Your Favorite Underrated Artists

You mean Eddy Grant who sang Electric Avenue?

Is this the Eddy Grant disc you're referring to?

Hahaha, goddammit, I was going to suggest the Walkabouts as well but thought they just weren't well known enough to count as underrated. But lord god almighty are they still one of my most favorite bands anywhere, ever.

One day -- maybe years from now -- the appeal of the Libertines will make itself known to me, perhaps. Distance might be the only answer. I have trouble hearing them now as anything else but a long-tapped-out vein.

Diddy

I like to imagine the Walkabouts topping the pop charts and filling stadiums in tiny Eastern European countries like Slovenia and Montenegro. Of course the reality is that they had one or two minor hits in Germany or somewhere thereabouts, which makes them semi-obscure in Europe as opposed to flat-out unknown in the US. Better than nothing, but they deserve better...

Oh another - The Plasmatics! Absolutely adored them as a junior high schooler. On my English folder, I wrote every song title of theirs AND every spoken intro. The spoken intros were circled so you could tell the difference. Still love the shit outta them. Where punk and camp meet (which didn't happen too often...maybe that Streets comp counts). Avoid newish DVD on MVD (in fact, avoid ALL MVD DVDs).

i thought of one - ups & downs. vastly better than 95% of the australian stuff that gets all the attention. prefer them to the church any day, for example

Animals That Swim !!

their albums are long out of print as far as i know which makes me sad because they deserve more attention than they got

I kinda agree with Diddy and Blink 182

I want to add: Transplants!

Their first album is bananas, man.

DeBarge despite pockets of love around here.

Animals That Swim

Heh, still have two of their albums around.

I've never met another Steeleye Span fan, but I dig it.

loooove steeleye span, all the way through all around my hat.

i think BIG COUNTRY is underrated, to the extent anyone rates them. first album at least. second album too really.

(big country's rhythm section is especially underrated)

^ Oh, third album too. And everyone loves teh drums on Love, so half of the rhythm section is only underrated in context.

i like the 3rd album (kate bush!) but i wasn't gonna force the issue.

I just looked at the tracklist and I think I can still hum at least half of it.

In the spirit of J0hn's post, I'll nominate Billy Squier. Usually mentioned only as a punchline, but Don't Say No is classic, the Emotions In Motion singles kick, and dude gave a rhythm track to half of all hip-hop.

my favorite thing about billy squier is the possibly-apocryphal story that he wrote "everybody wants you" after a flight stuck in first class with an insufferable maurice gibb. (i think maurice was the story. maybe barry...)

I love that story but I think the only place I've actually heard it was here: Billy Squire: Classic of Dud?

i know. i heard it from a friend in high school who said he heard it in a billy squier interview on the radio (wcmf) so with that kind of sourcing how can you doubt?

Candlemass

Daniel Belanger (outside of Quebec), Autour de Lucie, southpacific, Len (still patiently waiting for their next one), and I will happily second Juliana Hatfield.

iain matthews/matthews southern comfort

have trouble hearing them now as anything else but a long-tapped-out vein.

Hiss!

I need to hear more Eddy Grant. As it turns out, I heard the "Romancing the Stone" theme a few weeks ago -- not bad.

Campag Velocet

Puressence

Wot no Darkwave?

Mike Viola/Candy Butchers
Ivy

Is this the Eddy Grant disc you're referring to?

Yes! The thirteen minute Living on the Frontline is completely insane.

Morphine

<i>the Libertines
Luther Vandross</i>

I get called out for citing Talk Talk and you let these fly?? Hell, my MOM knows both of these artists. Ask your average Joe on the street (i.e. not an ILX head or music snob) about Talk Talk and *MAYBE* they'll hum "It's My Life" at you. By and large, <i>Spirit of Eden</i> and <i>Laughing Stock</i> are wholly undiscovered by the majority.

And good call on the Plasmatics!!!

I didn't what to say about Luther Vandross, that one I don't get. But when do you ever hear anybody say anything favorable about the Libertines? They're famous, but everybody always says how bad they suck. Talk Talk, on the other hand: anybody who ever has anything to say about them says how godlike they are, how the two albums you cite are masterpieces, etc. If you look up "critics' favorite" in the dictionary, there's a picture of Talk Talk there. So underappreciated/not known at a level commensurate with their aesthetic accomplishment, maybe - underrated? Everyone who rates them does so highly!

McFly

underrated but not obscure

my pick is probably just obscure, but does anyone remember the band duster? late 90s lo-fi space rock band? they put out 3 albums, but the only one i've heard is "stratosphere." but "stratosphere" seriously one of my favorite albums ever. i guess they were just forgotten, or else brushed off as just another drone/post-rock band. but anytime i want to hear something like this i always reach for "stratosphere".

