Overrated...

[minsue]

Now I didn't mean that they are bad, er I mean they are baaddd just not as baaddd as some people think, er I mean, if they are real then they could be, uh, er, are baadd. Oh, hell yes I like tits.


Eddie The Flipper

Smoove, Eddie. Smoove.

 

[Edward Teach]

You might not care for the Beatles, but you can make a very good argument that no one in the history of music has had such an impact and influence on their art as they did, and I mean nobody. Not Beethoven, not Bach, not Elvis.

Maybe you had to be around to hear what pop music was like before the Beatles came on the scene to really appreciate what they did, but their influence has been tremendous, and so all-pervasive that we don't even notice it today.

---dr.M.

I agree that the Beatles changed music. They also credit Bob Dylan for asking them why they didn't "say something" instead of wasting their talent on silly songs.

Bill Haley's hit "Rock Around The Clock" came about from the hit movie, "Blackboard Jungle," which all the teens went to see. It was from the bestselling novel by the same name which all the teens were reading.

Elvis was a terrific singer and the product of almost genius marketing.

Ed

 

[lilith1979]

Now I didn't mean that they are bad, er I mean they are baaddd just not as baaddd as some people think, er I mean, if they are real then they could be, uh, er, are baadd. Oh, hell yes I like tits.


Eddie The Flipper

lol I was being silly. FTR, I could suffocate a person in my clevage. Damned H cups...but what a way to die, as my dh puts it.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Elvis was a performer, not a composer. And if you can name one Bill Hailey record besides "Rock around the Clock" and "See Ya Later Alligator", both of which were swiped from Little Richard and Etta James respectively, then you're better than me. Bill Hailey's claim to fame was his cconsiderable self-promotion skill and his spit curl

Danny and the Juniors and the Platters all had their chance and had gone as far as they were going to go. It's kind of silly to think of Plattermania sweeping the world like Beatlemania. The Monkees were blatant and outright ripoffs of the Beatles, down to Davy Jones' British accent. They were entertainers too and never wrote a thing. Didn't even play their own instruments most of the time.

The hottest things in American Pop when the Beatles burst onto the scene were the Beachboys, the 4 Seasons, and Jan and Dean; not exactly what I think of as timeless music. The Beatles single-handedly made pop music into a cultural force and opened the way for all these other bands: The Who, the Kinks, Stones, Animals, Moody Blues, etc.

---dr.M.

I am not sure of the spelling of his name but another Bill Haley, or Hailey record was "Shake Rattle & Roll". I can probably find more, and be sure of the spelling later but all my reference books are packed away for a few months.

As I said, he took "race music", which would have been recordings by Little Richard and other Black performers, and brought it into the American main stream. I wouldn't say he ripped anything off because the Black performers prospered much more than they otherwise would have and some of them achieved great fame. As Ed T. said, "Rock Around the Clock" was the theme song of "Blackboard Jungle" which I saw as a teenager. The song added to the popularity of the movie and the movie added to the popularity of the song.

When I refer to Bill Haley/Hailey, I don't mean just him. I mean him, his band, their managers, publicity agents, hair stylists, and everybody else who worked with them. When I say Elvis, I mean him, Col. Tom Parker and everybody else associated with them. The Beatles were also more than just four young men from Liverpool. No entertainer or group will ever amount to anything without a lot of support.

The Beatles did make an important contribution and nobody will ever deny that, least of all me. However, the genre was already well established when they came along, thanks to Bill Haley/Hailey, Elvis and others. The fact that they wrote their own songs is a plus but the promotion and presentation is much more important in that kind of music than the songs. I know they played their own instruments but so did many others.

Personally, I would rate the Beatles a strong third, behind Elvis and Bill H.

In the same line, as far as R & R pioneers are concerned, I believe Buddy Holly was the most overrated and the Everly Brothers were the most underrated. Buddy had one fairly big hit, "Peggy Sue" in late 1957 and some lesser ones after that, until he died, with his career going not much of anywhere. I always thought of him as being part of the herd, and he was pretty much forgotten until the movie came out. The E. Bros. had more major hits than Buddy, started about two years earlier and lasted longer until they argued and split up. They were a group and they accompanied themselves, which was not all that common at the time.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Elvis was a performer, not a composer. And if you can name one Bill Hailey record besides "Rock around the Clock" and "See Ya Later Alligator", both of which were swiped from Little Richard and Etta James respectively, then you're better than me. Bill Hailey's claim to fame was his cconsiderable self-promotion skill and his spit curl

Danny and the Juniors and the Platters all had their chance and had gone as far as they were going to go. It's kind of silly to think of Plattermania sweeping the world like Beatlemania. The Monkees were blatant and outright ripoffs of the Beatles, down to Davy Jones' British accent. They were entertainers too and never wrote a thing. Didn't even play their own instruments most of the time.

The hottest things in American Pop when the Beatles burst onto the scene were the Beachboys, the 4 Seasons, and Jan and Dean; not exactly what I think of as timeless music. The Beatles single-handedly made pop music into a cultural force and opened the way for all these other bands: The Who, the Kinks, Stones, Animals, Moody Blues, etc.

---dr.M.

I am not sure of the spelling of his name but another Bill Haley, or Hailey record was "Shake Rattle & Roll". I can probably find more, and be sure of the spelling later but all my reference books are packed away for a few months.

