Overrated!

In honor of one of my favorite adjectives, it's time to salute those groups and artists whom I find to largely be overrated by the critics and so-called “music experts”.  Keep in mind, their inclusion on this list doesn’t necessarily mean I dislike them—I merely find their work to be overly-lauded…

MC5—I have their greatest hits CD and have no idea why this band gets lauded as much as it does.  Nothing but ‘60s White Trash noise to me.

Black Crowes—More White Trash noise, this time featuring an anorexic male lead singer who somehow managed to charm the pant(ie)s off Kate Hudson at one time.  Eat something, Chris, will ya!

U2—I've softened my stance on these guys considerably in the last ten years or so after finally making peace with them and recognizing what a truly important band U2 is.  Having said all that, I still think they’re way too political (Bono especially), and their overall body of work gets way too much praise.

Bruce Springsteen—Okay, Randy and Dr. S., before you get your slings and arrows out, I do like Brucie—he’s put out some outstanding music over the years.  But similar to my feelings on U2, I think Springsteen is overly-praised at times, to the point where his mediocre stuff gets rave reviews just because he’s The Boss.  The Rising, for instance, was pretty flaccid (pun intended) to me.

Pink Floyd—Dark Side Of The Moon is friggin’ brilliant.  “One Of These Days” is an underrated classic.  Wish You Were Here ain‘t too shabby, either, but most everything else they’ve done is way overly-praised, especially The Wall, which is, hands down, the most overrated album in Rock history.  Apart from “Mother”, “Run Like Hell” and “Comfortably Numb”, that album never has clicked with me, and I’ve never quite gotten the point of its so-called “concept”.

Janis Joplin—Yes, Miss Pearl is an important figure in the evolution of Rock, especially considering how few women succeeded in such a male-dominated world in the early days, but it doesn’t take all that much talent to drunkenly scream and wail.  It also didn’t help that the bands she worked with were mostly mediocre-to-bad.

Jefferson Airplane—Unquestionably, the Airplane put out some landmark stuff in the late ‘60s, but beyond their 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow, there are only about a handful of other JA songs worth listening to (“Volunteers”, “Wooden Ships”, “Crown Of Creation”, “Greasy Heart”, and one or two others).  I totally agree with singer Marty Balin’s assessment of their post-1969 output as being “all drugged-out and coked-out—it was boring.”  The Jefferson Starship era from ‘75 through about ‘82 was much more prolific to me.

Lou Reed—Another guy the critics just went apeshit over for reasons I never got.  Even “Walk On The Wild Side” is lauded way beyond its true merits.

Jackson Browne—Seems like a nice enough guy, but I’ve always found his stuff to be pretty mundane and bland.  Hardly worthy of the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame…

Madonna—Classic case of style over substance.  Her first two albums were great, the next two were decent, but the rest are pretty average, at best.  I do give ol' Esther credit for one thing—at least she hasn’t fallen prey to drugs and alcohol throughout her career.

Blondie—Debbie Harry and the boys had a nice little run for about four years, and some of their stuff is pretty good.  “Dreamin”, “Call Me”, “One Way Or Another” and “Heart Of Glass” all cut the cheese for me, but that hardly makes them Hall Of Fame-worthy either…

Patti Smith—Can anyone please explain to me why this skank is considered so important in music circles?  Her biggest claim to fame, "Because The Night", was co-written by Springsteen and at her induction ceremony for the Hall of Fame, she chose to perform the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” instead of one of her own songs.

The Lovin’ Spoonful—Their chart run barely lasted two years and half-a-dozen or so hits in the ‘60s, and I’m pretty confident that Paul Revere & The Raiders could’ve easily blown them off any stage.  And don’t even get me started on their gawdawful performance at their RNR HOF induction.  Their membership should’ve been rescinded immediately…

Traffic—Great musicians all the way around in this band, but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee exciting music.  “Paper Sun” and "Dear Mr. Fantasy" were cool songs, but beyond that, these guys were a huge bore to me.

Donovan—“Atlantis” was pretty cool, but the rest of Dono’s music was mostly ‘60s tree-hugging hippie crap.  “Epistle To Dippy”?  WTF?!?

