Most UNDERrated bands.

Clutch. That'll be my offering

Portishead... at least in the USA they are underrated

Well, in Croatia it sucks major balls to be a listener to rock music.

Every band is underrated here.

But, I do think Omega (great Hungarian prog rock band), Haim, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds seem really underrated to me. What do you think about that?

I buy that.... here's a much maligned artist: Glenn Campbel! remembered more for his humiliating rhinestone cowboy period (people will do some pretty dumb stuff to feed a cocain habit, right?) than his work in the wrecking crew or his early career singing great tunes like Wichita Lineman

In California, everything is either pop or that new crap rap they're doing nowadays. I've been integrating myself into rap, but according to my sister, I like old-school rap.

We We Promised Jetpacks. Saw them live and they were absolutely stunning. They're last song was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inQaYV6A-20

Holy hell, that silent section with just Adam singing had us all just really happy and excited, like a calm before the sonic storm hits, and it hits HARD.

Sean Lennon.... dude lives in his dad's shadow, I mean? of course he does! John was a legend in his own time who was slain by a madman on the streets of New York, how do you follow an act like that? apparently with an amazing pop record like "Friendly Fire" and some first rate bass playing holding the chaos of Cibo Mato together. Poor guy is way underrated. He is way more talented than George and Ringo's musical sons. Paul's kids have such an intimidating father that they didn't even try... Sean is so rich he coulda gone that route, but he makes music anyway and its always first rate. Its a shame no one listens to his stuff. Half-brother Julian, Dhani Harrison and Zak Starkey aren't in the same league (though Zak gets a B for balls trying to fill Keith Moon's shoes in the Who).

Holy shit, those guys have an amazing band name that conjured up images of sardonic space rock awesomeness in my head..... and then I worked up the courage to press play and got a bunch of sound effects and a barely intelligible voice over 4 chords with hardly any music in it.... what a let down. When did people forget how to write and arrange songs? Maybe around the time 3m and BASF stopped making 2" tape and it all went to pro tools? That period when every company cranked out a passable 2 channel USB recording interface so any yahoo with a guitar and half an idea for a song could slap their stuff on the internet and many of the world's greatstudios (like Sigma here in Philly) shut down for good? I will admit that the dynamic when its just the vocals and a little guitar was a good call after all that drone beforehand. Kept me from shutting the tune off mid-way. But as I said, that music doesn't have any music in it. Boring Sidney, boring. Reminds me of the extended jams my band would do to warm up at rehearsals and during album pre-production that were never meant for other humans to hear. But I will say this, its so repetitive that it would be really easy to build up by locking small loops to grid in your DAW without anyone needing to perform well for more than 4 bars at a time.... quick and cheap to assemble. With the profitability of recorded music at an all time low cheap to produce helps squeeze extra money from album sales and making it repetitive has the added benefit of being loopable for video game licensing and easily recognizable in a 1 minute TV commercial if you can get a car company to license it.

Talking Heads and Brian Eno already worked together to pioneer the steady state approach to pop/rock back before the technology existed to make it easy.... they did such a good job on 'remain in light' that I never need to hear anyone else go down that path, it will pale in comparison to that masterpiece of innovation

Jeez, you really do sound like one of those old guys complaining about modern music. No offense, bro, but each to their own, eh? We all like different types of music, and they don't all have to bring something new to the table. It's supposed to be simple.

Jeez, you really do sound like one of those old guys complaining about modern music. No offense, bro, but each to their own, eh? We all like different types of music, and they don't all have to bring something new to the table. It's supposed to be simple.

to me there is a difference between simple by design and simple by necessity and I can usually hear the distinction. I am not telling anyone not to like it or listen to it (some days I wish I could, but I hear its still a free country), I just really wanted to vent my spleen after hearing WAY too much currently popular music from all genres this weekend (I had to make a 9 hour road trip yesterday and no one remembered to bring an iPod or CDs so I was stuck with radio, conversation or silence and I only got conversation when my mother-in-law was driving, otherwise she was working on her laptop or dozing.... let me tell you that all that imagine dragons and taylor swift on the various radio stations that I tuned into has left me feeling like someone sanded off a layer of my soul with metaphysical steel wool).

I am sorry if you took umbrage. I was just really underwhelmed because I was expecting something other than what I got, which reminded me a lot of most of what I was subjected to while I tried not to nod out at the end of my drive yesterday. I really meant no harm other than to call it as I hear it, not as an old guy, but as an experienced and classically trained musician. I may have held my tongue if this weren't a thread for underrated music.

No worries, vent if you need to, just remember to cool off and add a few more lines of clarity so we know.

imagine dragons and taylor swift on the various radio stations

Well, damn. California only has top 40 stations. I was hoping there would be a good rock station about you... shame. The only good thing is a classic rock station, but it's not even good classic rock, it's the pop of way back then. That and the alternative station... nope.

there are passable rock stations in Philly but I had to cross pennsyltucky yesterday where there's country and top 40 only... even the oldies station around Harrisburg was playing B list shit on Sunday!

