries after her death, means that at the time she was, objectively, under-rated. Whereas someone like, say, Sir Walter Scott, who had rockstar levels of popularity in his lifetime (but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone now who’d read more than one or two of his books, tops) was probably overrated. So if “Prince is overrated” means anything useful, it should be “I don’t think people will care about him in 50 years time” (I think they’re wrong 🙂 ) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-term-overrated-applied-to-artists/753061.md?page=1)