100* Most Overrated Acts in the World...Ever (Friday's mild amusement)

[Davey]

Taken from Record Collector, Feb 2004 issue

* Actually, there's only 20: Top 100 Lists are overrated too. All text, selectively, taken from the article by RC's Tim Jones.

Barrett, Syd: Opel. Need we say anymore? No wonder you don't even go out for post.

Beach Boys: They started out doing bland, half-arsed Chuck Berry ripoffs. And ended up as one man's mad, overblown gothic folly.

Bowie, David: That people still lap it up makes one despair at the herdlike stupidity of the human race.

Brown, James: His entire career is based on a need to celebrate the sound of a man passing a particularly painful stool over the same, off-kilter riff. Repeated for 30 years.

Byrds: Pioneers of country rock? Some people say that like it's a good thing.

Captain Beefheart: Aside from a couple of vaguely tuneful efforts, it sounds like the inmates have taken over the music room and gone to make plink-plonk while snuffing the contents of the ether cupboard. Unmitigated, discordant toss.

Clash: Big Audio Dynamite were more consistent, fact.

Doors: Today, any pub band in the country will offer up the same kind of dull, plodding rock that the Doors are reputed to have excelled at. Ian Astbury does it better.

Dylan, Bob: Grisly folky nonsense from a man who wrote a clutch of great songs in the 60s and then spent four decades murdering them.

Fall: There's a fine line between being controversial and simply turgid, and Mark E. Smith stepped over it a long time ago.

Iggy Pop: Why people endlessly reference Iggy as a punk instigator is beyond us - garage rock was useless then and it is now. His only value lies in his looks.

Lennon, John: Say what you like about Macca, at least he had toons.

Morrison, Van: Yes, he's a jazz man now but that doesn't earn respect. Retirement might, though. And don't book him to play your pub.

Prince: ...became a caricature of his sex-obsessed self and, by the late 90s, he couldn't get arrested. Perhaps he'll imitate Puff Daddy next.

Public Enemy: Recent live excursions into the dreaded jazz-funk field are best left well alone, as are any of their records - once you've heard one, that's more than enough.

Sex Pistols: Bollocks. Even if, by some stretch of the imagination, the Pistols had made anything other than sub-standard run-through rock. And the recent tours are worse than pantomime.

Smiths: Stick the flowers where they won't grow and cheer up, you miserable bastards.

White Stripes: You're nothing but flavour of the month, kids - let's see how popular you are in 2010, shall we.

Young, Neil: One good album per decade. I mean Landing On Water. Why?

Zappa, Frank: ...the vast majority of mad Frank's artsy meanderings are interminable tedium bested only by some of his live shows - a sonic Belsen, with xylophones delivering the sonic blow.

The above lifted from the pages at http://www.rocklist.net/recordcollec...s in the World

[Troy]

I whole heartedly agree with about 1/2 of them. Don't you? I bet it's the other half though . . .

[N. Abstentia]

When I first saw the title of the thread, the White Stripes were the first thing that came to my head. Dang if they're not there!

I'd add Nirvana to that list.

[DariusNYC]

Kind of an unfunny list and descriptions, don't you think? I liked that one article that was going around about "albums that you should remove from your collection immediately" a lot better than this one. Or that other article that started by making fun of Sting and then saying that Paul McCartney wasn't fit to hold John Lennon's roach clip. Now that was pretty funny. The selections in this one aren't especially interesting (although some of them are admittedly bold, which is I expect why you posted it) but more importantly the descriptions are unfunny and not creative. I mean if you're going to dis on John Lennon and Van Morrison, at least make it funny, because one doesn't exactly break into knowing giggles just hearing their names in this context. And that White Stripes description, I've read more than one really funny negative description of the White Stripes -- you know, at least make fun of Meg's drumming or their stupid matching outfits, or make some joke about how they used to be married -- but this one could've been written by one of the dinosaur contingent at Rocky Road. Don't fault you posting it at all, but for me it is very mild amusement indeed.

UPDATE: OK, the James Brown description is kinda funny.

[Davey]

Don't fault you posting it at all, but for me it is very mild amusement indeed.

Well, thanks for not holding me personally responsible! Hehehe, I agree that it isn't very funny, although I'm not completely sure it was intended to be a laugh riot - there's a hint of truth in most of them, IMO. The sad thing is, it's still probably the funniest thing posted here in weeks

Just a note in my own defense, I was checking at the rocklist site today after posting that amazon list to see if any other year end lists were out yet and this was showing so I just grabbed it and posted it here and at Audio Asylum, but it probably would've been better to leave it where it was and try to say something funny instead since it received about the same response as yours over there. That James Brown description was aces, though. Kind of humorless here lately, don't you think? Well, I mean except for the funny song title thread

[progfan]

I was kind of hoping The Grateful Dead or Led Zeppelin would have made the list!

[mad rhetorik]

I dunno. I liked the Jaguaro list better, also that other list Jay posted ("Least Wanted" or something?). They came up with more substantial captions, and failing that at least made me laugh a bit. This list is rather pedestrian by comparison; the James Brown, Bob Dylan, Captain Beefheart, and Smiths comments got a good chuckle out of me though.

I don't agree with about 3/4th of this list. I would have agreed with the Beach Boys comment a couple years ago, but while I think they're still a bit overrated I don't think they're THAT bad anymore. The ones regarding Public Enemy, Iggy Pop, The Clash, and Neil Young make me wonder if they're just screwing around. Otherwise the author has his head firmly planted in an unmentionable orifice.

Hell, I have to get in on this "Top [insert number] Overrated Albums Of All Time" thing. Everybody's doing it!