Discuss.

If you can even call two guys a "band".

Of course that would also apply to the current lineup of "The Who", unfortunately.

...Steely Dan created some pretty awesome music. Their studio sessions are legendary for their fanatical precision and perfectionism.

I'm also a big fan of the Nightfly album too.

And they never did anything that could compete with this performance......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlBip8CV1P8

And I miss admit, it's a good one. They weren't helped by Donald Fagen's crippling stage fright that lasted years and years.

Anal retentive pseudo-jazz noodling ain't rock and roll, folks!

:applause:

instead of putting out all the elevator snooze crap they did. The Who on their worst day were better than Steel Dan even realized a band could be. Fanatical precision and perfectionism are masturbation, not music.

Just my opinion. I reined it in a little.

released it...

Hehe now that was funny! You have to admit that the Who did a little self love too with the whole double concept album and rock opera stuff though. But on a 3 minute rocker- can't beat the Who!

not in the classical sense of course, but there's more than a modicum of skill there, particularly in the early albums. IMHO

even though I like Steely Dan :)

"If they created some pretty awesome music, they should have released it"

Steely Dan is horrible. I can't understand why anyone likes them.

They're a steaming pile of shit.

Steely Dan gargles my balls.

:spank:

.

hell, I will think of a reason later. The Stones are awesome!

:P

after Brian Jones departure.

The Who were, in a word, awesome.

Most overrated: tossup between the Rolling Stones and The Doors.

common sense. The Who were brilliant!! Like the Doors though. Agree with the Stones. They shoud have given it up 20+ years ago.

for me. And I don't get the whole "Morrison was a visionary poet" thing. It was the acid talking.

But definitely not the most overrated ever.

"Does anybody remember LAUGHTER?"

My ASS. Bite me, Plant, you egotistical prick.

their music is dated, I think, that's all.

Best rock band ever? NO!

But worst? Most overrated? I don't think so.

I cannot effing stomach Robert Plant. Sorry.

Tikki

Even "Stairway to Heaven" is inane. Just disregard their lyrics completely and rock out on the sound.

Sorry, I just don't get it.

Honorable Mentions:

Steely Dan (dreadfully dull and pretentious)
Talking Heads (I like a lot of their stuff, but it's not as good as the hype)

Best show ever. 5-08-77. Listen to that and get back to me okay. Just the second set. absolute fire.

Funny but here they are fifty fucking years later, no hits, and they are selling out just like always. Their solo bands are 10,000 seats a night. The drummer, Mickey hart has written best sellers, is a curator at the Library of Congress and is best friends with Walter Cronkite.

And we can all thank obama for bringing them together again this year. That is what did it.

Maybe you don't get it, but hardly over rated.Totally unique in what they did.

"THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A GRATEFUL DEAD CONCERT!"

Give me a short and sweet pop-punk song by the Ramones or the Undertones, thank you...

Unlike true Dead Heads, I do draw a line (half-hour crowd-chant versions of "Not Fade Away" aren't my cup of tea, or half-hour versions of "Franklin's Tower" either for that matter).

And yeah, Weir earned the "Showboat" nickname. And no, I never really got behind Donna.

But "Stella Blue?" "Bird Song?" Listen to Garcia on those songs. That's where I "got it."

:toast:

Hendrix? Fine. Page? Sure. But as much as I respect Clapton and Beck's technical expertise, I just find a lot of their material dull and repetitive. Same thing with the Dead.

Sorry, but I came of age listening to 1980s punk, postpunk, and alternative, so the hippy jams just don't resonate on a visceral level.

About the best thing that could be said for their Jams is the word "Cornball"

Or as Charlie Byrd said: "These Guys whimper at 500 watts" :)

just kidding...

They're actually a good band, but the level of hype turned people against them.

What turned me against them was when the lead singer called the singer from INXS a has been.

I think this was when Micheal Hutchence (sp?) was presenting them (Oasis) with some award.

Wonder how Mr. Wonderwall feels about all that now, lol.

Fuck Oasis.

Ultimate has-beens.

You mean, "Suckshaft."

:rofl: :hi:

What a loser. :eyes:

Obviously. The Who rahqs.

