i remember duster, very cool
the cannanes are totally underrated
also outrageous cherry should be huge but aren't. i'd love to see them do a gbv but i can't see it happening
― electricsound, Friday, 30 November 2007 00:38 (sixteen years ago) link
J0hn completely and totally OTM about the Libertines. I don't think I've ever read (on nerdy msg boards, that is) or heard a single positive thing about them and they've got 4 or 5 really great tunes that I've been able to download illegally.
The Equals have at least 4 or 5 really great tunes that I ripped from my lady friend's greatest hits CD. The rest is a bit lackluster...
Deadly Snakes = a good one, too.
― will, Friday, 30 November 2007 00:41 (sixteen years ago) link
or three, at least (re Libs)
― will, Friday, 30 November 2007 00:42 (sixteen years ago) link
i just bought a catherine wheel cd at goodwill for 99 cents because i nver heard it,its from th yr 2000
― danbunny, Friday, 30 November 2007 00:43 (sixteen years ago) link
^ well that's Wishville, and it's the worst Catherine Wheel album. Adam and Eve is fantastic though, and the Ferment-Chrome 1-2 albums punch is also worth checking out. Great band overall, and yes, underrated - a nice counterpart to Ride, and other '90s British stuff with massive, gorgeous guitar noise and melody.
as for my pick for underrated artist(s): Bedhead/The New Year.
― stephen, Friday, 30 November 2007 00:49 (sixteen years ago) link
okay i take that back. Wishville is at least as good as, if not better than, Happy Days, which aside from "Heal" and maybe one other song is fucking awful, especially compared to the genius of the first two records.
― stephen, Friday, 30 November 2007 00:58 (sixteen years ago) link
i loved that chrome album,,and some mid 90s stuff so bug guitar cords big ghutar coirhds
― danbunny, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:02 (sixteen years ago) link
Efterklang is in my opinion is sorely underrated - not just on ILM, but everywhere (Mirador=greatest track of 2007)
others include
Joe henry Tahiti 80 Pinetop Seven Tronzo Nujabes Archer Prewitt
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.
― Cliftonb, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:05 (sixteen years ago) link
How about totally overrated artists, especially the critically adored overrated artists like:
Tom Waits: Cooky-monster-voiced parody of folksy americana for the coffee shop set. I'm embarrassed for him just listening to it alone. Come on: http://www.seeqpod.com/music/?plid=89932ffdbb
Suede: flaccid glam rock
A Certain Ratio: Half as good as ESG (who only had a few cool songs to begin with).
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.
Fela Kuti: It's basically the same song with slight variations throughout the entire catalog. Interesting life, but musically unadventurous. I can take about 1 or 2 songs a month.
― Chelvis, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:19 (sixteen years ago) link
nah
― electricsound, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:21 (sixteen years ago) link
wrong
― W4LTER, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:24 (sixteen years ago) link
http://eatourbrains.com/EoB/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/troll.jpg
― Noodle Vague, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:26 (sixteen years ago) link
does kenickie qualify? they're highly rated among their fans, but everyone else is pretty "wtbd, another dollar bin britpop waste"
― winston, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:28 (sixteen years ago) link
sure
― electricsound, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:28 (sixteen years ago) link
It's just how I feel about those bands. I never liked the Pixies either. I'm not trying to upset folks..
― Chelvis, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:30 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.trollforest.com/story/small5.jpg
― winston, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:31 (sixteen years ago) link
i'm outraged
― swinburningforyou, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:32 (sixteen years ago) link
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!
― Just got offed, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:35 (sixteen years ago) link
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?
― kingkongvsgodzilla, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:37 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― dlp9001, Friday, 30 November 2007 01:59 (sixteen years ago) link
con-funk-shun red sovine carolyn mark freakwater/catherine irwin/janet bean american death ray
― omar little, Friday, 30 November 2007 02:17 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― Chelvis, Friday, 30 November 2007 02:23 (sixteen years ago) link
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...)
― scott seward, Friday, 30 November 2007 02:40 (sixteen years ago) link
good point - fuck Television.
― Chelvis, Friday, 30 November 2007 02:42 (sixteen years ago) link
Oh yeah, and Wall of Voodoo
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Friday, 30 November 2007 03:04 (sixteen years ago) link
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
― Edward III, Friday, 30 November 2007 03:07 (sixteen years ago) link
kilslug has reformed, btw
― Edward III, Friday, 30 November 2007 03:09 (sixteen years ago) link
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.)
― unperson, Friday, 30 November 2007 03:16 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 30 November 2007 03:27 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― winston, Friday, 30 November 2007 04:39 (sixteen years ago) link
79/80, i mean
― winston, Friday, 30 November 2007 04:40 (sixteen years ago) link
The Walkmen are always lumped in with early 2000s nu-NME, Strokes, etc. but their first album is really fucking awesome
― winston, Friday, 30 November 2007 04:44 (sixteen years ago) link
I mean, it transcends its NYC hipster stereotype
or whatever. sorry, too stoned
― winston, Friday, 30 November 2007 04:45 (sixteen years ago) link
first Walkmen album's good, second one's better, still waiting for another decent one though...
― stephen, Friday, 30 November 2007 04:52 (sixteen years ago) link
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?
― Colonel Poo, Friday, 30 November 2007 11:03 (sixteen years ago) link
All of my favourite artists are underrated (maybe save for The Beatles who are neither over- or underrated, and only underrated by younger generations)
― Geir Hongro, Friday, 30 November 2007 11:48 (sixteen years ago) link
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).
― CaptainLorax, Friday, 30 November 2007 12:26 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― CaptainLorax, Friday, 30 November 2007 14:00 (sixteen years ago) link
I think there's moderately-strong positive correlation between popularity and overratedness
― CaptainLorax, Friday, 30 November 2007 14:08 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― Bill Magill, Friday, 30 November 2007 14:55 (sixteen years ago) link
Jason Falkner
― MC, Friday, 30 November 2007 15:18 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― MC, Friday, 30 November 2007 15:23 (sixteen years ago) link
Bill I'd say a pretty hefty chunk of critic types know & love BOC all the way through Fire of Unknown Origin
― J0hn D., Friday, 30 November 2007 16:19 (sixteen years ago) link
I still wanna know what "to tout Midlands spastics" refers to cos I have no idea WTF they were on about!
― Colonel Poo, Friday, 30 November 2007 16:22 (sixteen years ago) link
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
― Bill Magill, Friday, 30 November 2007 16:22 (sixteen years ago) link
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...
― MC, Friday, 30 November 2007 16:29 (sixteen years ago) link
Where is the LOVE for all these Christian rock acts who are ripe for hipster reappraisal?
― dr. phil, Friday, 30 November 2007 16:45 (sixteen years ago) link
Rank & File - just the first two albums, anyway.
― Jazzbo, Friday, 30 November 2007 16:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Another vote for Nada Surf. The best power pop band in the world.
― kornrulez6969, Friday, 30 November 2007 16:55 (sixteen years ago) link