Tremendously Tepid

Give Me Talent Or Give Me Luck!!!

Armchair critics like to bandy about the terms “overrated” and “underrated” whimsically, and often without validity. It's always difficult to parse, given that we now are forced to share the same air with people who genuinely find “Call Me Maybe” substantive, and beyond reproach. It's not that those people are wrong. Stupid? Maybe. Vapid? Probably. But, not wrong. You can not tell someone that their response to an “artistic” expression that they connect with is flat out incorrect. You're essentially denouncing a key component of the human condition based solely on what you, as a person, find palatable.

Each generation has had their judgement come crashing from on high and landing heavily onto the next. There were scads of people, after all, left gobsmacked at Elvis' insufferable take on the music that had come before. Just as right now, there are myriad thirty somethings whining about the fact that Lady Gaga is just Madonna with a penis and a trust fund.

It's in this spirit, that I will attempt to assemble a list of the most “accurately rated” artists of all time: the artists who are, by and large, appreciated by all. But not too much. Those artists who nobody really hates, but no body goes too awful crazy about.

In the course of this tangent, I realized something. An overwhelming majority of the artists that made this list are middle of the road artists. Pasty. Crackery. Wholly inoffensive Caucasians. I can't help but wonder if there's a reason for this. Is it because they are so innocuous that it's physically impossible to hold more than a pedestrian like OR dislike of them. Surely, that can't be the aim of an artist from the onset: To be appreciated JUST enough.

You could easily make an argument that some artists, particularly punk artists, have set out to be obnoxious and challenging. But hated? Sure, GG Allin wanted people to believe that he wanted to be hated, but he wanted people to hate HIM, and his, ahem, antics. He didn't want people to hate his BAND.

To be adored is, obviously, not just the aim of The Stone Roses. In fact, it's pretty entertaining to imagine people like Bruce Springsteen or even Slayer being greeted by throngs of merely tepid fans:

“Hello, Cleveland! Are you ready to rock?!?!?!?”

“Um, yeah, I guess now would be as good a time as any."

The other constant is the almighty “one hit wonder”. Again, this seems antithetical to any artists ultimate goal: To have the collective populace say that you got it right EXACTLY one time. In fact, I'd be willing to place a wager that if you ran into any member of Dexy's Midnight Runners, they would beg you to give their “deep cuts” another chance. Or tell you how tired they were of nonplussed crowds staring blankly at them during their state fair performances. That is UNTIL they launched into “Come On Eileen”.

There are so many variables to consider when attempting to understand why success finds one band and eludes another. No amount of market research is foolproof. Far from it. Any asshole can tell you that parading a barely legal teen around in a catholic school girl outfit is going to pique the interest of adolescent males, but how do you convince people that she has talent? Enough talent that she maintains an enormous amount of popularity for the better part of a decade? Or at least until she marries a white trash back up dancer and shaves her head?

It's impossible to calculate. In fact, in what would appear to be one of the most pure instances of serendipity in the known world, several days before the twin towers disappeared from the face of the earth, a young Ryan Adams filmed a video for his paean “New York, New York” just across the river from the world trade center. He didn't calculate this. Nor did anyone at his label. Ryan had certainly written better, less pandering songs. But, to no one's surprise, that video made him easy to catapult into the collective consciousness. It was the very definition of right place, right time.

Conversely, in the case of bands like Pentagram, being in the wrong place at the wrong time can directly effect your success. Front man Bobby Liebling, who was as almost as talented as he was addicted to drugs, consistently sabotaged every brush his band had with stardom. Ultimately, his habits and stubborn integrity also dashed every hope he had of moving out of his parents' sub-basement, where he lived well into his fifties in relative obscurity.

Meanwhile, people worshiped and followed The Grateful Dead all over the country for decades after their small handful of decent albums. People, especially in Michigan, continue to claim to enjoy the music of The Insane Clown Posse, who are, arguably, the worst band to ever exist. And millions of people continue to ignore the simple fact that the MC5 was the greatest rock and roll band of all time, and so on and so on.