Just because :)

Hardly any even half-decent songs, and obnoxious guy is still polluting airwaves with his tired, over-surgeried, poorly dye-jobbed visage.

They have some good songs under their belt.

Few if any you may have heard on the radio tho...

"I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night" there's nothing in the KISS catalogue of any substance whatsoever. Take away the makeup and fireworks and they'd never have gotten out of Brooklyn. Alice Cooper had more good songs, and AC weren't that good.

100,000 years? Parasite? She? Black Diamond? Watchin' You? Lick it up? (a few from that album)

Shock Me, War Machine, Rock Bottom - ?

Alice Cooper had what? Schools Out?

:spray:

Yes, I accept your concession of wrongness. :)

Just watched a couple vids on that one.

Killer song.

After the makeup came off and Ace was gone (sob) they had Vinnie Vincent for a while, Mark St. John for a while. They put out some pretty decent tunes, imho. Lick it Up was one. There were more from that album, and from Animalize and Asylum.

What's strange is - I don't know the Revenge album at all, never heard any of it, but have seen it described several times as the "metal" album from them.

At any rate, yeah, they got some good tunes, over the what, 40 years they've been making music.

Most overrated - nah, they've been laughed at all along. I still say they are one of the most, if not the most, underrated bands of all time.

And look, you were kind enough to include a link. Awww.

Ain't no fuckin way I'm clickin that thing.

I wonder if even their fans would! :rofl:

Rolling Stones and nobody (except for you and me) will admit to liking them. I think that makes them overrated back in the day and underrated now. Alice Cooper was pretty kick ass too though. 18 is about as good as anything Kiss ever did. But Black Diamond is a rocker that 3/4 of the RnR HOF wishes was their song.

http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=tblTopArt

Certified Units in Millions
BEATLES, THE 170
ROLLING STONES, THE 66
KISS 19

On edit: there are 11 artists inbetween the Beatles & Stones (including Led Zep, Billy Joel, the Eagles, Aerosmith, and AC/DC -- not to mention Barbara Streisand and Garth Brooks). There are somewhere between 75-100 artists & groups in between the Stones & Kiss in terms of sales (I lost count, but U2, Fleetwood Mac, Madonna, Queen, the Doors, Green Day, The Dave Matthews Band, Eminem, Jay-Z, Jimmy Buffett, John Denver, and Barry Mannilow all had higher certified units than Kiss).

speaking to another part of this thread

HEART 21.5

is almost as legendary as his tongue so I took the record sales as being true. If ridiculous knick-nacks and doo-dads are factored into the total sales, I'm sure Kiss has 'earned' a lot more dough than just their record sales.

I could fathom Green Day selling more cds than Kiss sold records but I cannot imagine that they have generated more dough overall than the band that sells coffins to their fans.

..Kiss was omnipresent in 1975-1976 (as Elton John was in 73-74). The Kiss belt buckle was the fashion item no tween/teen male could be without.

were stopping production on all plastic trinkets and such. Yup, Kiss was going green, said Simmons. From now on, you the loyal Kiss fan have the option of checking a box on your tax form and simply giving your money directly to Kiss!

It turned out to be an impersonator of course, but it had me going for a while.

KISS cleaned up the Dolls act (i.e., got rid of anything interesting and challenging and worth listening to) and sold it to teenage boys across America.

Ace Frehley is a poor man's Johnny Thunders. Paul Stanley is a poor man's David Johansen. And Gene Simmons is a poor man's Bob Hope.

ever was. Johnny Thunders is the single greatest rock-n-roller ever. I still like Kiss though. Gene has said some not so flattering things about the Dolls over the years, but more often than not, he admits just exactly what you said. Gene Simmons and Morrisey are both saints for what they do for the Dolls legacy.

But then they kicked guitarist Lily Tomlin out of the band, replaced her with Ace Frehley, and went with the whole Japanase Kubuki monster thing.

and I think that's why they get compared a lot. Aerosmith was actually formed about a year before the Dolls in a different city, so I'm not sure if they were influences on each other. However, both had singers and lead guitarists who worshiped at the alter of the Stones, and the do look/sound a lot alike.

