My vote for most over-rated album is Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. The title, the cover---Hell, the very concept---is beyond hokey (it was all McCartney’s idea, of course). Lots of mediocre or worse songs, too much sitar (ANY sitar is too much for me), trying too hard to be "artistic". Just write some good songs, fellas. Then play and sing them like the Rock ’n’ Roll band you are supposed to be.
The very under-rated Beach Boys Sunflower album ("This Whole World" is glorious! A fantastic chord progression by Brian, very Baroque-era Classical in nature) came as a welcome breath of fresh air after the above. Even moreso when contrasted with the dreadful Let It Be, which reeked of death upon delivery. A sad, sorry excuse for an album. That The Beatles managed to follow it up with Abbey Road (which was released before LIB) is remarkable.
By the way: Stereophile writer Ken Micallef has been recording and posting on YouTube a series of LP reviews, primarily but not exclusively of Jazz music. In his recent YouTube review of the Let It Be/Get Back 5-LP boxset, he states that in the out-take/jam recordings he hears evidence of the effect The Band had made on The Beatles. He more broadly proclaims that The Band had started a "back-to-basics" approach to being a Rock ’n’ Roll band, one that had a profound impact on their peers. Eric Clapton for one said as much, both at the time (hearing Music From Big Pink is what lead him to disband Cream) and while inducting them into The Rock ’n' Roll Hall Of Fame.
That is a proclamation I (and others) have been making for years, mine here on Audiogon producing a lot of blow-back. Sorry fellas, you’re simply mistaken. The release of Music From Big Pink in June of 1968 signaled the death of "Psychedelic h*rsesh*t" (the term Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun used to describe Cream’s Disraeli Gears album when they turned in the tapes), the release of The Band’s S/T follow-up (the "brown" album) the blueprint for how to do it right. EVERY good musician I knew in ’68 and ’69 felt that way, and had their musical path completely and absolutely redirected. We were not alone.
