Coldplay.
Their music doesn’t move me in any way (except to turn it off). Can someone please point out any good bit of any song? I’m willing to try, but everything I’ve heard for years is just musical mush.
We at least got a goated meme from them…
Coldplay is musical morphine: You’re either using it for a reason or you’re an addict.
Well easy answer is Taylor Swift, she’s a fine singer but not amazing, samey lyrics, like the McDonald’s of music. Is she a band? Idk. Agree with KISS.
hype? Pretty much any because hype is almost always artificial.
But fans? I can’t say any band/performers don’t deserve their fan base. You pull the crowds that need what you’re making, so you inherently deserve them.
I can say that some fans do over hype the talents of what they like. It’s perfectly okay to be a middle range musician, and it’s perfectly fine to like them and recommend them exactly as they are.
Like, backstreet boys. Solid pop boy band. Had some great songs, but most were just okay pop. None of the members can really be compared to someone like Freddy Mercury, or Pavarotti, or Marvin Gaye, but they all had good voices to some degree or another and used them well. But their fan base back in the day was all about the hype, the fannishness of it. So they got hyped way beyond what they were.
That’s the curse of a lot of pop performers, and it is the curse of teen/tween targeted pop for sure.
A lot of that kind of performer has to totally undo their family friendly (which is a bullshit term to begin with) focus to ever really grow musically. Look at pretty much every Disney escapee for examples. Timberlake, arguably the best example of someone escaping that trap without having to piss off the original fan base, still drags some of that curse with him while producing some very good pop music.
Now, KISS? Since that’s the example in the post, I think you run into the trouble of hindsight. At the time they gained their initial popularity and success, they were a damn great live band. A KISS show back then was something most people had never seen, and the hype was justified
But they suffer from the success curse. Other people took what they did and did it better. So now the hype is essentially all nostalgia, so it feels out of place. Legit, go back and check out footage of their live shows and compare it to the standard rock bands of the same eras. It wasn’t until they went full idiot and tried to abandon the makeup (and all that went with it) that they lost the thread. At that point, they kept trying to summon up what they’d lost and never regained their mojo. At this point, a KISS show just doesn’t do justice to what the hype says. It can’t, because it isn’t the same band despite being mostly the same people.
But they were always mid tier songwriters (even the ones I fucking love were mid tier compared to a band like The Band that I tend to enjoy less).
So, that kind of thing is why I don’t jump on hype or shit on hype. It’s usually artificial, and it’s also usually generated by dint of numbers. So hype never carries well.
But it’s also why I never object or care about someone like Taylor Swift having a massive fan base either. She writes and performs for her target audience. She does that very well, no matter what else anyone thinks about her. Any pop performer is trying to do exactly that. Even niche subgenre performers that are actually trying to sell their music try to find a way to target a fan base (even if it’s only people that would object to being called a fan base).
I would, at this point in my life, also say that at least checking out hype can be worth it. Even if you don’t like whatever it is, you’ve shared something with other people, and that’s a net positive. Plus, you might run into a few songs you do like from someone you don’t otherwise enjoy (like shake it off from Swift for me)
Kings of Leon? Nickelback? I’d also suggest Right Said Fred, but AFAIK they’ve always been derided and I’m Too Sexy is a meme at this point.
Like legitimately, I’m Too Sexy is a song you could rick-roll someone with.
KISS was mediocre rock at best. They have a few good songs. They are/were stage performers. Same with Gwar. Same with Insane Clown Posse. And KISS have done a lot to entertain their fans. They’re fine.
Most popular music is popular because a lot of people like it. I never much cared for Taylor Swift, but I decided to try her new album. I pay for music streaming, so it didn’t cost me anything. Turns out I really like most of it! Listened to her previous album and it doesn’t hit the same. So I’m not a Swiftie after all. Same with Kendrick Lamar. He was doing the Super Bowl last year so I listened to his latest album. I still play GNX from time to time.
Find what you love but don’t yuck somebody else’s yum.
Exactly my thought, Kiss is like royalty free muzak rock.
Exactly, also if you ever seen their photos in magazines from back in the 70s, they would have Pyro and spit out fake blood. If you never heard any of their songs just based on the visuals, you would think they were some deep disturbed hard-core metal but when you listen to their songs, it sounds like something you would hear on Sesame Street.
