exactly.

Yeah, I like Big Star just fine, but they're certainly "overrated", I think because they didn't get the recognition they deserved when they first put out their first two albums, so the blow-back was to go the other way, making them to be some unsung geniuses. While in reality, they're just a solid pop/rock band.

I wanna say the most "underrated" singer/songwriter/musician of all time just might be Paul Weller - he's still going strong, putting out solid, relevant material. I can't think of any other artist that has remained creatively relevant during 5 separate decades ('70s w/ The Jam, '80s w/ Style Council, '90s with his solo soul stuff, and these last couple decades with his more experimental Kraut rock and other creative highs).

OK, fair enough. I don't know how they were received in '72, but when their albums were reissued a few years ago, the band was posthumously hailed as the proverbial second coming.
They're not bad (I have a lot of affection for "Watch the Sunrise" and a few other songs), but I can think of numerous roughly contemporary power-popsters I vastly prefer to B.S.

Big Star are my all-time favorite band (I like them even more than The Kinks or The Small Faces) so I'm staying out of this.

I love Big Star and collect as much of their recordings as I can, and their influence is unquestionable, but I'd agree with the sentiment that the lavish adoration afforded to their legacy has as much to do with their "tragic" story as it does with their music.

Chilton's post-BS output is, IMO, quite unlistenable.

I'm a HUGE fan of The Jam, but Style Council never really appealed to me and I didn't keep up with his output, although I've liked a song here and there. I really need to listen to his later stuff.

It would be easier to tell you which of his solo albums not to get, since most of them are pretty great. I'd say his 2008 album "22 Dreams" is probably his most critically praised album, and it's also his most eclectic.

Thanks, I'll have to check that one out.

A Guns n Roses reunion would be as big as a Led Zeppelin reunion.

Van Halen made a few great albums, but weren't that far removed from hair metal.

The 98 KISS reunion was the most intelligently planned, perfectly executed band reunion of all time.

Ennio Morricone > John Williams

In 2014 49% of todays male "country" stars are a failed record away from being a member of the Chippendale dancers. 50 years ago the other 49% probably would have worn white hoods instead of cowboy hats. The last 2% make somewhat decent music.

DJ's are nothing more than glorified shuffle buttons on your old 25 disc CD player.

Almost all Gangsta Rap is a black eye on the African American community.

Despite this bold statement being factually inaccurate, Roky Erickson should be credited for inventing Rock n Roll.

There's never been an all girl band that wasn't initially formed as a gimmick, or some sort of statement.

Rick Springfield is legitimately 65, and your mind should be blown by this.

Poison is a hell of a fun band and were unfairly critically maligned. Ditto Blink 182.

Terry Callier and Sixto Rodriguez should have been as big as Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan.

Lars Ulrich isn't such a bad guy and suing Napster was actually really fucking brave and more musicians should have stood behind him, but were gutless cowards.

Metallica's beef with Napster should have been accompanied by a beef with Elektra Records after the list prices on their older albums were raised a few dollars.

Axl Rose's vocals are awful.

Perry Farrell's lead vocals on most Jane's Addiction songs sounds like a 12 year old boy.

(May have said this already, but) Declining CD sales can be blamed more on rising prices than on downloads, legal or illegal. And SACD should have been The Next Big Thing.

I agree, although this would've been a bold statement 15 years ago, not so much now. You'd enjoy this op-ed.

A GnR reunion would be huge, but not nearly as huge as a Zeppelin one would be. That's why no one's offering Axel nearly a billion dollars for a reunion tour like they are with Plant.

The only thing cheesier than a pop song that uses a choir is one that uses a children's choir. The only exception is Another Brick in the Wall Part II, and that only works because the kids don't sing in perfect harmony.

Lou Reed and John Cale, between their solo work and The Velvet Underground, had a far greater impact on rock than Lennon and McCartney.

The members of Pearl Jam would have to murder someone before I said they're no longer my favorite musical artists forever and ever, amen. And even then, I'd probably be that one guy who said something about how we have to wait until all the evidence comes out in the trial, maybe even put on the tinfoil hat and write up the conspiracy theories years after sentencing.

Pink Floyd might have been very successful in its times, but I have to admit most of its songs didn't have much of a musical feel to them. Lyrics, of course, were fantastic (We don't need no education...)

And Akira Ifukube would be considered on par with them if he hadn't been associated with all the Godzilla sequels in the west.



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Calling Big Star "overrated" is pretty much the height of irony. It's also wrong. Three albums of pure gold.

Must be the Morissette definition.

This is a band who's one leader was so disappointed by their failure to get recognition that he fled to Europe and wrote a desperate plea for fame that starts "every night I tell myself I am the cosmos". He later died in complete obscurity.

This is a band who's other (fairly famous) leader sank into a pool of toxic acerbity and sarcasm from which he never emerged after the band's failure. The Replacements (who weren't very big stars themselves) felt so bad about his lack of fame that they wrote a song about him. You should hear it. It's a good song. It's all about how the band desperately wanted "children by the millions" to scream for them.

This is a band who's entire third album is such a bitter howl of rage at an indifferent public that they didn't even bother to name the damned thing.

This is a band that wanted to be stars so badly they named the goddamned band Big Star and put a fucking neon star on the cover.

This is a band who's inept mistreatment by their label was so tragic that it has provoked several books and documentaries.

So yes, internet wags now labeling such a band as "overrated" is highly fucking ironic. Don't cha think?

Kiss is, without a doubt, one of the worst bands ever.

No, if you know the definition of "overrated". It means achieving critical acclaim, irrespective of commercial success or lack thereof. As I qualified above, I don't know what the critical reception was in the 1970s, but I bought the re-released albums 10 years ago based solely on critical hosannas, and was terribly disappointed at the not-great music.

Anyway, no need to get so worked up. It's your favourite band. Fine. I didn't say I hated them, not that it would matter if I did. I like some of their music, but shrieking adulation such as yours leaves me completely mystified. Let's leave it at that.

Big Star? Never heard of them and I grew up in the 70s. Why the sudden resurgence?
Oh I see, never mind then...

And that one Replacements song about them, is far better than anything Big Star ever did themselves. (would that be non-Morissette irony?)

What does this even mean?

Tying in the Eric Clapton discussion with Pink Floyd, I will say the best album of Eric Clapton's career was Roger Waters' The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking.