Most Underrated Band

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We did most overrated ban a couple weeks back, so figured I’d try the flip side.

This one’s trickier for me than overrated…but I think I might go with Sly and the Family Stone. They are much admired, but they tend to be sort of an afterthought in terms of great sixties boomer bands, when I think they’re actually way more innovative/important/influential than the Rolling Stones, or Dylan, even Hendrix. Even bands like Funkadelic or Outkast, who owe a huge debt to Sly, tend to get more props.

Other picks…um…I think the Bangles are great, which is not a widely held opinion, I know. I think Destiny’s Child is brilliant and important, which again isn’t a consensus opinion.

What do you folks thinks? What’s the most underrated band/musician?
 

sly_and_family_stone

85 thoughts on “Most Underrated Band”

  3. Huh. I think I’m a little skeptical about Nina Simone; she’s one of the touchstones for jazz/soul it seems like. Still gets name-checked with some frequency (and also I’m not super into her is the truth.)

    I’ve barely heard Duran Duran, so can’t really comment on that….

  4. More innovative than the Rolling Stones, yeah, but that’s not really a high bar. Dylan and Hendrix were both pretty innovative themselves, and I’m not sure it’s possible to be more influential than Stones/Dylan/Hendrix. Maybe they were as influential as the Kinks or the Byrds, which is still pretty influential.

    As for “highly regarded, but still underrated,” I’d go with Dionne Warwick. She gets respect, but she’s never mentioned as being on the same level as Aretha Franklin, even though her phrasing made everyone else sound heavy-handed. Come to think of it, I’d also consider Burt Bacharach underrated by many. He’s usually thought of as the guy who wrote great melodies but as a composer and arranger, he should be getting the same respect that Brian Wilson does.

  5. Stones/Dylan/Hendrix don’t really have much to do with what’s on the radio right now. Sly Stone does. He’s one of the big influences on hip hop, which has more or less taken over the world.

  6. Definitely agree about Sly and the Family Stone. The other two…The *Bangles*? Really? But I’ve been watching some music documentary stuff lately, and just saw VH1’s “Finding the Funk.” They interview (at length, not just a comment or two), many musicians of that time, including Sly (he’s so tiny now). Many other musicians and producers talk about how Sly and the Family Stone influenced music then, and influenced them personally.

  8. I’ve vote for either Canadian punk band NoMeansNo, Japanese pop group Pizzicato Five or America’s greatest working collection of musicians, the amazing Los Lobos.

  10. Chic.

    I feel like their music has been relegated to the same Disney live-action movie-trailer status as much of Sly and the Family Stone. I’m not much of a music historian, and won’t try to trace the lines of influence, but I think it’s fantastic. Particularly Everybody Dance/Clap Your Hands.

  13. Fusion’s still kind of a dirty word and even the best soul-jazz artists get shrugged at once their discographies hit the 1970s, even if some hip-hop producers have rehabbed some of its practitioners. So I’ll stump for Roy Ayers, Alphonse Mouzon, and Bobbi Humphrey.

  15. Kate Bush. She gets a ton of acclaim in Britain, but I’m astounded how long it took me to even hear her name mentioned in the US. And when it was– its as as a joke. And then another joke, and then another joke. I thought Wuthering Heights was awesome from the start, and I’m still miffed how little I hear her praised– especially by Bowie and Roxy Music fans.

    I think Kate Bush, Roxy Music and David Bowie share a lot of similarities. Obviously Bowie and Roxie Music were influences for Bush, but Bush transcends them some places– I think she’s a braver kind of weird.

  16. “We did most overrated ban a couple weeks back” I wish you had. While it’s great for casual internet arguing, and some critics can make it work in highly persuasive and clever ways, it too often brings out the worst. It can lead to a self-flattering narrative (refined taste vs. the herd) overshadowing the work, with highly selective and perhaps disingenuous critirea used to impose the over/under story.

