Bands That Don't Live Up To The Hype

[GA!]

Biggest one for me is Led Zeppelin. Never understood their appeal. Their material bores me to tears.

I listened to Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' once and was massively disappointed. So them too, I guess.

[VerbalPuke]

I'll definitely side with people mentioning Led Zeppelin. I love a lot of rock from that era but they just never really did it for me. I swear every old rocker you talk to, you mention you don't like Zeppelin and you'd think you were talking about shitting on their carpet.

Pink Floyd agree also, but I just flat out don't care for their music.

Oh, and Tool! Holy shit, Tool fans are fanatical fuckers. I think every Tool fan I have ever met think they are literally the greatest band that ever existed, and that each album is a ground breaking work of art. I don't get it. Their early shit wasn't half bad, but they're really just kind of there. What makes Tool so special? Can somebody give me a reasonable explanation rather than the usual "They're just awesome, you gotta listen man" type of answer. My brother claims it's the best show he's ever seen, while my wife said it was god awful because the lead singer moped around on stage and they barely played any music (she's a fan by the way).

[SRN]

Alright, alright, I concede, Tool do nothing for me either. At all.

[zero]

I like Tool, but their fanbase is pretty fucking ridiculous.

Zeppelin and Floyd aren't going to change your world if you don't do drugs. I just like them, but I imagine if I dropped acid in the 1970s, I'd think it it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

Although, to be fair, my mom was one of the biggest stoners of all-times in the 70s and never liked Pink Floyd, so....

[Rich]

Last time was a group called Cancer Bats who was opening for GWAR. And everyone was like "man, those guys are great."

No, they weren't. They were the most mediocre-sounding, unintelligible band I ever heard live, and this includes high school bands who could only get gigs at their cousin's birthday parties for free.

They also did the worst possible cover of Beastie Boys' "Sabotage". How bad? If they had not actually said that is what the song was supposed to be, I would have never realized it wasn't just another one of their songs.

You shut your dirty Mouth

[tristy]

I love Tool but goddamn do they suck live.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

One night back in Japan at my local bar. It's 1am and there are just a few regulars left. The bar owner is a lovely guy who knows some English. He's got a great taste in music from numerous decades (for a while whenever I went in he'd put Johnny Cash on for a bit). So he's mixing me up a White Russian, pauses to change the CD before bringing me my drink over.

"Now we're going to listen to Dark Side of the Moon, all the way through."

That was ridiculously magnificent. TOTALLY the surroundings/timing/vibe that made it though.

I didn't hear "Bring Me The Horizon" for ages but always thought that whoever the band was, they had a great name. Sadly I hated their music. Teen girls seemed to lap it up when I saw them on telly though.

[Schlitzbrille]

Also Rammstein

Your hatred of them is so extensive that I had to correct your spelling?

Anyway, Nirvana can fuck off forever.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Barracuda Rostigraben

[Nerf]

The Clash by far.

GTFO

[Skummy]

Nirvana are great, but over-rated. They were just a solid band with some great tunes - the Messianic Kurt Cobain worship is something quite different, and it took me years to separate the two. The problem is that, since his death, the perception has been very much Kurt Cobain = Nirvana, when that was never the case, it was always a band, not a vehicle for his success. With the exception of the Unplugged set, which I hate more and more as time goes on.

I like The Clash, but not as much as I used to. Mostly because they did a lot of pap in amongst some classic songs, and the whole political aspect doesn't really match up to their output, or their actions. But it all depends on how seriously you take that sort of thing.

There's a couple of Pink Floyd songs I like, but for the most part post-Syd Barrett they're self-indulgent shite for middle class stoners. Led Zeppelin are equally indulgent, but at least have a handful of good tunes. Cream and Sabbath were both better, though, and didn't steal songs from blues artists.

The Stones and the Beatles are odd ones. To me, the Stones at their best are better than almost any other group of their ilk...but they've been around so long that their best is few and far-between. But if they'd only ever recorded "Sympathy For The Devil" and "Paint It Black", that would have been enough. The Beatles I like, but would rarely ever go out of my way to listen to.

Rammstein I don't like - their more recent stuff I've heard is some of the worst music I've ever listened to, and I can't understand why they get as much love as they have. They're a poor man's Laibach.

