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

Showing 3 responses by tbadder

The Wall is a horrific album. One can create all the thematic nuance and depth and still sound boring. A complete rip off of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Jean Paul Satre's No Exit, and too many others to mention. This was Rock's most pretentious excercise. While I don't deny it's social relevance (a lot of people were sucked in by this album) it's still musically lacking in ideas, originality, and insight. This is proof that any thing can be sold to any one. I feel dirty writing about. Always loved Roger Waters though, very candid and funny. My favorite quote from him? "We're just bloody awful, and bloody rich." He then went on proclaiming how stupid Pink Floyd fans were and how he could fart on record and it would go platinum. Very funny guy.
Ben, you may be right. That's why I listed it as a combo with the Jam. Paul does indeed seem to have lost his way over the last 4/5 albums, but after the terrific unplugged album I'm hoping for a resurgence. We all get old and boring though. I'm even listening to classical music now after feeding my head with my heroes: Clash, X, Jam, Costello, Velvet Underground, Ramones, Pogues, Black 47, Captain Beefheart, The Shaggs.
I find this a fascinating thread, and don't really know how to respond, but Duane's got a point. 90% of what we listen to is drivel. What is good is rare and what is ordinary is...well ordinary. Having said that I must admit that I like some truly awful groups and albums.

The Marley thing is curious to me. I've always liked Bunny better, but knew he wasn't as good as Bob. I was lucky enough to see Marley twice and Toots three times, and I gotta tell ya guys...Toots generated about one-tenth the power and emotion that Marley did.

The Shane MacGowan thread is interesting. I saw him a month ago and you couldn't ask for more...drunk, toothless, waltzing around, slobbering on himself, fat as hell...he was a true angel! Though I must say that the Jam/Style Council was the best the 80s had to offer.

But Pink Floyd....maybe I'm blind, but that is dinosaur, geezer rock...just awful.

I generally go by the rule...If its on the radio, it's terrible. Works damn near everytime.