    Consider Bloom County, a financial, award winning success positioned as an underdog, despite having superior syndication figures to later successes such asCalvin and Hobbes, as well as the artistic leverage to demand space requirements for later Sunday strips.

    Less emphasis on the underrated narrative (requiring others to be dismissed as overrated) and more on critical appreciation of all contexts (including flaws) would be a richer discussion of arguably the last big hit of the form before newspapers went into full decline.

    There are so many potential essays: Bloom County’s position within late 80s Frat Culture; quasi-neutral humor in the context of the 1984 Reagan landslide; how Bloom County seems to have missed internet enshrinement merely by being offstage at the wrong moment; the interesting (if true) story how Breathed won the rights to his strip and how it impacted his legacy.

    I hoped for less lionizing and nostalgia, and more analytical digging like the essay below, which is over the top but interesting musing on BB’s attitude towards women and his personal life, including BB’s habit of messing with interviewers:
    http://www.platypuscomix.net/otherpeople/bloommystery.html

    The essay does some stretching in its assertions, but it’s no less grounded and far more interesting than the usual “X is overrated because no one really appreciates Y.”

  17. I’m a little confused why this post is here rather than the underrated/overrated comics thread? If you’re arguing that BC is more well respected than C&H, I think that’s kind of crazy. C&H hit #2 on our best comics poll, which I think is pretty indicative of its status. Bloom County was down towards #70 or something, which again I think is about right.

    It’s find not to want to play this particular game. Just don’t play; lots of other stuff on the site (and for that matter, the internet) to read if you prefer that.

  18. Madness are underrated as are Bad Manners and a ton of other SKA bands.

    I’d put in a vote for HardSkin also.

  22. Mark Eitzel’s American Music Club and his solo albums are so fantastic and inspiring. And he’s even more amazing live. He did a solo gig here in Chicago at the Beat Kitchen near Thanksgiving 2012 that was tremendously moving.

    Here is some AMC from the early 90s:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB_3yHtLJdo

    And a great track from Eitzel’s 2012 solo record Don’t Be a Stranger:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO6xJS5QNbw

    Although they’re well know and respected in the UK, I’d also have to say that Bert Jansch, Rory Gallagher, and Sandy Denny aren’t as well known as they should be here in the States. Here’s one of Denny’s best (or a favorite of mine, anyway):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV11TXY7qpY

    And just one more. Kurt Heasley’s Lilys have made a lot of exciting but overlooked American psychedelic music in the last couple of decades. They did some of their best work with engineer Mike Demming at the old Studio .45 in Hartford, CT (had to get a plug in for my home state):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOzYgkRYabw

    and this one…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fINpWTj-Bw

  24. Easy, Mike Patton!

    Who records a demo, all instruments himself, passes the tape onto those he considers to be best at drums, bass and guitar and convinces them all to rerecord it with him? Mike Patton!

    Who is in not one, but two super groups? Mike Patton!

    Who can you see and hear in an evening sound like a rap god, pop sinsation, death metal monster, opera singer, female Japanese pop star, 50’s crunner and the alternative rock star he is? Mike Patton!

    Who composes and arranges jazz, Italian pop, haunting film sound tracks, alternative, metal, hip hop, electronic, poka, carnival, ska, country, noise…everything and put it in one song…or play it strait? Mike Patton!

    Who is in usually 2-3 bands at a time, co-running a music label, colaberatong with others (from all levels of “success” and genre of music), is doing voice over work in film or gaming, has acted and is working on a film composition…mostly all in the same year…year after year? Mike Patton!

    Who sees his job on vocals, not as a front man, but as an instrument serving the composition? Mike Patton!

    Who was famous for a moment (1990), but has done all his best work since then…never stoping? Mike Patton!

    Who has been on the Pop, Alternative and Classical charts? Mike Patton!

    Who will sing to you in Italian, English, Spanish, Japanese ect…? Mike Patton!

    Who helped invent a sub genre? Mike Patton!