As I said, he took "race music", which would have been recordings by Little Richard and other Black performers, and brought it into the American main stream. I wouldn't say he ripped anything off because the Black performers prospered much more than they otherwise would have and some of them achieved great fame. As Ed T. said, "Rock Around the Clock" was the theme song of "Blackboard Jungle" which I saw as a teenager. The song added to the popularity of the movie and the movie added to the popularity of the song.

When I refer to Bill Haley/Hailey, I don't mean just him. I mean him, his band, their managers, publicity agents, hair stylists, and everybody else who worked with them. When I say Elvis, I mean him, Col. Tom Parker and everybody else associated with them. The Beatles were also more than just four young men from Liverpool. No entertainer or group will ever amount to anything without a lot of support.

The Beatles did make an important contribution and nobody will ever deny that, least of all me. However, the genre was already well established when they came along, thanks to Bill Haley/Hailey, Elvis and others. The fact that they wrote their own songs is a plus but the promotion and presentation is much more important in that kind of music than the songs. I know they played their own instruments but so did many others.

Personally, I would rate the Beatles a strong third, behind Elvis and Bill H.

In the same line, as far as R & R pioneers are concerned, I believe Buddy Holly is the most overrated and the Everly Brothers are the most underrated. Buddy had one fairly big hit, "Peggy Sue" in late 1957 and some lesser ones after that, until he died, with his career going not much of anywhere. I always thought of him as being part of the herd, and he was pretty much forgotten until the movie came out. The E. Bros. had more major hits than Buddy, started about two years earlier and lasted longer until they argued and split up. They were a group and they accompanied themselves, which was not all that common at the time.

 

[Guest]

biggest influences

Cannot be overrated:

1. Shakespeare not only on theatre but on the whole English language and literature (all, not only English).

2. Beethoven on music. You can hear his influence on the greats that came after him.

3. Maria Callas on opera.

Perdita

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Wicca, angsty white chick music, angsty white guy music, Monty Python... overrated.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

... Monty Python... overrated.

That's what I say: "Monty Python... overrated?"



BEWARE --- You just might die of falling arches.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Most overrated sex act: 69.

Either drive or ride but don't do both.

Wait: what's the square root of 69?

Eight something, isn't it?

--Zoot

 

[Boxlicker101]

Most overrated Sexual Position: Doggy. No affection, no direct contact with her clit.

Most underrared: Cowgirl. Especially if she's small and bosomy.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Most overrated Sexual Position: Doggy. No affection, no direct contact with her clit.

Most underrared: Cowgirl. Especially if she's small and bosomy.

 

[steve w]

Perhaps I should have given a cod definition of "overrated" - I'd see it as the gap between what is claimed about something, and the reality.

No, the Queen Mother is definitely someone who went from upper-class-rich to mega-rich by marrying, then had fifty years to indulge herself drinking, betting on horses, and waving at the proletariat from a balcony. Not much to justify icon status, imho.

This "influence" thing in music seems a bit prosaic to me. Almost everyone who dies in the music biz who was around before 1963 is "said to have been a major influence on the Beatles". If this is so, then the Beatles must have been largely derivative, certainly at the start of their careers. If it isn't, the whole influence thing is a load of bollocks.

I can see the Beatles' influence in terms of handling their own career and managing their image, and in drawing in other influences into mainstream music, such as Eastern music. But I would question the view that the Beach Boys didn't influence what came after. The rise and rise of the producer, and the ability to manipulate a basic sound in the editing suite, surely came from both the Beatles' White Album, but also the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album. But for Brian Wilson's descent into chemically-fuelled madness, that influence might have been greater.

I still think David Bowie's work is hugely overrated. He tended to be an adopter of new trends, rather than an instigator, much as Madonna has done. Merely producing listenable work isn't good enough. Other songwriters (Springsteen, Randy Newman, etc) have managed to maintain a standard of outstanding songwriting over three decades, not just churn out average material and live off their reputations.

My previous list missed out Robin Williams. The least amusing allegedly funny man to walk the earth. Sticking your fingers up and saying "Nanu" is not funny. Nor is a stream of consciousness with no point or purpose. Bill Hicks was funny. Robin Williams is just lame to the power of lame.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Well, if you want to list Bill Hailey and his Comets as being more influential and more impressive than the Beatles, there's not much I can say to that.

As for the Beach Boys, I never cared for them. No soul whatsoever, and if they were any whiter they'd have been transparent. Before the Beatles came along the Beach Boys were making songs like "Little Deuce Coupe" and "Surfer Girl", not my idea of seminal, groundbreaking music. After the Beatles, Wilson spent an unheard of one million dollars on his own foray into psychedelia, the embarrassingly silly "Good Vibrations" with its theremin lead. All I can say is, if he was taking drugs at the time, his dealer was ripping him off and he should have asked for his money back.

Anyhow, I know this isn't a thread about influential musical groups, so I'll bow out now. But as one who firmly believes you can divide pop music of the last 50 years quite naturally into pre-Beatles and post-Beatles, and was there when Seargent Pepper, the first ever concept album, came out and changed forever our ideas of what pop music was and could be, their influence was incredible.

---dr.M.

 

[SlickTony]

Nancy Sinatra--and her new album. She doesn't sound a bit better now than she did in the 60s. Her voice has all the faults of her father's and none of its virtues. If her father hadn't been Frank Sinatra she would have remained in well-deserved obscurity.