Elvis Costello—His best song, “Girls’ Talk”, sounded infinitely better with Dave Edmunds singing it.  As influential as ol’ Declan McManus was in the whole punk/alternative movement in the late ‘70s, I hardly see how he belongs in the HOF when guys like Nick Lowe don’t even get a sniff of it from the so-called “panel of experts”.

Bonnie Raitt—Nice gal, and not a bad slide guitar player, but I hardly find her to be Hall-worthy.  Hell, Raitt’s biggest hit was a cover version of a John Hiatt song, “Thing Called Love”, and he’s not in the Hall of Fame (and sadly, probably never will be).

Sex Pistols—Ah yes, Johnny Rotten, the man who hocked a loogie on Dick Clark on “American Bandstand”—classy guy.  And good ol’ Sid Vicious—another classy guy.  This band was so awful that even I coulda played bass with them and sounded like John Entwistle. [NOTE: I can’t play guitar to save my doggone soul!]

Aretha Franklin—I know this’ll probably piss people off, but I think the Queen of Soul is soooo overrated.  Not unlike Janis Joplin, anyone can scream and holler!  You want soulful?  Go with my girl Dusty Springfield.

The Clash—These guys were the supposed “torch bearers” who would take over for The Who in the ‘80s, but I still fail to see what the big deal was here.  “Train In Vain” and “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” are the only two Clash songs that honk my hooter, and if it weren’t for all that “phony Beatlemania” they derisively sang about in “London Calling”, these wankers wouldn’t have had a career in the first place…

Staple Singers—The Staples seemed like nice folks, but I was never terribly impressed with any of their big hits, like “Respect Yourself” and “I’ll Take You There”.  I’d take Cornelius Bros. & Sister Rose over them any day...

Frank Zappa—With all apologies to my dear friend Stacy, I think FZ is overly-tauted for his body of work in general, although he did have his moments (like “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow”, “Dancin’ Fool” and “Trouble Every Day”).  I think I’ve heard “Valley Girl” one too many times, too.

Al Green—Undoubtedly, “Let’s Stay Together” was a colossal R&B record.  Is it just me, though, or do the backing tracks on the rest of Al’s songs all kinda sound identical to it?

Joan Baez—Beautiful voice, to be sure, but methinks she doth protested a tad too much…

Sheryl Crow—Mediocre songwriter with a voice so off-key she makes Alfalfa from the Little Rascals sound melodic...

Blues Traveler—Oh yes, let’s marvel at the annoying sloppy harmonica playing on all their records!

Percy Sledge—This dude is in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame, but I defy you to name one other hit he had besides “When a Man Loves a Woman”.

Holland's Comet Blogiversary, V. 2.0

Hard to believe it, but my little blog has reached the "Terrible Twos" already—guess I should set up a trust fund soon!  Thanks again to my loyal readers for making this thing a treat to do, however self-indulgent it might be on my part…

THIS JUST IN…
We’re officially in a recession, according to the economic experts!  And did you know that George Michael is gay and that Dolly Parton wears wigs?  Gee, what other earth-shattering revelations will they uncover next?

And according to said so-called "experts", we’ve been in this recession for a whole year now.  The average recession lasts about ten months and change, so by my count, this one should already be about over…

OH, MOVE OVER ROVER—AND LET OBAMA TAKE OVER
Don’t know about y’all, but I’m very impressed with the way our President-Elect is taking the initiative and trying to get all his ducks in a row and instigate changes for the economy now instead of waiting for January 20th.  What’s even more astounding is that the Bushies are actually cooperating with him.  Nice to know that Barack ain’t just happy to be there—the man truly wants to accomplish something.  Given the gravity of our current situation, I say let’s waive tradition and put the man in office now instead of waiting another seven weeks—at this point, Dubya is about as relevant as "Scarecrow & Mrs. King" reruns anyway.

