mockney piers

Blimey, you really are a negative nancy aren't you. I'm sticking with *Bob*'s underrated stuff. I might nominate Flowered Up, practically ignored during the skippy period (we hated the term Madchester down south you see) and reflecting the press's love affair with Manchester as alluded to earlier by someone. Great songs, good music, a bit of nuttiness in to the mix, never emerged from their northern cousins' shadow and only one album :(

I was watching that documentary on prog last night and it set me thinking about the ephemeral nature of 'overrated'. It's a strange sliding scale based upon a relationship between a personal subjective opinion of music and a sort of wider perceived quality fed by the press, media, music festivals, perceptions of cool and a host of other factors. Prog in the mid 70s was undoubtedly overrated. It was enjoying huge worldwide success and had gone into stratospheric levels of ego and pomposity. The press still raved about it, Americans came in their millions to watch the likes of Emerson Lake and Palmer, and yet people here were being turned off by the pretentious noodling that had lost sight of the original experimentation and boundary pushing that defined early prog. As Rick Wakeman said at the end, prog is now the under-the-counter porn of the music world, but there is of course some fantastic music within it's canon and it undoubtedly is now underrated. Likewise when fans feel some possession over a band they will always be underrated, and for the fans gratefully so. Take Modest Mouse with their legion of loyal fans, and then Moon & Antarctica came out with all those 10/10s from the press and they got signed up and produced the marvellous Good News For People Who Love Bad News with it's number one hit Float On and those fans soon disowned them and accusations of overrated abounded. As *Bob* suggests it's easy to snipe at success. I've been coming at this strictly from this hard to pin down ratedness, for the record I love My Bloody Valentine and the Pixies and loved the Doors when I was younger, and totally overkilled Pink Floyd in my late teens, enjoyed Oasis, etc etc, but the fact remains that some bands are deemed untouchable and I understand when it provokes a strong response such as with Keef and the Pixies. Failing to see what Beef's list has in common other than ti's new music. How can Fleet Foxes be overrated, hardly anyone's heard of it and they're simply enjoying the fruits of success from the momentum the alt-country/alt-folk scene has been building up over the last decade. Seasick Steve, perhaps not quite my thing, but it seems harsh to begrudge this chap a bit of success late-on in a really hard life!! He's just doing what he did to eat for many years, and some record mogul offered him some cash, good luck to him I say!!

"Liverpool are top of the league and they're gonna stay top so get used to it!" What's the old adage? Pride comes before a fall?

"Over-rated doesn't mean bad" At last, someone understands. AS it goes with Colplay I still wuite enjoy hearing the odd song from Parachutes appear on the radio, it's also connected with some good memories. I really don't think Coldplay managed another good album and yet they remained the darlings of the media and more specifically the music press. It's things like this that give rise to the dubious honour of being overrated. I think nirvanan nicely hit this thanks to a couple of great songs and an untimely suicide. Plus it still resonates with power to enyone in their youth at that time (I was perhaps a year or two too old for it to really resonate thus).

pretty much, try and remember back to school, uni and early work, pretty much everyone cops off with everyone else at some point during the years between 15 and 25. I only had one ex turn up to mine and the missus was absolutely fine about it (it had been 17 years for goodness sake).

I think most people try to use real names, but for some reason most people seem to end up calling me mockers, though it's not hard to guess my real name. I try to use real names where I remember them, but sometimes only the forum names stick in your head after they've said: "hi I'm jenny" you have a nice chat some of which will consist of "oh, I post as lightning monkey". Amazingly when you bump into them in Sainsbury's 3 weeks later, it's the lightning monkey that sticks. How do you pronounce emc anyhoo?

Wow, moving on doesn't mean leaving your entire world in ashes behind you. How do you (2nd person plural, how I mourn the loss of ye) plan on keeping things like old friends?!? Or am I just speaking guff again? But that doesn't surprise me Tony, rule number one is that in trying to please everyone you please noone, but only because generally people are selfish tossers who think only of themselves.

Again, overrated doesn't mean bad. I'm not sure the Doors are overrated as I don't think many rate them that highly once they leave university. LA Woman is however a top top tune. We played Riders on the Storm at my mate's funeral as it was a song he loved (he died in a car crash 3 months after leaving uni, so we can forgive him th eimmature taste (good song mind if a tad pretentious)) and we were all in the church and the priest only picked the bit with "there's a killer in the road". Never a more awkward silence heard in my life, I knew we should have stuck with Muddy Waters!!

That's just ridiculous. I'm still really good mates with loads of my friends that I made between the ages of 4 and 18 (one of them was my best man) both lads and lasses, and we've all been attending each other's wedding for nigh on 20 years now. If the nobody-you've-shagged-rule had been applied they'd have all been about half as full. Divorcee of 3 years ago, hmm if it's amicable then why not frankly, all wifey2 is showing is that she's insecure, though nice bit of toys out of the pram from wifey1; she should have banned wifey2 from the dinner party for real parity ;-P.