    Who has artistic integrity, curiosity and is down to earth? Mike Patton!

    Who has a cult following, but doesn’t pander to them, ever? Mike Patton!

  25. The Jazz Butcher is, to my ears, one of the most underrated bands of the 1980’s and 1990’s. I was just listening to Danielle Dax the other day… definitely good stuff.

  30. PS: Although Patton is the correct answer, Pizzicatto Five is a wonderful band and an at least interesting choice. Nomeansno is my favorite punk/hardcore or Canadian band…plus they are friendly with Patton. So glad to see both mentioned .

  31. Hah!

    Hay, Jones…I’m a Jones boy (on my mothers side)! Jones are great! Us Jones are hard to keep up with…wait was the name Jones? I forget. :)

  32. The Cleaners from Venus! They get a lot of respect, but never enough. I could probably think of other bands that are technically more underrated but the Cleaners are the band that everyone should be listening to all the time.

  34. I was thinking Van Morrison was underrated, but after some googling, maybe he’s not?

    In the underrated column – airplay and public consciousness probably comes down to no more than three songs at this point, Brown Eyed Girl, Moondance, Domino. While he was fairly influential, most of that influence was on acts that reached their peak 25-30 years ago.

    In the not underrated column – to the extent Rolling Stone is part of the conversation in determining the mainstream rock canon, Morrison is rated the 44th greatest artist of all time and has two albums in the top 100.

    He was certainly an influence on two of my favorite bands that I’d consider underrated: The Pogues and The Waterboys

    And this can never be rated highly enough:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJXVD-nSSKE

  36. Astral Weeks is regularly listed as the greatest album of all time. I think Morrison is overrated if anything (though my brother will recoil in horror to hear me say so.)

  37. Oh my goodness, the Jazz Butcher Conspiracy is golden. I got to see Pat Fish and Max Eider do their first performance together in quite a while, some fifteen years ago in San Francisco, and it was an amazing show. And “Nothing Special” is one of my favorite songs ever.

  39. I guess that’s the tension, an artist who produced a work that’s considered up there with Revolver, Exile on Main Street, Highway 61 Revisited and Are You Experienced? doesn’t get mentioned in the same breath as The Beatles, Stones, Dylan or Hendrix. I think that was probably less true forty years ago, but while the core body of work for each of those artists was set in stone by then, Morrison’s reputation has not kept pace with his peers.

    Maybe that’s because his peers have become more overrated over time (I think they were all mentioned in the overrated thread).

    Or maybe the fact that an argument can be made either way means he’s rated just about where he should be.

  40. I admire Mike Patton, but I’m not sure he’s ever made a great album outside of Angel Dust with FNM. But I’d agree Faith No More is a vastly underrated band, even among Mike Patton nuts and by Patton himself.

    In terms of getting not much respect from either music nerds (which post punk types and experimental guys do receive a lot of) or the masses (which is pretty much anything that’s been good since the 70s), I’ll go with the wretched sleazier side of glam in the 80s that’s pretty much been relegated to the dustbin filled with hair metal groups: Lords of the New Church, Hanoi Rocks, Dogs d’Amour or even the Jacobites. The Jacobites and the Lords are only noticed because of the punk nerd appreciation of earlier efforts by Nikki Sudden and Stiv Bators. When I say I much prefer, say, the Lords to the Deadboys, I usually get a look of disdain from my rock snob friends. But these bands are great! I’m not sure they’ve had all that much influence, though, since they’re dismissed or ignored by just about everyone, including other people in bands, except a few cultists (well, Axl Rose used to namecheck Hanoi, which hardly raised their cultural capital).

  43. Australian electro-poppers/noise mongers Severed Heads don’t get the respect they deserve.

    Lush was a pretty amazing dreampop/shoegaze band too.