The Dolls are still the better group, though-- and they never were in that terrible Sgt Peppers movie, either. :P

the Dolls started they made a splash a lot faster. Leber/Krebs signed the Dolls and later Aerosmith. They sent Aerosmith to watch the Dolls live and that is why a lot of people say 'Smith are a second rate Dolls. It wasn't long before Leber/Krebs saw that the Dolls were a money pit and 'Smith a cash cow.

I like to think of the Dolls as the cartoon Rolling Stones, tailor made to fit my exact taste. I like Aerosmith too, just not nearly as much.

...they owe just as much to producer Bob Ezrin for that song (and the rest of the "Destroyer" album) as they do to themselves. The "Alive" album...much like Grand Funk's first live album...was a snapshot of a moment that caught the public's fancy, but without Bob Ezrin, KISS would never have come up with "Destroyer" on their own.

:toast:

100% agree, Redqueen

They haven't done a decent song since the 70s, but they still feel they should be a lock for the R&RHOF (and by "they", I mean Gene Simmons)

The only star of that era who has become more obnoxious than Simmons is Ted Nugent.

The greatest hits basically boil down to "Rock N Roll All Night", "Detroit Rock City", and "Beth". Maybe throw "Christine Sixteen", "New York Groove", and "Callin' Dr. Love" in for the sake of argument.

Gotta agree Nugent is more obnoxious... but he's also less 'out there'. Simmons should kindly fade into obscurity, for all our sakes.

into that Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame nonsense.
Their influence is undeniable.
They are responsible for more teenage boys picking up the electric guitar than any act since...well...The Beatles.

Just curious.


I'm kindly ignoring the part about boys and electric guitars, since IMO that has absolutely nothing to do with HOF eligibility.

One can make a reasonable argument that Kiss influenced the culture more, or influenced stage performance more. That said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_discography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_discography


If you look at studio albums, Heart has had 6 peak in the top 10 on the US charts out of a total of 11 studio albums

If you look at studio albums, Kiss has had 4 peak in the top 10 on the US charts out of a total of 18 studio albums

Sngles can be very deceptive, and Kiss is at an objective diadvantage because "Detroit Rock City" and "Beth" (2 of their biggest hits) were released on the same single.

Keeping the above in mind:

Kiss had 2 top 10 US singles, 5 other songs in the top 25 singles, and 18 others peaking somewhere in the top 100.

Heart had 9 top 10 US singles, 7 other songs in the top 25 singles, and 14 others peaking somewhere in the top 100 (note - 1 was a reissue).

Unobjectively, if you look at the same 2 discographies, more songs performed by Heart are relevant today in so far as they are frequently played on radio stations. I still hear "Heartless", "Magic Man" & "Barracuda" on classic rock stations (with an occasional playing of "Kick it Out") and "These Dreams" and "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You" on a/c stations. Kiss is pretty much "Rock n Roll All Night" and "Detroit Rock City" -- occasionally, I'll hear "Dr. Love". I never hear "Beth" any more, which is a surprise because it is a great tune and would seem to be a natural for the a/c stations.

belongs in the HOF
airplay, sales, and all that...

I think SMB is a very good band that doesn't get their props. OTOH, my feeling is that the Velvet Underground is....an ugly word beginning with "o".

Look, once you get past the Beatles/Who/Pink Floyd/Led Zep/Rolling stones tier of artists, I think one gets into very arguable areas about influence. Heck, Little Feat was influential, but I hardly see them in the R&RHOF anytime soon. If we are going down the influential road, we have to look at Eno, Fripp, Roxy Music and a whole lot of bands that are not what most think of as HOF worthy.

to form bands and produce music they are indeed influential. One of the alleged goals of the HOF is to recognize those who have been influential. Therefore, it does indeed have a great deal to do with boys and electric guitars.
Despite their wretched schlock, Kiss have had a far more significant impact on those who went on to become rock musicians than say honored journeymen such as John Cougar.

..but can I say that Kiss inspired more garage bands than Led Zeppelin or the Who? No. Can I say that more boys were influenced to pick up a guitar by Kiss than Jimi Hendrix? No.

