Your Favorite Underrated Artists

wrong

http://eatourbrains.com/EoB/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/troll.jpg

does kenickie qualify? they're highly rated among their fans, but everyone else is pretty "wtbd, another dollar bin britpop waste"

sure

It's just how I feel about those bands. I never liked the Pixies either. I'm not trying to upset folks..

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i'm outraged

Adam and Eve is fantastic though

Happy Days, which aside from "Heal" and maybe one other song is fucking awful

OTM!! I've said this before: Happy Days -> Adam & Eve is the most stunning upturn in quality I've EVER heard in ANY musical career arc. Happy Days is absolutely bereft of anything (even Heal gets dull eventually), but then Dickinson and the gang get their Talk Talk on in earnest, this time also remembering to write some (brilliant) songs. It's a phenomenal record, full of texture, depth, emotion, surprise, space and flow. Buy!

Bill Macgill was off with his Grateful Dead suggestion, but would it be off to suggest Brent Mydland?

1980s Dead is roundly disliked by ~75 percent of their fanbase. Many of those people blame the band's decline on the addition of keyboard player Brent: he was kinda yacht-rock; he introduced synths to the band; he brought some dark tunes to the table; he had a distinctive voice that tended to rise above the other guys; and there are those who say he played a big part in enabling Jerry's addiction.

I can really get behind the first 4 of those, ya know?

I take "underrated" as meaning "people know of the band (or at least one of their songs) but don't properly appreciate them" and using that, I tend to go with Men Without Hats and The Vapors.

The Fall were well known (relatively speaking) well before 2001. xpost. I'd say that by Nation's Saving Grace they were hardly obscure. I got Bend Sinister at a non-hipster store in NJ off of Route 22 when it came out.

con-funk-shun
red sovine
carolyn mark
freakwater/catherine irwin/janet bean
american death ray

dlp2001, you may be right re: The Fall. All I remember is that in 2001 or so, all of a sudden a bunch of people were playing their records, there were interviews with Mark E Smith everywhere, and hipster records shops were stocked with a bunch of Fall Cds and records seemingly overnight. It was as if all Hipsterdom decided en masse that they were the latest hip-find-that-we've-been-into-for-years,-duh, (maybe because 2001 was another shitty year for music in the US), but in the 90s I never saw their name anywhere.

As far as bands that are well-known, i still say (I've already ranted on other threads) that the Buzzcocks and The Stranglers don't get enough worship. They are both big names, but I never hear them get the kind of star treatment that a band like The Clash gets. Buzzcocks are sorta remembered by a lot of people as cutesy pop punkers or something and Stranglers are remembered for being old and bearded and sexist or something. If Stranglers were from Germany they would get Can/Neu levels of praise. And Buzzcocks are simply one of the greatest rock bands of the 70's. I mean, how many years do I have to read about the genius of Television. Fuck Television! Buzzcocks were all kinds of genius.

Plus, just in case anyone forgot how great The Cramps were, don't forget how great The Cramps were. Okay? I spent a night watching Cramps on youtube and even I almost forgot how godly they could be. They deserve a medal at the very least. (not that i've heard much Cramps music since, like, a date with elvis, but still...)

good point - fuck Television.

Oh yeah, and Wall of Voodoo

WOV OTM

my list ain't much of a secret, I'm always babbling about them here...

live skull
9353
kilslug
christoph de babalon
gore
monitor

kilslug has reformed, btw

My top two nominees for this are definitely the Plugz and the Screaming Blue Messiahs. Every Messiahs album has moments of brilliance, but Bikini Red is fucking godlike from first note to last, yes even including "I Wanna Be A Flintstone." And the Plugz' debut, Electrify Me, is one of the top five L.A. punk albums, period. (The other four are Damaged, Los Angeles, Wild Gift and Fear's The Record. The surviving Germs, and their frontactor, can suck my taint.)

I didn't what to say about Luther Vandross, that one I don't get

I don't read many threads debating the merits of Give Me The Reason versus Any Love.

Plus, just in case anyone forgot how great The Cramps were, don't forget how great The Cramps were. Okay? I spent a night watching Cramps on youtube and even I almost forgot how godly they could be. They deserve a medal at the very least. (not that i've heard much Cramps music since, like, a date with elvis, but still...)

Yessss...

In defense of 80s Dead, Reckoning is one of their finest albums, probably in my Dead top three. I guess that's stretching it a bit, it was recorded 79/90, right?

And I love a lot of Jerry's 90s stuff w/ Grisman.

79/80, i mean

The Walkmen are always lumped in with early 2000s nu-NME, Strokes, etc. but their first album is really fucking awesome

I mean, it transcends its NYC hipster stereotype

or whatever. sorry, too stoned

first Walkmen album's good, second one's better, still waiting for another decent one though...