  44. Nate A: There was a pre-party? Shit. Wish I’d known about it.

    The lack of a second mention for Los Lobos on this thread is starting to gnaw at me somehow. They were among the last serious purveyors of authentic roots/Tex-Mex/rockabilly/blues music to score top-40 hits, thanks to “Shakin’ Shakin’ Shakes” and “La Bamba,” and their ability to innovate and push boundaries within their chosen style can’t be easily overstated — especially if you take inspired side projects like the Latin Playboys into account. But even if you don’t, the 1-2-3 punch of the “Kiko,” “This Time” and “Colossal Head” albums came perilously close to the dictionary definition of a band at the peak of its creativity and power, back at the turn of the century.

    And they can still kill it live, as I discovered to my delight two years ago, when they played the Rialto here in Tucson. What an astonishing collection of musicians.

  46. Whenever people start talking about music here, y’all sound like a bunch of grampas you whippersnappers today got no respect for Maurice Chevalier

    Underrated — just about any mash-up artist other than Girl frickin’ Talk, but I’ll pick Pojmasta in particular. My wife rolls her eyes every time a Girl Talk song comes on the radio, because she knows it will set off The Rant. (The Rant being how shithouse Girl Talk is, in his own right, but especially in comparison to at least a dozen other artists in the ’00s scene).

    Bran van 3000 — when people think of them, if they think of them at all, it’s as a one-hit wonder. But their first and third albums are phenomenal, and just perfectly sequenced (an unimportant feat in the post-ipod-shuffle age, but still…),

    PS: Isn’t Chic undergoing a massive reappreciation right now, thanks to Nile Rodgers’ work with Daft Punk?

  48. “I like Lovage, his team-up with Dan the Automator”

    Yeah, that’s alright. It points to my problem with his buffet approach: if I’m going to listen to lounge, Lovage’s just not something I’d return to. It’s kind of a weak brew.

  50. I would argue that P.Funk and James Brown have had a much greater influence on hip-hop than Sly. And while George Clinton admired Sly, Funkadelic was already in full swing as a musical entity when Sly went from doing rhythmic pop to outright funk in 1970 (with the release of “Thank You”).

    Breaking that down even further, I’d say that Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell in particular have more to do with the most distinctive bass/synth grooves than anyone. Just like Clyde Stubblefield (of the Famous Flames) is the most sampled drummer ever.

    Another underrated band: The Meters. They were session men for virtually every interesting New Orleans spawned record in the 60s and 70s, and their own records are killer. (Go find “Rejuvenation”.) Zigaboo Modeliste is another drummer who is sampled to death, and deservedly so.

    Back to Sly, I would like to mention perhaps the most underrated album ever: Fresh. Sly played basically every instrument on that record after he had essentially frozen out the rest of his band when he went crazy.

  51. No argument on Sly (or the Bangles for that matter) (or the Meters) (or Jazz Butcher or Roy Ayers). I’m going to say not Nina Simone, but Gladys Knight. Oh and while we’re on soul I would also like to say General Johnson and Brenton Wood. I hate to be mr. sunshine, but… this is a lot better thread than “most overrated.” It could – and should – go on forever. But you know what: August Darnell! I think I’ll stop there. Oh, but… Small Faces. And The Hollies.

  53. Is this where I can tell my Sly Stone story?

    …Actually I think I must have told it already, but just in case, here it is again: when I was much younger, my parents put me in a day care run by a women who’d taken cared of Sly when he was messed cuz of drugs, etc, in the 80s.

    I was too young to remember (6months-18months) but apparently she fairly strict and exacting. She later sued Sly Stone for plagiarizing lyrics from her, and finally ran off to Colorado with a psychiatrist (who turned out to not really be a psychiatrist).

    Anyway, I really like Sly & the Family Stone, especially their hit “Everybody is a Star”.

  55. Well, there you go!

    I didn’t know myself until after I’d graduated from college, like I said I was too young to remember.