Did the schlockmeisters of Kiss inspire more boys to pick up the guitar than honored HOF journeyman John Cougar? Yes.
But which of those 2 are in the HOF?

Certified Units in Millions

MELLENCAMP, JOHN 27.5
KISS 19

http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?resultpage=2&table=tblTopArt&action=


John Cougar Mellencamp has sold more albums, and "Jack & Diane" is frequently (too frequently, IMHO) played on a/c and classic rock formats.

I always thought the makeup and black leather and extra long tongue, Kiss army etc etc was quite unnesessary, it ended up making them overcommercialized.

If Michael Bay impregnated Jerry Bruckheimer the result would be something like Kiss.

:yourock:

Yes, their fan base is quite loyal, but outside of Kiss Army members, does anyone ever cite Kiss as one of the greats or as a significant influence?

They may be over-hyped and over-marketed, but probably not over-rated.

Yeah, it'd be easy to take shots at "the legends" from back in the day like The Dead/Doors/Who/Beatles or an intermediary like Led Zep. Yeah, they're all good but their escalation to God-hood is really kinda silly to argue today on my behalf because I wasn't around, much like I wasn't around for Elvis.

So, I'm choosing Nirvana. It's not that they weren't a good band, and it's not that Cobain wasn't fairly brilliant. It's their elevation to Rock God-hood by their fans that just makes it laughable on a scale measuring overrated.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, flame away.

cobain ended on of the worst periods in music history.

now if someone will just drive away this american idol shit...

Nirvana could take a shit, press it into a record and it would sound better than every one of those untalented posturing 80's pop metal bands. The fact that grunge killed hair metal should earn Nirvana a place of honor in the Rock in Roll Hall of fame. They should give them their own friggin floor. I finally watched American Idol for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I've heard better singers at karaoke night at the local bowling alley than those tools.

:D

The Who released three great albums: Tommy, Who's Next and Quadrophenia. The rest was well produced mediocrity. Daltrey, Entwistle and Moon were magnificent, but Pete Townshend is and was a grossly overrated songwriter. Post-Moon material largely sucked. Kenney Jones was a great drummer for the Faces. He was a sad joke in Moony's drum chair.

...and half a dozen other 70's suburban pop bands from that era.

Along with ZZ Top, Aerosmith and Journey.

:-)

Congratulations, idiot.

Elaborate. I'm dying to hear.

You want to get into a pissing contest over opinions about art?

We're talking about The Clash.

That should piss everybody off!

:spray:

Mediocre pop music rarely qualifies as art, I was being generous.

:D

:D

They have always been shit, they always will be.

The Jonas Brothers play vomit-inducing pop.

wiki says so

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Brothers

I think they're bubblegum, and Wiki isn't credible enough as an authority on everything to change my mind. When I hear my girlfriend's niece listen to that shit, I hear bubblegum.

I just don't it.

hehehehehehehe...

and yep, I hate the Who.

vote? To me they are the definitive band of the genre. It is like being a reggae fan and calling Bob Marley overrated. I'm sure there is reasoning behind it, I'd just like to hear it.

I could understand the arguments against the geritol fueled tours of recent years, but there's no question who the Greatest Rock n Roll Band on the planet was in 1972.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0xKwxyeqKY

...

They are worse than even Rush.

mark

since my mid teens, many years professionally. They are completely soulless and lacking in any emotional content.
I know many people love them - I am not one.

mark

It has to be a generational disconnect. How anyone can listen to "The Electric Co.", "Out Of Control", or "40" and call U2 soulless defies comprehension.

Enjoy them - just don't make me listen to them.

mark

I think it was a good artistic decision.

I have just never been that impressed with their musical talent.

I can't see anyone say that if they had. I saw them in 83 and it STILL is one of my all time favorite concerts

I just don't think they are as "godlike" as they are often portrayed. But that's just me. I have always resisted popular opinion when it comes to music or other forms of art.

If you say "The Who" ye got yer head up yer arse.

I mean, how many times can an untalented lead singer shriek out the phrase "Woh-Oo-Oh" without people getting really sick of it, as I did years ago? The Who has an honest claim to a hundred times the reputation that Journey ever dreamed of having.....

But they do suck. Hard.

