The most under-rated and over-rated rock albums of all time

The most under-rated rock albums of all time.


Okay, we've all read Rolling Stone and other places rate the greatest rock albums of all time, and usually they pick albums that everyone has heard of.

Well, just to be different, here is my list of the most under-rated rock albums of all time. To qualify, each album had to come from a major artist that had other hit albums that overshadowed the ones on the list.

1. RUSH RUSH

True Rush fans usually completely ignore the first album, before drummer Neil Peart joined the band. True, John Rutsey was just a drummer and not a huge influence on the band, but to my mind Rush's first album remains a virtually ignored classic. Called the "poor man's Led Zeppelin" when it was released, it nonetheless remains a gold standard in bone-crunching heavy metal music. Several tracks showcase the virtuoso playing ability of the band, and the album did manage to produce one classic song: "Working Man."

2. BLONDIE Plastic Letters

Blondie would probably never have had a hit without disco. The song "Heart of Glass" topped the charts and moved Blondie in the direction of disco and dance pop, producing other similarly dance-inflected songs such as "Call Me," "Rapture", "Atomic", and others. But there was a darker side to Blondie. They were actually on the forefront of the CBGB New York style punk rock scene, although Blondie was far more "pop" than most of their contemporaries. Their second album Plastic Letters featured song titles seemingly ripped from tabloid headlines, such as "Youth Nabbed As Sniper", "Love at the Pier", "Bermuda Triangle Blues", "Fan Mail", and others. The songs were dark, short tributes to obsessed fans, child snipers, pop psychics, and other nowhere people, and the album is truly the most difficult and inaccessible record the band ever made. Indeed, its only real "hit", in Europe at least, was a cover of the Randy and the Rainbows single "Denise", changed to the mail gender by turning "Denise" into the French name "Denis". Still, when the album has time to work its spell, it remains a forgotten classic.

3. INXS Listen Like Thieves

Virtually forgotten since the band's two hit albums, Kick and X topped the charts, Listen Like Thieves nevertheless represented the gelling of INXS's sound into the danceable hard rock that would eventually make their career. Most of the songs could have been singles; "What You Need", "Listen Like Thieves", and "This Time" apparently were released as such. A very listenable album and unfortunately, all but forgotten.

4. LED ZEPPELIN Physical Graffiti

Double albums never do as well as single albums, and this follow-up to Houses of the Holy has never been mined by radio DJ's to the extent that previous Zeppelin albums were. A couple of songs, such as "Trampled Under Foot" and "Kashmir" received plenty of radio play. But hard rockers such as "The Rover" and "The Wanton Song" were virtually ignored by radio, not to mention such beauties as "In the Light" and "Down By The Seaside." "Ten Years Gone" was eventually discovered by radio when it was covered by the Black Crowes, but most of the fine songs on this album have been completely ignored.

5. THE CURE Boys Don't Cry

This was the American equivalent of the British release Three Imaginary Boys and featured a totally different Cure than most of the band's audience came to know and love. Instead of moody, atmospheric pop that became the band's staple, this album was classic "two-guitars-and-a-drum-kit" rock, stripped down, with few frills. The album also contained a song almost universally condemned by the media: "Killing An Arab". According to the band's leader, Robert Smith, the song was actually an ode to the book The Stranger. The controversy over "Killing An Arab" amounted to nothing, and this underrated album remains largely forgotten.





The Most Over-Rated Rock Albums of All Time


I know I'm going to step on some toes, so I want to be clear that ALL of these albums are great, classic albums, and I personally have owned all of them, and I consider them "art". In fact, to be over-rated, by definition it has to be an album that has been either extremely popular or has changed rock as we know it. SO NONE OF THESE ALBUMS CAN BE CONSIDERED "BAD".

To qualify as "over-rated", each has to be an album to which the critics have ascribed almost legendary status, or undeserved godhood. This is why I titled my list the most "over-rated" albums of all time--in other words, good albums that have been inflated into something beyond being just good albums.


Here they are:

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , The Beatles

It's been called everything from the Greatest Rock Album of All Time to the Soundtrack for the Summer of Love (1967). It's also been called the first "concept album." But if you take away all the "hippie zeitgeist" that accompanied its release, then it, like other Beatles albums, is just another collection of songs. John Lennon even admitted as much, saying that, other than the "theme" song and the reprise of same toward the end, the album's songs could have ended up on just about any other Beatles album. No "concept album" here. And inspiration? "Good Morning, Good Morning" was stolen from a corn flakes commercial. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" was lifted almost word-for-word from a circus poster. "A Day in the Life" was two song fragments that would have ended up on the cutting room floor had they not been "joined" together by George Martin. All this and a song about Meter Maids, too.