  56. I disagree with you about “no P-Funk without Sly”. The funk originates with James Brown and his sidemen, who moved the rhythmic emphasis from the 2 and 4 beats to the 1 and 3 beats (hence “The One”). Brown’s other idea was to give every instrument a percussive element, and to switch the prominence of typical lead instruments like guitar to have that rhythmic, propulsive quality and to make the typical rhythm instruments the real leads in his songs. Hence a song like “Cold Sweat” (the first true funk song), where the drums and bass are way out front, the guitar is scratchy (thanks to the awesomeness of Jimmy “Chank” Nolen) and the horns act as a kind of call and response to Brown’s lyrics, which in themselves have a percussive quality to them.

    Now, I might make the argument that Larry Graham’s development of slap bass (which had nothing to do with Sly himself) took that use of The One to a different level, one that was heavily influential on a score of bassists. But the foundation of funk was already there and Graham didn’t start to heavily use that slap style until 1970.

    Really, Sly’s main influence on George Clinton was not in terms of funkiness, but in terms of freakiness. Sly was a hippie and into psychedelic culture, and that inspired Clinton to fly his freak flag in that direction as well. That said, Funkadelic’s early records have more in common with the MC5 (friends of theirs in Detroit) than Sly.

    I’ll also say that other than Sly and Larry Graham, none of the rest of the Family Stone was remotely as talented as the JB sidemen or the many musicians in the P.Funk family tree. Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins (who helped reshape Brown’s sound in the late 60s before hooking up with P.Funk), and Eddie Hazel were all virtuosos in their own right, and that just scratches the surface. No one in Sly’s horn section could touch Maceo Parker as a soloist or Fred Wesley as an arranger.

  57. The thing about Sly was the way the songs were put together. James Brown songs tend to be really funky riffs, and that’s what they are. Sly had a rock music sense of songwriting; the tracks seem like they were sewn together from different bits and pieces. They really sound like hip hop in that way, with different pieces zipping in and out; the songs seem like they’re built on samples. I think that, and the fusion of rock and soul, was a major influence on George Clinton. I’m pretty sure he’d say so as well; he was never shy about citing Sly’s influence, I don’t think.

  60. Well, certainly, Sly was **an** influence on George Clinton, but it had more to do with presentation, style and being a larger than life figure than the actual music. Clinton wrote lyrics and could hum a tune, but all of the actual musical wizardry and production (especially in the early days) came from Bernie Worrell. And Worrell was a guy whose influences came from all over the map, as he was a classically trained musician who also loved rock and R&B.

    Second, as far as the rock/soul fusion, that had as much to do with the influence of Jimi Hendrix as anyone. Early Funkadelic in particular owed much, much more to Hendrix than Sly.

    Again, I’m not saying that Sly had no influence on P.Funk. He did. He even became a member of Funkadelic in a later incarnation. But to claim that P.Funk wouldn’t have existed without him just isn’t true, nor is it correct to claim that the aspects of hip-hop music and production that came from P.Funk can be credited to him. The heavy synth sound and grooves that artists like Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg used on their ultra-popular and influential records came from Worrell, Bootsy Collins and to a lesser extent, Junie Morrison.

  61. You’re obviously very knowledgeable — moreso than me. But I’m skeptical that influences are quite as unitary as you seem to be claiming, nor do I necessarily think that Dr. Dre and Snoop, influential as they are, were the single most important influences on later hip hop. As I said, I think the way Sly put together songs, with different bits zinging in and out, is a huge influence on hip hop, and the way he put together funk and rock is a huge influence on George Clinton (though Hendrix matters too, I’d agree.) It was an influence on Prince too, I’d say.

    FWIW, I like Sly quite a bit more than Funkadelic/Parliament, the latter of which I tend to find kind of monotonous at album length. It’s that songwriting thing again.

  62. As far as my tastes go, I find the early Sly albums to be good but not great, with a fair amount of filler. That killer Greatest Hits record excises a lot of dross. And of course, Riot and Fresh are both awesome.

    I actually agree that P.Funk can be an acquired taste. But the best Parliament records, like Mothership Connection and Funkentelechy vs the Placebo Syndrome, are stunning achievements in my view, and the Junie Morrison/Bernie Worrell/George Clinton collaboration Motor Booty Affair sees each at their best.

    Back to influences, I’m actually saying that they’re not unitary. What I’m objecting to is your saying that they’re be no P.Funk without Sly, because Clinton and his bandmates had too wide an array of influences. And while Sly was **an** influence on hip-hop, he was far less important than James Brown or P.Funk, because early hip-hop in particular relied on sampling breakbeats. Certainly, some bands sampled Gregg Errico’s beats, but not nearly as many who sampled Clyde Stubblefield.

    Regarding Dre and Snoop, they were the single biggest exemplars of the Gangsta rap style (with Dre coming out of NWA, of course). And gangsta rap is what put hip-hop over the top in terms of sales–often to the detriment of other kinds of rap. 2Pac was very much in that school as well. They were part of the force that made hip-hop into mainstream music, and they were fueled by Parliament’s beats and Clinton’s “Atomic Dog” (one of the most sampled songs ever).

    As an aside, Musician magazine once did an amusing Rock Archetype article. One of them was “The Black Gypsy”, wherein they give the archetype for each decade. 60s: Hendrix. 70s: Sly. 80s: Prince. 90s: Lenny Kravitz. So yeah, I would definitely draw a straight line between Sly and Prince much quicker than I would Sly and P.Funk–there’s the look, the musical fusion and the virtuoso quality of the bandleader. (Other categories included The Girl With The Beret and Walking Death, the latter of which was locked up for four decades straight by Keith Richards.)

  63. Dre and Snoop were really important. I think in a lot of ways Michael Jackson is actually more important to where hip hop is now, though. Hip hop kind of took over the world through fusing with R&B in the early 90s and early 2000s, I think. Gangsta rap’s important, but not as important as it seemed like it was going to be in the 90s, I’d argue. (Dirty South isn’t exactly just gangsta rap.)

    Sly doesn’t get sampled as much a those other folks, it’s true. I don’t necessarily think that means he’s less important to how hip hop came together though.

  64. Kenneth: I second Living Colour! I don’t know how to put this without sounding like I am filled with white gilt; which I am not. However, I thing Vernon Reed is completely unique and impressive and the rest of the band, including Cory Glover are highly underrated. That said, there is something about bands, which happen to be Black and living in inner-city communities in America, and playing a music genre (Rock) that was mostly co-opted as soon as Elvis became big, by white folk. There is a level of spontaneity and innovation, something else that comes from these bands, that cannot be duplicated. Living Colour is not an easy fit in this group, because Reed came over from England (I think), but the music follows my feelings here. This is not because of race. This is because of the specific culture community these Artist emerge from. I would include, Death (see the essential documentary A Band Called Death, I am friends with one of their sons and the Band now hails from our neighborhood in VT), Bad Brains and Fishbone. Death invented punk through the influence of Detroit Proto Metal, Motown and inspiration from their father’s death. The Bad Brains invented Hardcore through life in DC and an eclectic exposure (which may have included a rare Death album), Fishbone invented a SKA/Metal highbred through one of the members coming from the burbs into the other band members neighborhood. Living Colour, I would guess was Reed bringing England to NYC. All these bands seemed to spontaneously invent and mirror other pockets of creativity (or pre date them) and then find an audience by chance. An audience that remains diverse, but small, given the talent and historical significance of the music.
    Charles Reece & Jones, one of the Jones boys : Lovage is great. My response to the subjective question (as all of this is) of “great” album would be the following (excluding Angel Dust and Lovage):
    King For A Day, Fool For A Life Time- What I consider a perfect album when it comes to balancing eclectics, compositions, lyrics, technical performances, passion, innovation and production sound. This album is better than Angel Dust. This may be because of Roddy Bottoms (personal tragedies) reducing his involvement and the heavy use of Trey Spruance on guitar. Bottom is great (Imperial Teen is another underrated band), but free from keys, FNM sored.
    Disco Volante- There is reasonable argument regarding the “best” Bungle album. All three are master pieces and better than Angel Dust (which is a mater piece). California is my second choices and then the self-title. However, Disco Volante is so unique, complex, innovative and yet listenable it is what Zappa and Zorn will never reach…the razors edge between avant garde and popular. The live performances of this album in particular is mind bending and enjoyable.
    Mondo Cane- Is the fifth album I would place above Angel Dust, personally. My father and brother, both audio file musicians saw a live performance in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. My Dad (who has highly sophisticated and unwavering assessment of music {thus my own issues} changed 40 years of opinion, when this performance surpassed in his estimation a Buffalo Springfield concert he attended in the late 1960’s. My brother (the more sober and professional of us musically) attested to the quality, but said this may have been hyperbolic on our Dad’s part. The album debut at No. 2 on the American Classical charts. Which is odd, because it is Italian Pop & Cinema performed by a live Italian Orchestra, with Patton arrangements and crooning, not traditional classical. It is not original songs, so I suppose it gets a ding for that.
    Oddfwellows- After Angel Dust, bfore Lovage check these next two out: Many consider this last year’s earliest contender for best Alternative Rock/Metal (whatever) album. It held its own through the year I think. I saw Tomahawk perform most of it live and still think it is solid. I would say half of the songs shot way up on my list of favorite Patton tracks, the other half are OK. This super group is not his baby, he is a part player, but fronts it as he would anything. Putting himself forward as serving the song first and his ego well behind that…
    The Director’s Cut- …and file under another super group and cover album, this Fantomas collection of horror tracks is solid throughout. I have a favorite, but in its entirety there really is no weak spot.
    So I would say Patton has at least nine “great” albums that also support my assertion of his eclectic credentials. The same reason he is underrated.

  66. Peter Laughner is underrated. He was an important figure in the Cleveland music scene of the mid-seventies, helping to found the bands Rocket from the Tombs and Pere Ubu and co-writing the Dead Boys song “Ain’t it Fun” (later covered by Guns and Roses). He was also a great rock critic, and there seemed to be in him less separation between the writer and the musician than I feel there are in other critics/artists. Maybe that’s just a U.S. thing though; when Mick Farren or Julian Cope double as critics and musicians it’s no big deal, but over here whenever a critic has a band it usually isn’t taken seriously or is intentionally a joke or parody band-Patti Smith Group and Blue Oyster Cult being some possible exceptions (although Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye did distance themselves from their rock-critic pasts, and BOC I think was always meant to be a parody of heavy metal that ended up morphing into the real thing).

    Thinking about underrated influences on hip hop, what about Billy Squier? I once read that he was the most sampled artist in the history of the genre, and looking that up online I found this quote from Big Daddy Kane in a New York Post article: “He’s definitely someone who helped mold and shape hip-hop with his music,” Kane says. “I would put him in the category of James Brown, the Honeydrippers and Chic. He gave the B-boys and B-girls a track to dance to, but it would only be a DJ or an MC who knows who Billy Squier is.” Plus, I remember him saying in an interview back in the 80s something along the lines of “My lyrics don’t have any meaning, they’re just nonsense I sing over the music,” which I’m sure had a huge influence on the 90s alternative rock scene (Nirvana’s “Very Ape” always reminded me of Squier’s “Everybody Wants You”).

    Sonny Sharrock is the most underrated guitarist. I think he’s the best guitarist ever, so for me he’s impossible to overrate, but I had a lot of trouble finding his albums (when there used to be record stores around here). The only thing that was easy to find was his playing on the Miles Davis “Jack Johnson” album, which unfortunately he wasn’t credited with. A player who had all the technique and knowledge at his disposal, but didn’t let it get in the way of pure expression.

    dead horse is the most underrated death metal band. They were never well known outside of Houston, TX (except among some Swedish aficionados), but they had a unique style of songwriting, with lyrics that dealt with death (of course) but also relationships, anxiety, depression, war, landlords, getting fucked-up, you name it.