SPEAKING OF #43…
I threw up in my mouth a little when the fool finally admitted he had regrets about the whole WMD thing that lead to his invading Iraq.  Sure, now he’s sorry—over 4,000 lost American lives and billions of wasted taxpayer dollars later.  Just go crawl back under your rock, you Neolithic dipshit!  And take Cheney with you…

BUT HE DIDN’T SHOOT THE DEPUTY...
"Happiness is a warm gun—bang bang, shoot shoot."—J. Lennon

Let’s hear it for that consummate team player, Plexiglas Burress of the New York football Giants, for helping out his team immensely by getting suspended for the rest of the season after shooting himself in the leg with his own handgun whilst hanging with his entourage at a Gotham City nightclub last week.  While it’s true that he probably wasn’t going to play in Sunday’s game vs. Washington anyway because of a hamstring injury, what does this say about his commitment to his team when he’s out partying on the Friday night before a fairly important Sunday divisional game?  Just as was the case when tight end Jeremy Shockey missed last year’s playoffs, I predict the G-Men will do just fine without Burress—who has been nothing but a pain in the ass distraction this season—and make it to the Super Bowl again.

NO MORE "CALAMITY & HOLMES"?  WHATEVER WILL WE DO?!?
I read the other day where Alan Colmes is leaving the "Hannity & Colmes" yapfest on Faux News Channel soon.  Just as well—Colmes is little more than a token liberal shill to offset Sean Hannity (who is your basic conservative schoolyard bully, just like Bill O’Retard) and ostensibly make FNC look "fair and balanced".  Watching Colmes engage in debate with Hannity is almost as brutal as watching the anorexic Olsen twin sparring with Mike Tyson.  No word yet on Colmes’ replacement, but I’m all in favor of the dude on the right in this photo…

DUMB QUESTION, BUT…
…why is it in the grocery store ads in the paper, they emphasize the word "fresh" so much?  Kinda goes without saying, don’t it?  We’re talking fresh pork steaks, fresh chicken breasts, Grade A farm fresh eggs, dairy fresh milk etc.  I would hope to hell the stuff is fresh!  Then again, could you just imagine the deals you could get on the stale stuff?

ANOTHER DUMB QUESTION, BUT…
...if fruitcakes (the edible kind) are so reviled, why are they still made and sold every holiday season?  For something that’s about as popular as Jar Jar Binks and has been nothing but a punch line for decades, it’s amazing that they're still produced, let alone that some people actually consume the blasted things!  Or could it be that folks use fruitcakes as paperweights and doorstops instead?

CLAP FOR THE WOLF MAN!
Rarely do I listen to the advice of the ever-pompous Keith Olbermann (even though he rips on Bill O’Retard quite vociferously), but I took his suggestion in last week’s SI and checked out this website featuring the work of one young Steve Wolf, who builds his own scale models of classic American ballparks, like the Comiskey Park number he's modeling here.  As a stadium aficionado, I’d give most anything to have the time, patience, materials and wherewithal (not to mention the friggin’ talent) to create these little wonders—this guy is good!  His attention to detail is meticulous, and I’m most impressed with this man’s work. I bow to you in honor, Mr. Wolf—I’m not worthy!!!

IRRELEVANCE, 101
The Grammy Award nominees were announced last night.  Anybody actually care?  I don’t, so long as they continue to insist on having people like L’il Wayne and Alison Krauss/Robert Plant in the same category.  And I don’t even wanna know what a Ne-Yo is.  As for the actual awards broadcast, I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on watching it—I believe I’ll be attending a recital of the poetry of Bob Uecker that night…

WHOLE LOTTA ANGUS
I just finished renting the three-disc DVD set Plug Me In collection featuring scads of vintage live concert clips of AC/DC, and it was surprisingly good, especially the Bon Scott-era offerings.  I had only seen maybe 10% of this material before and there’s some pretty cool stuff to be enjoyed here, including a rare live recording of Scott performing "Highway To Hell" not long before his untimely passing.  There is also quite a bit of old interview footage, and I have to say that Mr. Scott was far more articulate than I originally gave him credit for being—he always came off to me as a drunken idiot most of the time (á la Jim Morrison), but he was actually quite affable and well-spoken.  The DVD also displays what an underrated axe-man Angus Young is—his guitar is almost bigger than he is and his style is most unorthodox, but this little dude is as good as anyone with six strings and a pick.  The Brian Johnson-era clips are interesting too, especially the ones where he sings Bon Scott classics like "Girls Got Rhythm" and "Sin City" before his voice started betraying him.  They also included a sizeable chunk of a 1983 concert from Houston that was taped just a couple weeks after I saw AC/DC on the Flick Of The Switch tour.  Well worth the $22 if you’re looking for a good Rock ‘N’ Roll DVD.