2. The Velvet Underground and Nico , The Velvet Underground

Lou Reed can't sing, or play, and if you combine that with a penchant for writing songs that are unpleasant to listen to, then you can call it avante garde , and it can somehow justify this foursome of nobodies having a record deal when many other bands with talent went hungry. Influential? You bet. Punk rock would not exist without this album. Interesting? Sure. It's different; that's for sure. Fun to listen to? Only if your tastes run the gamut from the frog-voiced fashion model Nico to the psycho rantings of Lou Reed about Heroin, sadomasochism, and other "fun" topics. John Cale's violin screeches offer the final proof that this is one album you cannot listen to for pleasure.

3. Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs , Derek and the Dominoes

Derek and the Dominoes were, of course, a one-album band for Eric Clapton and "guest" musicians. The title song and "Bell Bottom Blues" notwithstanding, the album is, in a word, B-O-R-I-N-G. While the virtuoso guitar soloing between Clapton and Allman may enthrall some, this album is guaranteed to otherwise put to sleep the vast majority of the listening public. This is definitely NOT an album to play while driving down the highway late at night. ZZZZZZZZZ.....

4. Darkness on the Edge of Town , Bruce Springsteen

If this slow, monotonous collection of ditties about nowhere people who have no reason to live doesn't make you want to lock up the razor blades, then you truly have a career ahead of you taking care of terminally ill patients. I listen to this album when I'm depressed, and I feel MUCH worse.

5. Exile on Main Street , The Rolling Stones

The production is muddy, and most of the songs are forgettable. The entire album sounds like it was recorded in one afternoon, in a basement with very bad acoustics. The flat production was considered somewhat ballsy at the time: in an era when more and more albums were becoming "artistic" productions taking months or years, Exile on Main Street and its sort of...well...BAD sound was considered to be a deliberate rebellion against this. Or was it just bad sound? Hmmmm....

Dis-Honorable Mention:

Tommy , The Who

Pompous and overblown. It takes two albums to say what could have been said in one. Don't you have anything better to do than listen to this album from beginning to end?

Dis-Honorable Mention, Part II:

Anything by the Doors. The thing is, for all the undeserved popularity they continue to enjoy even though they were the sort of laid back, L.A. lounge act, their over-rated status is usually balanced out by the number of people that hate them, so there is sort of an equilibrium where the Doors are concerned.

I'll have to think about this but I can give you an over rated album imo(and this won't go over well)...................... London Calling(Clash). Big "whoop-de-do.

Oh, and another............. Never Mind the Bollocks(Sex Pistols).

Originally posted by intrepid
I'll have to think about this but I can give you an over rated album imo(and this won't go over well)...................... London Calling(Clash). Big "whoop-de-do.

Oh, and another............. Never Mind the Bollocks(Sex Pistols).

Actually, those are pretty good picks and I entirely agree that they are over-rated.

Under rated? For some younger folks, any ACDC album from 74 Jailbreak to Highway to Hell. That's when the best stuff happened. I will give nods to the song For Those About to Rock. The best of new ACDC.

reply to post by intrepid


Well i'm going to have to disagree with both you and the OP, they are both cracking albums.
But hey, that's the beauty of music.

London Calling was so different to previous Clash material and shows how they were experimenting with different types of music.
I still play it regularly now, a true classic that has stood the test of time.

Never Mind The Bollocks is simply that, The Bollox and has been such an influence on so many musicians that it is not unfair to say that it helped change the very face of society as a whole.

IMO, one of the greatest albums of all time is The Stone Roses self named first album and I personally feel it get's nowhere near the respect and recognition it deserves.
Such an influence on so many bands that have followed.

As for over-rated, I am going to have to say it even though I know I will get slaughtered;
Almost anything by The Beatles.
Yes, they have recorded some fabulous material but so much of it is inane run of the mill stuff :shk::shk:
The Who, The Rolling Stones and possibly even The Small Faces and The Kinks were better, just my humble opinon.

Could go on for hours about musical tastes, preferences, likes and dislikes etc.

reply to post by Freeborn


Sorry to disagree but innovation was like Zepp's Dazed and Confused(Sabbath did it too), we were like. WTF is that? And classic.