EDIT: remember that you are talking to a guy who really likes heavy duty, old guard pop songwriters like Cole Porter, Burt Bacharach and Johnny Mercer, someone who has played in big bands, orchestras and in the pit for some musicals, so I maybe have a different perspective than you do on music... its not a right or wrong thing, but I listen differently than you probably do... between learning t interpret literature, studying art history and criticism and all my traditional music music training and experience (not tomention all those logic classes in gifted school starting around age 7) I pick thigns apart differently than someone with a different educational background.... I listen to a song and I dissect it in my mind the first time through into production elements, arrangement elements and compositional elements and I just start analyzing like I am reading and interpreting a James Joyce novel for school, its just how I think... when I start to add everything up in a work of art and feel the creator was cheaping out either through laziness or a lack of talent then I get displeased

a by product of all this dissection is that I will be able to easily write you out a lead sheet for almost any pop tune you play for me in one or two listens and may not even need to refer to a guitar or piano if its basic enough harmonically

Talking of imagine dragons, who's seen their rig rundown.

I laughed, and felt jealous, and outdone for hours after that; he changes his bloody tubes EVERY GIG, his gold plated guitar has a built in carbon copy, and two other effects I can't remember, and he does little more than basic rhythm playing, and crappy leads.

There are amazing artists out there playing with just the bare bones, and these nutter needs all the ridiculous stuff in his video.

I don't know if it's this rig rundown where he the guitarist says he uses a friedman, to get "that real gritty marshall tone". USE A MARHSALL!!! There are some hilarious moments in our little sub-culture of guitarness.

I love Haim

that is nuts.... I would not want fresh tubes every gig.... they need to burn in a bit for optimal tone just like getting your fresh strings broken in, but there are shortcuts to stretching new strings when you change them every night (I used to always change strings right after I woke up the day of a show or have my tech do it a good 6 hours prior to show time when I had a tech) whereas there's no shortcut to putting 72+ hours of actual play on your power tubes... although, maybe he likes the sound of tubes that are fresh out of the box or maybe he buys them bulk from a distributor that tests them and burns them in... I think I paid for that service before, but now that I am all el84 based I just started buying bulk cases of JJ power tubes that are all matched close enough that you can grab any 4 tubes from the lot and make a quad (if something sounds off I can pull them and put them on my old eico tester and see if one is off spec from the other 3 or if I am just hearing things)... and pres I tend to use old stuff.... I don't want anyone burning in my rare old Mullard and Amperex pres and then a lot of the rest of my stash has been pulled from off-brand, pawn shop vintage amp finds so tjhey're already lightly used... when I buy new 12ax7 tubes I like the EHX-made tung sol 'reissues' a lot because they have a fat midrange and seem to put out more than a gain of 100 when compared to most other full-strength 12ax7 variants, but again, I buy bulk and sort them myself

oh damn, TMI guys, sorry.... but I saw that imagine dragons rig rundown and the dude should have his head examined.

EDIT: I ahd to manually spelling-correct "Mullard" because when I didn't capitalize it EB's auto-spel-checker turned it to MALLARD like the duck, hA! "Wow dude, ever sicne you changed to Mallard preamp tubes your strat's inbetween tones are SOOOO MUCH quackier."

Talking of imagine dragons, who's seen their rig rundown.

I laughed, and felt jealous, and outdone for hours after that; he changes his bloody tubes EVERY GIG, his gold plated guitar has a built in carbon copy, and two other effects I can't remember, and he does little more than basic rhythm playing, and crappy leads.

There are amazing artists out there playing with just the bare bones, and these nutter needs all the ridiculous stuff in his video.

I don't know if it's this rig rundown where he the guitarist says he uses a friedman, to get "that real gritty marshall tone". USE A MARHSALL!!! There are some hilarious moments in our little sub-culture of guitarness.

A - F'ing - MEN

GWAR

30 years non-stop touring, playing above average difficulty music in giant costumes that hinder movement and sight, that smell like vomit and sweaty man bag, while on dark stages, and entertaining as hell. They do all their own costumes, models, and story-lines. They make films.

Shock Rock at its finest and funniest. Manson tried really hard to do what they did on accident.

Oderus had a very quick witt.

Great lives show... yet nearly noone knows who they are. People throw their music to the way side when they are writing so many different genres. Rap, Punk, Grunge, Ballad, Thrash, Goth, Ska, Pop, Rock,.

I am seconding GWAR, I have fun every time I see them.... they're like the P-Funk of heavy metal

Agree with you, Seann is the best Beatle kid. I love Into The Sun and Friendly Fire

I am so glad someone else listened to his albums!

Two fine lovers from Into The Sun are me and my girlfriend song. In Indonesia (where I live) many people love Parachute and Dead Meat from Friendly Fire