Grateful Dead, underrated-even hated-around here.

Bill that's like not even true, there are a bunch of Dead fans around here

Re: Big Country, More4 showed a 24-year-old episode of The Tube recently with Big Country playing, and they were pretty awesome. Far better than what I remembered from absorbing Top of the Pops at al as a toddler.

"...there are a bunch of Dead fans around here"

Probably true, but outweighed by all the tiresome "dirty hippie" bullshit.

yeah all those dirty hippie threads. . . .HUH???

c'mon, everyone loves nickalicious

I wasn't kidding about Ray Parker Jr.

And even though there's a sizable Wichita Lineman fanbase around here, the great Glen Campbell is utterly underrated.

Not individual threads, but that seems to be the response whenever the Dead are mentioned. I don't really give enough of a shit to go back and find the old Dead threads.

Happy & Artie Traum
The Shadow Ring

I LOVE THE GRATEFUL DEAD.

^^^ happy now Bill?

oh, and also M Coleman on the mark re Ian Matthew. his fan club is, what, you and me and scott s? a couple of the guys i work with love him too though, so maybe that's why he didn't register in my mind as underrated.

i love the dead too. at least a decent chunk of it.

i think i've mentioned my love for Epic Soundtracks on this board before -- he might have a tiny tiny tiny following, but I never hear him mentioned very much. All of his albums (even the outtakes collections) are fab.
also, the Moore Brothers. Though Joanna Newsom has been talking them up, so maybe they're not underrated anymore.

The Lovin' Spoonful
The Rascals
The Turtles

sure they get their play on oldies stations, but like with Eddy Grant (the best example so far) you don't run into a lot of folks who are like "man I'm a big Rascals fan"...but these bands are fabulous

I stand corrected! And the multi-millionaire surviving members of the Dead surely don't need me to carry their water for them.

For a few seconds, I read this thread title as "Your Favorite Underrate Racists."

underrated

hot 8 brass band
rebirth brass band
new birth brass band
free agents brass band
soul rebels brass band

NO-MAN

Nortt

hell yeah on the eddy grant love.
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/ettiem/killerontherampage.jpg
good tunes, great legs!

hell yeah, too, on the ray parker jr. love. been picking up raydio records on sight the last year or so. evey one has at least a few fantastic tunes. favorite at the moment is "more than one way to love a woman." the chorus is almost steve millerish.

"Michael & His Slipper Tree" rules!...one of those tunes that burrows into your head after just one listen...

my fave underrated artist is Scott 4...(the band, not the LP)...motorik country/western, don't know how they slipped through the cracks...

Ashlee Simpson

Guns N' Roses (very underrated on ILX)

Buckethead

Nate Carson, Tuesday, 4 December 2007 02:59 (Yesterday)

I'll admit, Projekct 2 is my least favorite of them all. 3 and 4, on teh other hand stand out especially to me considering it sounds like nothing they've done previously and was only touched upon on THE POWER TO BELIEVE. Projekct One is excellent but is reminiscent of some of their previous work.

I hear Tony's back in the band so I'll see how it goes from here.

Guns N' Roses (very underrated on ILX)

In some strange alternate universe, maybe.

this will probably cause an explosion of laughter but I really liked the one New Radicals album

Suzy Mangion, as well as her band George.

early Piano Magic.

" 'Guns N' Roses (very underrated on ILX)
In some strange alternate universe, maybe."

they're evaluated fairly in the posts from 5+ years ago, but not now. The response to the leaked Chinese Democracy tracks is particulary bad (maybe I should have listed nuGNR as underrated too).

eX-Girl
Smile Like Dog
Salk Vacchin
Luminous Orange

Monroe Mustang particularly their first album on Trance Syndicate.
Silkworm
Unwound

I found Killer On The Rampage by Eddy Grant in a Scope shop a month or 2 ago :)

I like eX-Girl. That's a good one.

THAT FIRST URBAN VERBS RECORD IS SO FRIGGIN' GOOD. IT'S LIKE A DOLLAR RECORD.

SAME WITH HUMAN SEXUAL RESPONSE RECORDS. SO GREAT AND SO UNDERRATED OR WHATEVER.

SAME WITH THAT FIRST TRANSLATOR ALBUM. PEOPLE MIGHT REMEMBER EVERYWHERE THAT I'M NOT BUT THAT ALBUM IS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.

BUT THAT URBAN VERBS RECORD, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR...ROCKS SO GOOD.

Def. some acts upthread, but I would add:

Los Lobos
Robert Cray
Sam Phillips (singer/songwriter)
Kool & the Gang