Underrated Music Artists/Bands

[BobbyPhil1781]

Just now, MWil23 said:

Hot Take:

I hate Alice in Chains and think they suck.

Absolutely agreed. They had a few solid tracks but overall, meh. 

[MikeT14]

21 hours ago, Daniel said:

Soundgarden is the best of the big four grunge bands, and it's not particularly close.

This guy gets it. 

[MikeT14]

SG, PJ, AIC, then Nirvana

I like them all a lot, but most of these takes on Nirvana have been correct.

[Apparition]

I can't stand Pearl Jam

[Malfatron]

Hole > Pearl Jam

[MikeT14]

I don't listen to rap anymore, but back in the 90s and 2000s I really appreciated artists like Nas, Lupe Fiasco, Immortal Technique, and Mobb Deep. Nas is pretty popular, so I wouldn't count him as one, but if he had passed instead of Tupac or Biggie, he'd have hit that stratosphere as well imo. 

Since we're talking Soundgarden, Audioslave was one of my favorite artists of the mid 2000s. Listened to them a lot in highschool.

What about Live? They honestly had a crap ton of great songs. I saw them in concert a couple of years ago and really enjoyed them.

Local Richmond band before they broke up - J Roddy Walston and the Business. 

Goose. 

 

[MikeT14]

 

Just now, Malfatron said:

Hole > Pearl Jam

First off, how dare you?

 

[Malfatron]

You guys are sleeping on House of Freaks

[Forge]

24 minutes ago, BobbyPhil1781 said:

Even their new sound??

Their first two albums are literally gold but IMO, they start spiraling afterwards

I didn't like Anon as much as much as the previous 3 albums, but I didn't hate it. Definitely has moved into a more accessible area for songs like overthinking. I think the music has definitely moved away from some sharper edge vocals and instrumentals.   Dissonants I thought was a good album. Colourblind is an absolute fire cracker, and Grey Haven & Glasshouse are really good. 

 

[BobbyPhil1781]

4 minutes ago, Forge said:

I didn't like Anon as much as much as the previous 3 albums, but I didn't hate it. Definitely has moved into a more accessible area for songs like overthinking. I think the music has definitely moved away from some sharper edge vocals and instrumentals.   Dissonants I thought was a good album. Colourblind is an absolute fire cracker, and Grey Haven & Glasshouse are really good. 

 

Can't disagree for the most part. I thought Anon was... well, not good but that might be b/c when it was just Ground Dweller and Unimagine, they were my favorite band out besides Dance Gavin Dance. Those two albums are, IMO, some of the best of that decade. Trenton's vocal ability is so amazing and they teetered that line of hard rock and melodic rock better than almost any other band that I've ever heard. I think Through Glass might be the only song I really liked off Anon. A lot of it was just meh but there were some that are just unlistenable but is more accessible as you stated. Just not my cup of tea. I found it ironic b/c aside from Monster, I don't think they've really done well since Anon was released.

"Space" just confirmed this band is off the deep end and I don't think they'll ever recover.

You can tell I'm quite passionate about this lol. They went from my top dogs (almost) to the basement basically overnight.

In typing this, I just went to YT to see if I had missed anything and surely, I had. "Dangerous" released over a year ago, has < 24k views. Seems like becoming "accessible" has really hurt this band.

[Forge]

3 minutes ago, BobbyPhil1781 said:

Can't disagree for the most part. I thought Anon was... well, not good but that might be b/c when it was just Ground Dweller and Unimagine, they were my favorite band out besides Dance Gavin Dance. Those two albums are, IMO, some of the best of that decade. Trenton's vocal ability is so amazing and they teetered that line of hard rock and melodic rock better than almost any other band that I've ever heard. I think Through Glass might be the only song I really liked off Anon. A lot of it was just meh but there were some that are just unlistenable but is more accessible as you stated. Just not my cup of tea. I found it ironic b/c aside from Monster, I don't think they've really done well since Anon was released.

"Space" just confirmed this band is off the deep end and I don't think they'll ever recover.

You can tell I'm quite passionate about this lol. They went from my top dogs (almost) to the basement basically overnight.

In typing this, I just went to YT to see if I had missed anything and surely, I had. "Dangerous" released over a year ago, has < 24k views. Seems like becoming "accessible" has really hurt this band.

For me, the song that did that was "the water". Not inherently a bad song...but it's about as basic as basic can be. I mean, frighteningly so. And one thing that they never were in their early going was basic. Comparing that song to something like "One Hundred" off Ground Dweller, which I thought was one of the more "basic / formulaic" songs on that album, is kind of frightening. No creative instruments, no vocal movement from Trenton at all. But nothing is sharp...it sounds like something I would hear walking around wal-mart. I agree that the first two albums were pretty special, and as I said, I am actually a big fan of Dissonants as well. 

I'm sure that I'll continue to like some stuff that they put it out, and 3 awesome albums out of 4 in a decade (and if you want give them credit for Re-imagine as well, I do enjoy that remix) is pretty damn good, so they were definitely one of my favorites. 

I am assuming that this is a direction they wanted to go which is probably how they ended up on Hopeless and UNFD. The newer stuff doesn't really match up with the Rise Records typical sounds. 

[JohnChimpo]

I think Nirvana, PJ, Soundgarden, and AIC were all great early. Pearl Jam has put out a lot of albums since the 90’s, but I haven’t liked much of their stuff since then.

 

We already talked about Smashing Pumpkins, who were great back then too, and I’d personally put Stone Temple Pilots on the same level. I liked Live, but they were on a tier below for me.

[Apparition]

topic is about underrated artists and seemingly all we've talked about is bands with platinum records 🤔

[BobbyPhil1781]

17 minutes ago, Forge said:

For me, the song that did that was "the water". Not inherently a bad song...but it's about as basic as basic can be. I mean, frighteningly so. And one thing that they never were in their early going was basic. Comparing that song to something like "One Hundred" off Ground Dweller, which I thought was one of the more "basic / formulaic" songs on that album, is kind of frightening. No creative instruments, no vocal movement from Trenton at all. But nothing is sharp...it sounds like something I would hear walking around wal-mart. I agree that the first two albums were pretty special, and as I said, I am actually a big fan of Dissonants as well. 

I'm sure that I'll continue to like some stuff that they put it out, and 3 awesome albums out of 4 in a decade (and if you want give them credit for Re-imagine as well, I do enjoy that remix) is pretty damn good, so they were definitely one of my favorites. 

I am assuming that this is a direction they wanted to go which is probably how they ended up on Hopeless and UNFD. The newer stuff doesn't really match up with the Rise Records typical sounds. 

"Basic" that's a great way to describe it. They lost all complexity to their style and went straight to, as Finn McKenty calls it, "but rock". "One Hundred" still kept the hard rock aspects of their music that I really liked. TBH, the first time I heard it, I thought they had a guest singer lol. I do agree w/ the comparison though. I like Dissonants also but just not nearly as much as the first two. There's some fantastic songs on that album. 

I didn't realize they signed to Hopeless on that album until this conversation. Good to see they're still around b/c I hadn't heard of them since Against All Authority, The Queers, Digger, Falling Sickness etc from the late 90s. 

[BobbyPhil1781]

To also go into the 90's Grunge theme that the last page was about, as I already mentioned Catherine, D'arcy's ex-husbands band, there was another Scratchie Label band that only really put out one album and that was Fulflej. Their album "Whack *** Tuba Riff" is one of my favorite albums of the 90s. Alternative/Grunge w/ a psychedelic twist. I remember writing them a letter for some reason and they sent me back a letter and a signed copy of their cassette only album "How to Turn Household Pets Into Easter Bunnies" which had some songs come out later in their time.

If 90s grunge is your thing, I'd suggest giving "Whack *** Tuba Riff" a listen although you can tell they didn't take a couple songs seriously.