These days, I'm not nearly as emotionally invested in music as I once was, and I struggle to care about bands I don't like, so I'd struggle to say anything about hyped bands, because I generally figure that it's just not for me and move on. I find it difficult to get annoyed about a band being shit, when there's plenty of good stuff I could easily go and listen to instead.

That said, The XX are absolute fucking bobbins. I bought their album because they'd been hyped up by people I liked, and because Matt Groening booked them for an ATP festival - bearing in mind that, elsewhere on this same show, he'd booked The Magic Band, The Stooges, Sun Ra Arkestra, Daniel Johnston, Boredoms, Yamantaka//Sonic Titan, The Tiger Lillies, Joanna Newsom, Sonic Youth and a bunch of other bands I bloody love, so I figured they must have something going for them.

I genuinely think it was the dullest album I have ever, ever heard. Couldn't tell you a single thing about it. While queueing for Joanna Newsom at said festival, we got talking to some other people, and we collectively decided that the best thing you could say about the XX's set was that they were "undeniably present".

[ROC]

Fuck James Blake. I do actually enjoy dubstep's potential to be played with as a form, but as minimalist knockoff Michael McDonald? Not my bag.

(And I realize that is an artist and not a band, but I enjoy most of the music that's hyped to me. And I still feel a bit shunned by that time I didn't like a Ty Segall record.)

[Nerf]

I actually like some stuff by The XX. It's kind of nice as really quiet, chilled background music, even if that's not an atmosphere I often recreate.

[Your Mom]

Skummy why don't you like Nirvana unplugged?

[Skummy]

For me it's just not what Nirvana were about; all their best stuff, for me, is them as a great band; Bleach is probably my favourite album of their's, followed by some of the live stuff. They're at their best when it's three guys working together perfectly to make a lot of noise and be a lot of fun.

To me, Unplugged is too much focused on Kurt Cobain as a singer/songwriter, which he never was. He was never a great lyricist, and Nirvana was never about creating a vehicle for his words, it was about making great music. The rest of the band basically don't factor into it at all, and I don't like that.

I can see why people love it, it's just not what I like Nirvana for. On the plus side, I like that he gives a nod to The Vaselines, and to the Meat Puppets, and actually has the Meat Puppets play on the album. I still find it hilarious, though, how many people think "Lake Of Fire" and "Plateau" are Nirvana songs even when Kurt introduces them as being by the Meat Puppets.

I think it's just been over-rated because it was the first Nirvana release after Kurt died, and it's the only Nirvana album people could point to as feeling inherently sad and downbeat rather than messy and noisy, so people flocked to it in relation to the idea of Kurt Cobain as this angelic poet figure.

That post was an absolute rambling mess. I think I've said it better before, on EWB, somewhere.

[Matt]

I get Skummy's point, it's more of a Kurt solo album than a Nirvana album. I still love it but then I love Kurt which Skummy doesn't, I can definitely see how you can like one of Unplugged and the rest of the Nirvana catalogue but not the other.

Oh and for people thinking that songs are Nirvana songs when they're not despite Kurt explicity saying as much, I know someone who thought Man Who Sold The World was a Nirvana song.

[livid]

St. Vincent would be mine. She gets a lot of praise by people whose musical opinions I typically trust but I just don't see it.

[Your Mom]

I really loved the unplugged album but yeah it is completely different than any of their other stuff

[EndOfAnEra]

For some reason Unplugged really hasn't aged well for me. It may be because I've discovered some bands/groups that have become my favorite acoustic acts, or have great acoustic versions, but whenever I listen to it I just don't really feel it as much anymore.

[Rich]

Oh God, the XX and Jake Bugg just do nothing for me, and my housemate loves them both, I get told how good they are regularly. I just sit there looking glazed and forget what I get told immediately.

[Skummy]

Oh and for people thinking that songs are Nirvana songs when they're not despite Kurt explicity saying as much, I know someone who thought Man Who Sold The World was a Nirvana song.

Apparently that used to happen to David Bowie when he was touring with Nine Inch Nails. He'd play it, and people would say "it's cool that you played a Nirvana song".

Jake Bugg's weird. I liked him when I saw him live - but that was before he had an album out, and I had no idea who he was, so it was just some kid with a guitar at a folk festival. I don't get why he got as big as he is - but then, that's true of most artists.