As to the Beatles, not a fan BUT they took music from singles to an album. That innovation alone is noteworthy. Without the Beatles you don't have bands like Pink Floyd.

reply to post by intrepid


I suspect that even though most music fans tastes grow and develop over the years the music that remains closest to us is that which we experienced at first hand whilst we were at our most impressionable and whilst we were developng our own identities.

The Pistols, The Clash, The Jam even The Specials sang about real life situations that I was experiencing and could relate to.

Even though I can appreciate their music today, Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, ELP etc were so remote to me that they represented everything we disliked about music and society at that time.

I personally went through another period during the very late 80's / early 90's as a reaction against the prevelance of Rock bands like Def Leppard etc. There was just so many bands who were so much as a sameness that they left me cold. In addition there was some truly awful music around in the 80's after the initial burst of creativeness that followed on from Punk.

Now, I have a truly eclectic appreciation of music, but I am still a product of my times and the environment I grew up in.

Edit. my bad grammar.

[edit on 3-10-2007 by Freeborn]

Under rated? Green Day. Check out Jesus of Suburbia:



These guys matured well.

Edit: See Bullet in a Bible. Great DVD.

[edit on 4-10-2007 by intrepid]

Metallica's Black album. Overrated and over played.

reply to post by MyCountryTisOfMe


Obviously a Metalica fan. We all know Ride the Lightning was the best.

Originally posted by Freeborn
reply to post by intrepid

 

I suspect that even though most music fans tastes grow and develop over the years the music that remains closest to us is that which we experienced at first hand whilst we were at our most impressionable and whilst we were developng our own identities.

Yep. In the immortal words of John Lennon everybody eventually digs their own era.

No matter what I do, my favorite band keeps finding its way back to Blondie.

Overrated: Van Morrison, The Doors. Just don't like 'em, never have and never will. So there...

Underrated: Dark Side of the Moon, by Pink Floyd. Never seems to be mentioned, IMHO, better than the Wall, which was really good. I'm kinda partial to the Clash as well, London Calling is still one of my favorites.

I'm gonna have to think about "overrated", but IMO the most "underrated" is The Colour and the Shape by the Foo-Fighters. Unfortunately, after that album they basically went down the proverbial toilet.

Peace

its all personal opinion anyways. (i love sgt pepper).

Journey - In The Beginning is a fantastic album. It's a compilation of their early stuff, long before they got Steve Perry and turned into 80s stadium rock or whatever they call that kind of music. (though Steve Perry has a fantastic voice, I'm not knocking him). Their first albums are completely different, more prog. rock, and I hear a lot of their influence in a lot of modern bands. All the songs on In the Beginning still sound good today. One of my faves.Speaking of Blondie, there was a song called Fade Away (and Radiate?). Haven't heard it for donkey's years but it's one I've never forgotten.

[edit on 7-10-2007 by wigit]

when you consider the most overrated you must consider the music scene when they came out and what they are being compared to.

Never Mind the Bollocks, while amateurish and noisy to some, was cutting edge and so over the top in its anti-authority messages that it was groundbreaking and exciting and new.

The Doors albums aren't all that well reviewed. Their work, as a whole, is something amazing but that includes Jim's crazy antics both onstage and off.

Sgt. Peppers was the dawn of the psychedelic era for the beatles. Thus, it too was groudbreaking and considered a classic.

-repeat post-

[edit on 8-10-2007 by dreamingawake]

2. The Velvet Underground and Nico , The Velvet Underground

Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music as a better reflection of his noise.

Originally posted by wigit
Speaking of Blondie, there was a song called Fade Away (and Radiate?). Haven't heard it for donkey's years but it's one I've never forgotten.

[edit on 7-10-2007 by wigit]

"Fade Away (and Radiate)" was on the Parallel Lines album. It's about watching TV late at night in the dark.

MC5's album "Kick out the Jams" released in 1968 is imho the most under rated rock album of all time. The list of musicians these guy's influenced reads like a hall of fame. There music is still as powerful and relevant today as it was 40years ago. If you've never heard these guys do yourself a favour and hit youtube.

Judas Priest's album "Stained Class" released in 1978 deserve's alot more praise than some of the Zeppelin albums that get rave reviews, the follow up "Hell bent for Leather" or "Killing Machine" where the precursor albums that formulated the NWOBHM movement.

Overrated albums, any of the Led Zep albums, i mean they were good but as far as "Great" goe's i'm not so sure. I'll probably get flamed for this as well but i think a lot of David Bowies work is overrated as well.

Let the begin.

mojo