Most Overrated Artists/Bands of 70s?

Segue Myles said:

For me, the seventies belonged to Kansas, Yes, Styx, Springsteen, Rush, ABBA, Fleetwood Mac and Boston.

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ABBA? Each to their own, but I am surprised to read a post on a rock forum citing them as one of the greatest acts of the decade. To me, they have more in common with bubblegum pop stuff like the Osmonds than they do with any of the other bands you mentioned - their songs have nice (if rather sugary) melodies and are sung nicely but most of the time the music might as well not be there as far as I'm concerned, and it's not like they had the lyrics to compensate (to choose an especially well known example, when was the last time you saw a tambourine in a disco?).

Comparing ABBA with Rush is pointless as they are so clearly different, but if you compare them to late 1970s Fleetwood Mac for instance, Lindsey Buckingham is a great guitarist and blows the ABBA guys out of the water on the musical front, Stevie Nicks sings with a passion the ABBA singers can't match while Mac while John McVie and Mick Fleetwood make a strong rhythm section. The gulf between them is perhaps best illustrated by their live performances - I have seen and heard Mac delivering great band performances whereas whenever I have seen ABBA on TV there is nothing to it other than the vocals.

To use another comparison, although I am not a great fan of The Beach Boys I can clearly see the artistic merit in Brian Wilson's compositions and their songs were very well composed and arranged, whereas ABBA's music is just 'there' to give whoever is singing something to sing along with.

Just my opinion, of course.

I disagree with Led Zeppelin being overrated (I think they deserve all the credit they get) but can sympathise with your views as I am not a Beatles fan and therefore know how it feels to not love such a popular and acclaimed band.

Lynch said:

In order:

Kiss - Alive! (1975) - one of the best sounding live albums of all time.



Kiss - Kiss [self titled debut] (1974) - one of the best debut albums of all time.



Kiss - Destroyer (1976) - one of the band's most popular albums. The first 3 songs of side one are amazing.

One of my personal faves would be their third album, Dressed To Kill (1975)




All of these albums, of course, are from their early days being 4 of their first 5 albums. in all seriousness, you can't go wrong with any of their first 8 albums where they rose from obscurity to one of biggest and loudest bands as well as one of the most easily recognizable bands on earth.

If you just want to check out a Best-Of album, then I would suggest 1978's Double Platinum



A number of songs on this 20-song compilation were remixed and/or even re-recorded from the original version, but most still sound very good and for the most part stay very true to the originals.


From the 80's, the first two albums I would suggest would be their last in makeup and their first without, Creatures of the Night (1982) and Lick It Up (1983)



That should give you a decent enough selection to sift through to decide if they are a band you like or don't like.

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Thanks for the info Lynch. I have favourited their first album and the live album on Youtube, I'll be listening to them tonight. They have released quite a few albums, so I'm hoping I get a few that I like outa them.

ROLLLING STONES!

An awesome band but gets WAY too much credit!