Most overrated rock artists of all time?

Begins and ends with Michael Jackson!

Well, that was an entertaining read. Everything I could have added to that debate has already been added, so I'll leave it there.

Anyway, I'm a fan (at some level) of every band mentioned in this thread, excluding Britney Spears, Limp Bizkit and Vanilla Ice. I just found that interesting, but then, most of my favourite bands were huge in their day (Beatles, Elvis, Dylan, Stones, Clapton) but I personally wouldn't go as far as to call them overrated, not in this day and age where Kanye is more relevent to the public than John Lennon. Maybe in the 60's, during Beatlemania days, the Beatles were overrated, but not now.

...most of my favourite bands were huge in their day (Beatles, Elvis, Dylan, Stones, Clapton) but I personally wouldn't go as far as to call them overrated, not in this day and age where Kanye is more relevent to the public than John Lennon.

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Good point! That about sums it up.

The Beatles

there's nothing incredibly groundbreaking there at all. they four guys who wrote some pretty simple and extremely boring music.

The list is long and ugly... so I'll only touch on a few of the most glaringly obvious ones to me. I haven't read everyone else's respones or lists yet, so if there's any repeats... oh well.


U2
Nirvana
Radiohead
Bob Dylan
Neil Young
Pearl Jam
Beach Boys
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Ramones
Velvet Underground
David Bowie


That is all for now, will update/edit as I think of others worthy of putting on my snobbish list. And I make this list as someone who actually likes at least a couple of songs from each artist on there other than Radiohead, Ramones and Velvet. Those three bands all blow goats ... period! The rest are just way overhyped and I'll never ever ever understand why.

Tattoo'd Lady said:

The Beatles

there's nothing incredibly groundbreaking there at all. they four guys who wrote some pretty simple and extremely boring music.

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I know it's cliched, but it's also true: If there were no Beatles, there'd be no Led Zeppelin, no Deep Purple, no Black Sabbath .:. no metal. If there were no Beatles, there'd also be no grunge. If it weren't for the Beatles, the entire industry wouldn't be as it is today.

I can understand if you're not a fan, no-one's expected to like anything, t'would be boring if it was so. But to say there's nothing ground-breaking there is going a bit too far IMO.

TheFeldster said:

I know it's cliched, but it's also true: If there were no Beatles, there'd be no Led Zeppelin, no Deep Purple, no Black Sabbath .:. no metal. If there were no Beatles, there'd also be no grunge. If it weren't for the Beatles, the entire industry wouldn't be as it is today.

I can understand if you're not a fan, no-one's expected to like anything, t'would be boring if it was so. But to say there's nothing ground-breaking there is going a bit too far IMO.

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totally disagree, zeppelin would have came along eventually, maybe a year or two later, but everything else would have come. without the beatles the music industry may have stalled for a year or two, but thats all

Magic said:

Are we still talking about over hyped/ overrated artists, or artists that just didn't make the cut?

Joni Mitchell is a decent artist, but she just didn't have what it took to make the big leagues. This is way way different than over hyped, IMO.

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what do you mean by big leagues? successful artists that sell a lot of records? sorry just because you sell thousands of albums doesn't make you great, imo.

she is definitely in the big leagues because of her large fan base and being named as a big influence by many artists. Add that to her great lyrics and her superb music and i don't get how she doesn't qualify for these so called "big leagues"

To HONESTLY (despite personal taste in music) state that the Beatles (which I could take or leave) were "four guys who wrote some pretty simple and extremely boring music" is basically to state you know NOTHING about rock n roll at all. Come on! That's akin to stating the Blues didn't have much impact rock n roll guitar players.

Just utter nonsense. To simply state that they were "over rated", CERTAINLY, that's anybody's right because "over rated" is a subjective interpretation. But to call the ol' fab four simple and boring just indicates an embryonic understanding of rock music in general.

Sorry, but it's true. You just can't dismiss a group like the Beatles as if it were some meaningless petri dish fluke that happened in a vacuum. Not unless you yourself are happy understanding rock music from the perspective of a vacuum.