Are you not aware that friday is a forum drink, a mere stones-throw away at the Phoenix? You know you want to!!

Well then my good man, I think a pint may be in order soon. I'll treat you to a pricey bottle of Belgian too ;-)

The mash should honestly be made required reading. I maintain, it can't really be satire if it's true.

E's a li'l bi' aaaarsenaw, a li'l bit west 'aaaaam. Hmm, could be on to something there.

So Swedish and glamorous: 4 kids by 4 dads = good Northern and poor: 7 kids by 5 fathers = bad Are people switching from the Guardian to the mail in here? ;-) Mind you, to my knowledge Ulrika hasn't staged any of her kids' kidnappings. :-$

Snow?!? I thought it was polystyrene.

Though I've been one of the Oasis detractors, in their defence I received Don't Believe the Truth as a bithday present from my mum (bless) a couple of years back, and it's actually not a half bad album. Had it been written by someone else I'm sure it would have been a slow burner, word of mouth album, rather than slavishly bought up/studiously avoided. It feels like it was written by people who?d remembered why they liked music as opposed to people trying to live up to their own over-inflated sense of self worth.

In all fairness Lizziedjango, it's hardly 'purest greed'. As the government is no longer keen on supplying houses to the rental market, where exactly do you think the housing stock for the rental market comes from? Assuming you and your family don't want to live in a shared house, and don't want to buy then you're going to have rent off a private landlord. In which case surely they're placing their own capital at risk in order to provide a service in the hope that they get a return on their investment. What's next in your sights, lets hope corner shop owners go bust due to their purest mercantile greed? Admittedly I'm no great fan of the hordes of city workers who'd made a so much from all the speculation that got us into this mess, that they actually couldn't think of anything better to do than pump it into buy-to-let that helped fuel the housing bubble, however, broad brush strokes there.

Where do you work? My barber on Tottenham Court Road charges 7 quid, are friendly and do a pretty good job. The missus goes to LL and pays upwards of a ton, which just ain't for me!!

Jermain Defoe is your archetypal mercenary footballer, in it for the money and the perks. No concept of loyalty at all, ask Charlton. Not a bad player, can bang in a goal or two (as long as his co striker isn't better than him, then he'll sulk) but not worth getting worked up over. Or is he growing up a bit now (metaphorically speaking, obviously he'll never be taller than 4' 6'')?

I'm sure you've seen it ratty, but it is quite funny.

Yeah I watched that. Nice overview on the birth of prog, and some good interviewees but it was really pretty lightweight and didn't really deal with it's development or revival (Decemberists, Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips, Sigur Ros list goes on) just claimed that punk killed it off (admitted many of the bands went HUUUUGE when they reinvented themselves though) although it it did allude to Radiohead being prog, which I've been saying ever since their reinvention with OK Computer. As for U2, agree donvanvliet that their earlier output was fantastic, but when balanced off against the piles of average/rubbish music coupled with the self-aggrandisement overload they've come out with since, I'm pretty sure they're not in kudos credit. I'd concur with Cure being underrated, I could take or leave their 'angsty' stuff (it was paint by numbers angst lets face it, I think the toughest Smith's life ever got was when he lost a flutter at the Epsom Derby) but they really did have exquisite pop sensibilities.

The Clash did some great songs, but I do think they're overrated for the reasons I gave above, but bloody good band they are. On the birth of punk, and flipping to underrated, I'd say Television. It may not be quite the first punk album, but they really brought rock back to it's core elements from the overblown monster it had become, and I'm sure they were an influence on the likes of the Ramones, Blondie, the Pistols, The Clash et al.

I recall this thread being done before and I'm sure we suffered the same problem that to be overrated you need to be rated in the first place, so strike Marillion, Phil Collins, the Kooks, Simply Red and most definitely Craig David from that. The Clash and Joy Division are held up like some sort of Religious idols, and would have to be able to raise the dead to live up to their ratings, so totally agree with that. Oasis, one good album, a couple of anthemic songs on another, a whole bunch of lazy, flabby, shite and a slight return to form. If they formed today they wouldn't be nearly the superstars they purport to be, so big big candidates for being overrated whether or not you think they're great. Radiohead are very good, they've pushed envelopes and changed the fabric of modern rock, but god how I tire of the endless plaudits thrown their way by obsequious journos. Especially as they all hate anything vaguely prog, and miss the irony that Radiohead is as prog as it gets!! So Radiohead get a big fat vote from me.

I love the stone roses, but with hindsight that's a fine point. It stands the test of time, I've gone off many an album I love, but the songs are still good, however right time right place is spot on, I can't see it appealing much to those who weren't there, say in the way that Dark Side of the Moon continues to make every 17 year old who's just started smoking gear and stumbles upon it think he's the first to do either, or both. In the spirit of honesty I'll add My Bloody Valentine, top work by Shields bankrupting a label and all, but...

grrr, I'm off in about 15 minutes though. Huzzah, top weekend all!!