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What are the 5 most overrated rock albums?

1. The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band. The songs on this album are nowhere near as memorable as those on "Revolver" and "Rubber Soul". For that matter, this album is nowhere near as innovative, nor ultimately as influential, as either "Pet Sounds" or the first Velvet Underground album. I'm not the first to point out that blame for such artless excess as all seventeen minutes of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida rests primarily with Sgt. Pepper.

2. Pink Floyd: The Wall. All of the criticisms usually applied to late 70's stadium rock, i.e., that it was pretentious, bloated, pseudo-intellectual,and self-indulgent; apply doubly to this crock opera. If you want witty and insightful philosophizing on the human condition, read Nietzsche, H.L. Mencken, or Michel Foucault. To seek such wisdom from pop music, a genre defined by its righteous Dionysian folly, is the greatest folly imaginable.

Pearl Jam: 10. Johnny Rotten was bang on when he described Pearl Jam as "bloody awful" and as sounding like "Joe Cocker singing for Black Sabbath." To my ears, this sounds like so much bland 70's rock (e.g., Bad Company). As The Monkees are to The Beatles, so are Pearl Jam to Nirvana.

4. U2: The Joshua Tree. I don't know where to begin. These guys plagiarized Joy Division, and set their sublime riffs to dumbass lyrics bespeaking the most niave sort of Oprah Winfrey meets Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms bourgeois liberalism. I've said it before, I'll say it again: If you make me listen to a record by someone named Bono, his first name better be SONNY.

5. Bob Marley & The Wailers: Exodus. Not only was Bob Marley not, by a long shot, the best pop music figure to come out of Jamaica, he wasn't even my favorite member of The Wailers. The monomaniacal cult of personality surrounding the deceased Robert Nesta Marley comes at the expense of all the other, far more exciting, music to come out of that poverty-stricken island. As Lester Bangs put it:

"Toots and the Maytalls, who never got promoted properly, are the real heat from a Stax/Volt kitchen, whereas Marley always struck me as being so laid back he seemed almost MOR. Rastaman Vibration was the last straw: an LP obviously calculated to break Disco Bob into the American Kleenex radio market full force, complete with chicklet vocal backdrops chirping 'Pos-i-tive!'
tweakgeek
raguirre
120 posts
 
I've never understood the appeal of Journey. Tweakgeek - yes, U2 'borrowed' mericlessly from Joy Division. Yes, Joy Division borrowed mercilessly from Can and a few others. Yo La Tengo 'borrows' from VU, but that doesn't make their albums any less great. Artists borrow things all the time. (None of this should imply that I don't think that Joshua Tree -and U2 in general- is horribly over rated.)

James Joyce's Ulysses - pretentious as hell. Still one of the greatest works of English literature.
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
How the Ramones could be in the Rock N Roll Hall of fame is beyond explanation. They had a few good hits (loud noisy hits), but Hall of Fame?
ozfly
887 posts
 
I agree with lots of the above. Anything by post-Gabriel Genesis is overrated. Aerosmith -- anything since Toys in the Attic (which was a fun listen for its time). Sting -- come on, that's not even rock, is it? The Stones were great early on (Paint it, Black or Mothers Little Helper) but by the time they tried disco, "forget about it". While I love the Who, I've never been a Tommy fan. While I love Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here and Animals in particular), I've never been able to convince myself to pick up The Wall. And if I never hear one of the top rated songs of all time "Bye, Bye Miss American Pie", I'd be a happy guy. Great post. Oh, Sugarbrie, I'm with you on the Ramones. Also, while the grunge movement was lots of fun, I do believe Nirvana was overrated in general -- there were a lot of other fine players in that game (I miss Sound Garden for example).
ben_campbell
1,169 posts
 
Tweak surprisingly we have semi-similar tastes-I would disagree perhaps about specific albums-Roxy etc....The Cramps well I would guess you were a big fan at the time and you see it as great rock and roll no doubt,to me fun stuff big energy-not great....likewise The Pogues a drunken bigot fronting a folk band who want to be the Clash does not great music make-Clinic surely too soon.
But I see why you don't like The Wall-you read the NME for too long..........keep fighting kids it's fun and I actually like Hotel California mostly because I don't listen to radio and I only play it about once every five years
tweakgeek OP
76 posts
 

I find Rush to be wildly entertaining, and consider them to be the funniest Rock band in the business. Your post brings to mind one of the most common criticisms of the film "This is Spinal Tap." Everyone can name at least a dozen real-life rock bands that are way funnier than Spinal Tap. Did anyone else catch that hilarious VH-1 "Behind the Music" segment on Styx? It was everything "This is Spinal Tap" should have been, but wasn't.

Yes indeed, Rush wouldn't be Rush, and Rick Wakeman wouldn't be Rick Wakeman, without their signature over-the-top pomposity. Our world would be a more somber place without them.
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