Today my favourite underrated artists are In Camera.

"No-one listened to the Fall before 2001" is one of the most WTF things I've ever read on this board. Who are these "Midlands spastics" anyway?

All of my favourite artists are underrated (maybe save for The Beatles who are neither over- or underrated, and only underrated by younger generations)

are you sure about that?

I'll say Jim Guthrie, Red Red Meat, Nada Surf and Grifters and second Sloan and Archer Prewitt. Tons of bands in weird or lesser listened to genres are underrated (grifters and red red meat).

and unless I'm wrong cuz I don't get out much. Quasi, King Creosote, and Pigeon John don't get enough love. I think a lot of the bands I've mentioned here and above might be somewhat popular? I mean a good crowd showed up for the Nada Surf and Sloan concerts I went to but all in all most people don't know who they are. It's hard to draw the line with underrated artists and I guess I should have stuck with only the one that is clearly underrated - Jim Guthrie.

I think there's moderately-strong positive correlation between popularity and overratedness

Also Blue Oyster Cult is greviously underrated. People only know them for three tunes-Reaper, Godzilla and Burnin for You. They had much better songs than that, and I think they were truly genius.

Jason Falkner

The Fall: Nobody cared about this band until sometime in mid-2001, when the critics had run out of classic overlooked 80's English bands to tout Midlands spastics for people merely looking to expand their record collections.

I almost agree with you, although speaking from experience during my college years, nobody actually cared about this band until sometime in 1994 when the critics had run out of classic overlooked '70s English bands.

Bill I'd say a pretty hefty chunk of critic types know & love BOC all the way through Fire of Unknown Origin

I still wanna know what "to tout Midlands spastics" refers to cos I have no idea WTF they were on about!

Probably true, I'm talking more general public types and radio programmers. I don't think I've ever heard an Eric Bloom sung BOC song on the radio, and he was their de facto lead singer.

xpost

still wanna know what "to tout Midlands spastics" refers to cos I have no idea WTF they were on about!

Yeah, I ignored that part cuz I had no idea myself...

Where is the LOVE for all these Christian rock acts who are ripe for hipster reappraisal?

Rank & File - just the first two albums, anyway.

Another vote for Nada Surf. The best power pop band in the world.

Jason Falkner-- MC, Friday, 30 November 2007 15:18 (1 hour ago)

I'd totally agree - but that new record isn't going to win any new fans ... nine years between full length records for that - ugh!

The Fall: Nobody cared about this band until sometime in mid-2001, when the critics had run out of classic overlooked 80's English bands to tout Midlands spastics for people merely looking to expand their record collections.

this is crap, every generation discovers the fall eventually.

"still wanna know what "to tout Midlands spastics" refers to cos I have no idea WTF they were on about!"

that was a lack of proofreading and clarity of expression, that is what that was about. I should have been clearer:

The Fall: Nobody cared about this band until sometime in mid-2001, when the critics had run out of classic overlooked 80's English bands to tout. The Fall were just spastics from the Midlands, and their records were for people merely looking to expand their record collections.

I sincerely hope that one day I will listen to the Fall and hear the genius that others seem to hear, and that I'm wrong on this.

Also, dang, I hate Tom Waits so much.

Uh, the Fall were not from the Midlands.

Any more bullshit for us? :)

it took me six years of hearing and disliking random things by the fall before I "got" them.

so don't give up on the fall, however, you may want to pause before hitting the "submit response" button in the future.

I think Falkner's new album is pretty good. Not too different stylistically from the past, so is your problem with the level of the tunes? "This Time," "NYC," "The Knew," "Anondah," and "I Don't Mind" are all quality IMO.

Speaking of underrated power pop, I agree on Nada Surf (being underrated, not the "best")

For best underrated, I'd go with Superdrag, Sloan, The Shazam, or even Falkner if you throw him in there.

Actually, underrated... power pop... you could even say Cheap Trick, but I don't think we want to have that conversation on ILM yet again.

"King Crimson's modern improvs - The ProjeKCts (1 - 4 + X). I am possibly the biggest crimhead this side of Alpha Centuri an believe this is the pinacle of their existence.

I dunno man. I bought the first Project and all I could hear was the terrible V-drum presets that Belew was playing. He even talks in the liner notes about getting the drums in the mail, unwrapping the box, plugging them in, and recording. That is not the proper use of any sort of synthetic instrument.

***

The Fall -- I saw the Middle Class Revolt tour (Brix was back!). Just an awesome show. And a great (UNDER-RATED) album. Mark Smith paced the stage glaring at his bandmates, kicking the mic out of the kickdrum, away from the bass amp, and eventually stormed off stage. Brix finished the set for him. Could have been preconceived. Didn't matter.