Diggity said:

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U2 is a band that would have been well served by wrapping up their careers after the first several albums.

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Yeah, it sucks to see them out there playing half empty club shows in 2024.

Per Nirvana, it probably also has a lot to do with your age. If you were born in 2000 and you're in your early 20s now, they probably seem overrated. OP how old are you?

YouBet said:

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I think it's insane to say Nirvana and U2 are overrated.

Radiohead is, of course, very overrated.

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Radiohead's music has spanned three decades and has evolved in that time in an incredibly unique way. They write highly technical and complex music that is created to stand the test of time and to remain fresh upon many listens. I still notice new things in their music to this day. Furthermore, artists today are still heavily influenced by their work that is over two decades old. I get how it may not be your cup of tea but saying they are overrated shows you're pretty out of touch with music.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Radiohead is.

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This times a billion

hey man...I don't know what you're arguing. I just said their output after the first several albums was not great.

didn't think that would be a controversial take.

edit...I see I poorly chose my words with the first U2 comment. I don't begrudge them for continuing to tour....just for everything they released after Achtung Baby

I'm not a Nirvana fan. Their music doesn't make me feel anything. I don't see what's so special about a sloppy punk bank screaming lyrics that don't make much sense. However, I respect the fact that my opnion seems to differ from the majority. They've stayed part of the rock culture and their music continues to pick up new, young devoted fans. I don't know why. But that tells me that there is something there that isn't overrated. Kids aren't learning Matchbox 20 or Hootie and the Blowfish songs on guitar. They are doing that with Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, also, so I guess that short lived genre of music is here for a few more decades. To compare, when another short-timer, Disco, died, it freaking died. I want to say the same thing about boy bands, but it seems like they have a few stragglers who cry for reunions on instagram. But while those few fans want In Sync to get back together, thousands of other young outcasts are sitting in front of their iphones patiently learning the riffs to "Man in the Box" and committing it to heart. Big difference.

Enzo The Baker said:

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YouBet said:

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I think it's insane to say Nirvana and U2 are overrated.

Radiohead is, of course, very overrated.

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Radiohead's music has spanned three decades and has evolved in that time in an incredibly unique way. They write highly technical and complex music that is created to stand the test of time and to remain fresh upon many listens. I still notice new things in their music to this day. Furthermore, artists today are still heavily influenced by their work that is over two decades old. I get how it may not be your cup of tea but saying they are overrated shows you're pretty out of touch with music.

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Sounds like you are just trying to defend a crap band. Creep is their best song.

Diggity said:

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I would argue that very few people are going to see them for songs written in the past 20 years.

Can't fault the guys for touring. Maybe they could have gone the Billy Joel route and just stopped releasing music?

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Billy Joel just released a new album like 3 weeks ago.

Philo B 93 said:

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I'm not a Nirvana fan. Their music doesn't make me feel anything. I don't see what's so special about a sloppy punk bank screaming lyrics that don't make much sense. However, I respect the fact that my opnion seems to differ from the majority. They've stayed part of the rock culture and their music continues to pick up new, young devoted fans. I don't know why. But that tells me that there is something there that isn't overrated. Kids aren't learning Matchbox 20 or Hootie and the Blowfish songs on guitar. They are doing that with Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, also, so I guess that short lived genre of music is here for a few more decades. To compare, when another short-timer, Disco, died, it freaking died. I want to say the same thing about boy bands, but it seems like they have a few stragglers who cry for reunions on instagram. But while those few fans want In Sync to get back together, thousands of other young outcasts are sitting in front of their iphones patiently learning the riffs to "Man in the Box" and committing it to heart. Big difference.

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Disco never really died, the beats were incorporated into pop.

Grunge never really died, its sound was refined into other genres.

Quad Dog said:

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Philo B 93 said:

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I'm not a Nirvana fan. Their music doesn't make me feel anything. I don't see what's so special about a sloppy punk bank screaming lyrics that don't make much sense. However, I respect the fact that my opnion seems to differ from the majority. They've stayed part of the rock culture and their music continues to pick up new, young devoted fans. I don't know why. But that tells me that there is something there that isn't overrated. Kids aren't learning Matchbox 20 or Hootie and the Blowfish songs on guitar. They are doing that with Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, also, so I guess that short lived genre of music is here for a few more decades. To compare, when another short-timer, Disco, died, it freaking died. I want to say the same thing about boy bands, but it seems like they have a few stragglers who cry for reunions on instagram. But while those few fans want In Sync to get back together, thousands of other young outcasts are sitting in front of their iphones patiently learning the riffs to "Man in the Box" and committing it to heart. Big difference.