It was only really Gene Simmons that gave that vibe. I mean, ones a cat and another has a star.
I bought this album (Meatloaf, Bat out of Hell) back when you went to record stores and flipped through albums and bought something because the cover looked cool. I was already listening to Judas Priest, Iron Maiden… I was like wtf is this. Never understood that genre. And yeah, kiss sucks too.
Meatloaf is a classically trained opera singer, and wanted to make rock ballads. I can understand people not getting it. Bat out of Hell II, Back into Hell was where he really hit his stride.
Theatrical rock. Big outside the US. A lot of Americans don’t seem to dig it.
The fact that people acted like they didn’t know what he wouldn’t do for love tells me all I need to know about the haters. He spells it out pretty clearly. He won’t move on and fall in love again. He’s an immortal who fell for a mortal woman. She asked for all these things he could do. Then she said after she dies he should find love again. He said that’s it, that’s the line I won’t cross.
They only heard the radio edit, which completely cut that section of the song where he spells it out. Radio didn’t want to play a 12 minute song.
Grateful Dead
Yes they are very good musicians. Yes some good lyrics & songs.
But Christ are they overrated. I usually went to their concerts primarily to stock up on acid
Christ are they overrated.
Overrated in what respect, though? What are critics / fans saying about them that you feel is over the top? For me, they were a significant folk rock band and cultural experience that formed a kind of haven from the world at large. They had plenty of groovin’, pleasant songs & jams that I could sincerely recommend, but I’m not really sure in what way they might be “overrated.”
Not exactly what you’re asking, but Nickelback was a passing good rock band with several great songs. How they became the punching bag of bad bands I’ll never really understand.
I remember it seemed like every time I got in the car at their peek they would be on. I always just assumed it was because Canada has always about the minimum amount of canadian content played.
They are like vanilla with vanilla sauce on top.
They are “radio rock” personified.
So you’re saying they defined a genre
Nope. Just personified it.
Nickelback has some great songs I still jam to. They’re just generic radio rock that doesn’t offend people. See also: Creed. Until Scott Stapp offended people.
Basically any 80s hair metal. Never understood how any of those bands were even considered listenable. If it has to be just one I’ll go with Motley Crue.
They were so overrated but I forgave them with “smokin in the boys’ room”
Kickstart My Heart rocks.
Nirvana… And I say that as a pretty big fan of them. I have no idea how they became the biggest band in the world. They were really really good, but I’m surprised by how much commercial success they had.
There weren’t a lot of radio friendly songs. Nobody knew what the lyrics were. For all the bands that try so hard to be commercially successful, Nirvana didn’t try much at all and still succeeded.
I dunno, smells like teen spirit hit pretty hard. It was a new sound and many people’s first exposure to grunge. I agree, there are better bands (STP was better than Nirvana and I’m dying on that hill). But they were first, and it explains how they blew up overnight.
I saw them here, before they got famous. They did a big tour in a white van, played a bar here with a crowd of about 30 people! Bought the last shirt from the hands of Kurt, I had absolutely no idea they would get famous, they were so far from anything getting played on the radio. I only knew about them because my brother’s friend gave me a tape with them, Mudhoney, Tad.
Swear to God I cannot predict to save my life but live a few years in the future. You could have knocked me down with a feather when they got famous, and I think they were just as surprised.
I agree with you. They were good but not great.
I never liked Nirvana other than a song or two. They had Dave Grohl and that explains a lot. Plus Kurt was an icon. Their success didn’t bother me. But I felt others did grunge better.
And they released three studio albums.
True, but 2 of them (bleach and in utero) are pretty rough and not polished for radio.
But I did and do love them.
Weezer.
They have exactly two songs.
One song, Buddy Holly, is good.
Every other song of theirs is all the same song over and over again.
Yes! Weezer is the Beatles for white suburban kids who don’t like spicy tacos.
All of them. It’s just music.
I like the bands/albums/singles that I like, that’s enough.
Integrating a band into my identity is so far from likely that I won’t even buy or wear a fan t-shirt.
Sounds like you don’t like music, you just prefer it to silence