So, then, who are we to judge? Who's to say who's overrated or underrated? It's all empirically subjective. You can only truly judge for yourself, based on the feelings that an artist elicits from you. At the same time, what's more fun than unfounded judgement and sweeping generalizations? The following is a list of bands that I believe that the public has gotten right, whose artistic merits have been accurately assessed by the public.

So, feel free to tell me I'm wrong. I'll be sure to return the favor.

Elvis Costello

Joe Jackson

The Pretenders

Tom Petty

These are four great examples of pasty, middle of the road artists who aren't overwhelmingly adored, but no one would dare be so bold as to hate. The Pretenders had several overdoses within the band that almost no one really seemed to notice. Tom Petty made several benign references to marijuana in a song that barely sparked the FCC to further mumble his lyrics. Costello played a song that network execs hadn't approved on Saturday Night Live. These antics neither endeared any of them to an audience they didn't already have, nor did it spark the ire of the “squares” that they were most likely meant to provoke. It's as if everyone collectively just shrugged and said, “Yeah, but they're harmless. And pretty good too.” 

Hank Williams Sr. 

It's lost on me exactly how the original Hank Williams has eluded the cultish adoration of say, Johnny Cash? The man had 11 number one hits before dying of a lethal mixture of morphine and alcohol at the age of 29. He's widely regarded as the “Father of Country Music” and has been cited by every reputable country musician since, including the “Man In Black”. His early death and lack of an identifiable “schtick” are surely the greatest factors in him not appearing on quasi-hipsters' t-shirts', although I'd put good money that Williams flipped off at least one camera in his time. But, that lack of marketability has quietly reserved his reverence to a tacit understanding amongst those in the know. And, what's more, this has kept him from being OVERrated. Wish I could say the same for Mr. Cash.

Weezer

The Blue Album is universally accepted as an insanely catchy, goofy masterpiece. Pinkerton is more divisive. It's not for everybody. Catchy, but painfully autobiographical, it is the blueprint for emo, which is a stigma that some people can't look past. For others, it's just an honest, melodic album that needs to be enjoyed more than examined. And no one really cares about any record after that. In Weezer's case, everybody's right. 

Cee Lo Green 

Everybody agrees that the rappin' dino's output is, for the most part, passable. Everybody also agrees that every few years he writes an AMAZING song that everybody quickly ruins by playing it ad nauseum.

ZZ TOP 

White boy blues is tricky business. Just ask Stevie Ray Vaughan. Or the blind guy from Roadhouse. ZZ Top, however, does it better than anyone, aside from a few missteps in the eighties and that fact that they continue to attempt to play music. It's agreed that ZZ Top are great, but they did nothing in the way of reinventing the wheel. That wheel being, again, white boy blues.

Earliest known picture of Yeasayer 

Hall and Oates

If white boy blues is tricky, then blue eyed soul is Chinese Arithmetic. Hall and Oates, again, did it better than just about anyone. They enjoyed a great deal of success in the eighties, and some post-irony success in this millennium. Whether you had a genuine appreciation of them the first time around, or you're discovering them for the first time as a twenty something hipster, you're not wrong.

Outkast 

Everyone will freak out if you play “Hey Ya” or “Miss Jackson” at any bar in America and beyond. Play a deep cut off of Aquemini, however, and you'll see roughly 80% of the same bar stare into space, while the other 20% nod along in smug satisfaction. That seems appropriate.

Slayer

You know that guy at the bar who won' t stop yelling "Slayerrrrrrrrrr!"? Yeah, he's annoying, but, you know what, he's also right.

Xiu Xiu

Hardly anyone knows that this band exists. Most who do, can't stand them. The people who do claim to like them are just being contrarian. This is helpful, because knowing that someone likes this band immediately identifies them as someone you would never want to invite to a party.

The Beatles/Rolling Stones

It doesn't matter what side of this debate you're on. After all, it's universally accepted that these are two of the best bands of all time. Anyone with a lick of sense agrees that no members of either band should still be making music, but the more they continue to do so, the more they help the argument for The Kinks to be part of the discussion.

Prince

The obsessed make Prince overrated. The ignorant make Prince underrated. Somehow, this all comes out in the wash, making him the purple porridge that Goldilocks ate.

Address all hate mail to: Jeramy Lowe