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Disco never really died, the beats were incorporated into pop.

Grunge never really died, its sound was refined into other genres.

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Actually Dave took disco and incorporated it into Nirvana. Smells like teen spirit drumming is disco drumming. He admits he ripped it off. Haha

For me the thing with Radiohead is I've really really tried with them. I'm not out of touch with music (well at least up until 5-10yrs ago). I don't mind giving an album or artist lots of listens if it's the type of music that needs to grow on you. I actually like music that's genius is more subtle and not obvious on the face of it.
I can't think of a single artist in any genre that's critically acclaimed that I at least can't get or understand why they are loved, they may not my cup of tea, they may not ever end up in my regular listening rotation, but I at least get it.

Not Radiohead, I just don't get it.

Jesus... another one of these threads.

Can we all just like what we like?

Nirvana had some very odd songs lyrically. Kurt was obviously a troubled soul. But they were the exclamation point on a major shift in music that needed to happen at the time.

The majority of mainstream music at that time had become so over-produced and relied way too much on trendy technology (synthesizers, drum machines/effects, heavy vocal effects, reverb turned up to 11) that it created a massive counter movement.

Yes, Nevermind still had a lot 'production' to it (which even the band thought was too much) - but compared to rest of mainstream music at the time it was very raw. That launched a revolution of rock bands (and even pop artists) who went back to the basics - vocals, guitar, drums, bass.

For kids like me learning to play guitar, it was a fantastic era to grow up in. So many great bands and singer-songwriters who rose up in the mid/late 90's. If not for the grunge movement, that probably wouldn't have happened on the scale that it did. There was also a major rise in acoustic music as well.

Know Your Enemy said:

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superunknown said:

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Diggity said:

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I would argue that very few people are going to see them for songs written in the past 20 years.

Can't fault the guys for touring. Maybe they could have gone the Billy Joel route and just stopped releasing music?

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Billy Joel just released a new album like 3 weeks ago.

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He released a single song. First one in something like 20+ years.

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Ahh I'd heard or seen he'd written a lot more and figured it was a whole album. I'm more of an 80s Joel fan myself.

Was this a U2 thread, Radiohead thread, or Nirvana thread? Can't remember.

ATM9000 said:

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Diggity said:

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I would argue that very few people are going to see them for songs written in the past 20 years.

Can't fault the guys for touring. Maybe they could have gone the Billy Joel route and just stopped releasing music?

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Name me the bands out there who are writing new songs and album in years 21-40 where people are going to see them for that music. I'll wait.

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Tool

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Radiohead is.

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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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Quote:

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[url=https://www.quotes.net/mquote/42806][/url]"Rob, top five musical crimes perpetuated by Stevie Wonder in the '80s and '90s. Go. Sub-question: is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins, is it better to burn out or fade away?"

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I don't want this thread to die off without acknowledging this excellent High Fidelity reference.

As to Nirvana...I started high school in '95. Grunge and alternative were the soundtrack to those years, and pretty much most years since then. (Case in point, there is a Pushmonkey song playing on my phone right now.) Nirvana is nowhere near my favorite from that time period, but without their overnight success and getting to #1, all of those bands in the in-between from early 90's grunge to early 00's mainstream post-grunge probably don't get their shake. They are iconic in their sound, their songs, and their ushering in a new style of music that not just changed popular sound but also had an incredible impact on culture/style/etc for a whole generation.

In my very personal and unimportant opinion, properly rated.

Orlando Ayala Cant Read said:

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Idk about most overrated but I def think at least a little overrated

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I love Nirvana and always will, but I have come across people in the past who definitely overrate them imo. I used to know people who basically thought Kurt Cobain was some type of intellectual god or something. And I do think that he sometimes tried to come across as "deeper" than he actually was. He was very pretentious and way more calculated than people thought in my opinion. He definitely cared what people thought, even though he seemed hellbent on proving otherwise. He was probably one of the dweebs that ate in the courtyard with a few other dweebs in school. Then there seem to be people who overrate their music on a technical level...when any of the other Seattle grunge bands were significantly more proficient in that area imo.

But they are not an overrated band just because they are a little too heavily worshiped by some ppl.