Thank you!! :bounce:

and still don't get the Grateful Dead. My takeaway was that it really helped to take a lot of drugs prior to the concert.

Saw them back when they were a club act, was the only person in the place who wasn't stoned, and while they had their moments, I didn't see what all the excitement was about.

albums.

I think there's more to em than the stoned fans, actually.

Great choices, by the way! I completely agree!

Only halfway decent thing to come out of Nirvana is Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters.

They just paved the way for better "grunge" bands and alternative music

They were bad with David Lee Roth and got absolutely shitteous with Sammy Hagar.

Well at least the first part was. Van Hagar was indeed shitteous.

But Van Halen was the greatest live band I've ever seen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMyJAcHlCGc

Worst drummer ever. He had all the subtlety of a three year old banging on a drum set.

On Edit: "Who's Next" is still a great record.

My favorite drummer... EVER!!! :P

Unlistenable - and I am a Lou Reed fan, actually.

Followed closely by Guns N' Roses. If your biggest hit is is a cover song, you should be playing proms at the juco.

instead of the worthless bubblegum pop shit they played. God, the Beatles sucked. :puke:

Anyone who doesn't like the Beatles is defective.

They have several songs that are famous and none of them really surpass Meatloaf's Paradise by the Dashboard Light in terms of quality.

Even a pompous twit like Bono must be humbled by his legacy. That's a hard to act to follow.

Brian May: a triumph of tone over ability.

Don't even get me started on that creepy neo-fascist chant "We Will Rock You'. Sounded better in the original German. :puke:

Freddy Murcury might have been one of the greatest live pwrformers ever. Poseur...:eyes:

What the fuck do you know about my musical taste/knowledge? You think I give a farting fuck what some random poster on DU thinks they think they know about my music knowledge/taste? Queen sucks diarrheal shards out of the Big Cosmic Sphincter.

Music is entirely personal taste--beyond a certain point, anyway. Why should ANY of us give a shit what anyone thinks of what we like/dislike? I have a feeling I'd loathe your favorite band, just based on what YOU dislike.

Queen had multiple great albums.in fact I've listened to bat out of hell and it pretty much sucks except for one song..of course you could compare "crazy little thing called love" to "I would do anything for love...but I won't do that" the worst song on the history of rock

yeah, yeah, technique, chops, etc.

But 90% of his songs are eminently forgettable.

Hell, he took one of his best songs ("Layla") and fucked it up with that lame lounge lizard acoustic version.

We were kids in the early 1980's. That was the time of his first exposure to Clapton. My first exposure to him was the pathetic crybaby drivel about his kid falling out the window. He understood that Clapton was a wuss to me, but insisted that if your first impression is clapton screaming COCAINE!, he's not pathetic. I understand this, but to me he'll always be linked to tears in heaven.

JJ Cale's got the real stuff.

To this day hearing that makes we want to kick bunnies. (not really, don't get on my case, I love bunnies)

:popcorn:

Curing Insomnia For Over 40 Years!

I think they are totally overrated....

When Aerosmith did the Backstreet Boys song and started doing Pepsi Cola commercials, I knew they were finished. They made some good tunes but Stephen Tyler is such a dipshit that its hard to take them seriously.

down a shaft.....:mad:

:nuke:

Bruce Springsteen and the Emmer-Effin E Street Band.

Eight millions kinds of suck.

Jersey 4 LIFE

:P

...

:P

I'd say Guns N' Roses is a contender. KISS is up there, too.

Sorry... :shrug: Don't get.

a few others could give them a run for the money, but I won't argue too much about it.

:P

finally someone took the bait :evilgrin:

Now, I will comfort my wounded ego after your grievous insult with some Antibalas.

Can't pick just one...

But if I had to narrow down to my top five, they'd go something like this.

#5 - The Beatles
#4 - The Who
#3 - The Grateful Dead
#2 - AC/DC
#1 - Aerosmith

There are many more:

Bruce Springsteen - boring
Steely Dan - Boring
Doors - Jim Morrison poet shit is overrated
Grateful Dead - Boring as fuck
Clash - Is London Calling really that good? NO.
AC/DC - Annoying


Most underrated:
Grand Funk Railroad
Metallica