    Given some of the negative comments he received on the overrated bands thread, I think Bob Seger might be the most underrated musician. When I think of Bob Seger though, I think of the stuff he did from 1961-1972, and not so much “Night Moves” or the material that came after. By the time he recorded “Night Moves,” (his “breakthrough” success) he was in his mid-thirties and had been touring for a dozen years with little success outside the Detroit area, and he sounds weary from it. Most people only know his later work, which is partly Seger’s own fault, since he hasn’t allowed his early material to be re-released. I think the later Seger is just OK, but those singles he did in the 60s and early 70s: “2+2=?”, “East Side Story,” “Lucifer,” “Persecution Smith,” “Looking Back,” the list goes on…you could make an entire Nuggets compilation of 60s Seger singles, and it would be the best volume they ever put out.

  67. I nominate Gang of Four. When rock came back briefly in the early 00s, every band sounded like Gang of Four (and other circa 1977 bands like Wire, Television, the aforementioned Buzzcocks…but mostly Gang of Four). Despite the reissues and the reunion, they remain more obscure than they ought to be.

    The Pixies occupy a similar position relative to 90s “alt” rock. They are more well-known but not as much so as 90s groups who ripped them off, like Nirvana. (Not putting down Nirvana by the way; I love Nirvana.)

    I agree Sly and the Family Stone are underrated. That they are more influential than Hendrix is hard for me to accept. The Stones, sure. The Stones never really did anything a hundred other acts weren’t doing also. They just did it better than most. Dylan, well…I’d say Dylan’s influence is mostly in how we view performers as artists, and that is all-pervasive. It’s not all about him though–contemporaries of Dylan such as the Beatles were equally if not more influential in that way. Hendrix, though…no one who plays the electric guitar can escape the influence of Hendrix, but the electric guitar is on the wane these days. Still, all of these acts, and James Brown too (James Brown–along with his collaborators–is one of the biggest influences on American music as a whole, right up there with Louis Armstrong), are pretty damn highly rated. So whether they are more or less influential than Sly and the Family Stone doesn’t really make a difference to whether Sly and the Family Stone is underrated.

    Also, Rob Clough keeps bringing up Bootsy Collins but doesn’t seem to really acknowledge that Bootsy’s style came straight from Larry Graham. No P-Funk without Sly, yes, and no Bootsy without Graham either.

    Well there’s my two bull shit cents.

  68. Since I chimed in on the “overrated band” thread I feel I should pop in here too, just to show that I’m not so full of hate that hatred is the only thing that spills out of me and onto the internet.

    Sly Stone is a good one and so is Taj Mahal. The overlooked guy that I like the most is Terence Trent D’Arby. I think his first three albums are so effing fantastic I can’t believe he isn’t a solid gold statue in front of the Hall of Fame. I’ll stop now because I’ve been told by some that I like him more than is socially acceptable.

  69. Almost forgot… Julian Cope! I’m reading his memoir/reminiscences “Head On” at the moment, which has me listening to a bunch of his stuff.

  70. What’s the case for Taj Mahal. I like him but…if anything he’s overrated by his legion of NPR-listening aging baby boomer fans.

  73. Just listening to Sly’s “Small Talk,” an album almost universally panned…and it’s awesome. All dissonant, stumbling funk and drugged out humor (Shadrach, Mishek, Abednego”) — maybe not quite as amazing as Fresh, but definitely weirder and more coherently incoherent than anything George Clinton ever did.

    I hadn’t realized how half-hearted appreciation for his earlier albums is either; looked at a bunch of reviews of “Dance to the Music” that are all “eh.” And that album is wonderful. So I feel confirmed in my sense that he doesn’t get enough respect, damn it.

  74. Noah, I just saw your comment because I forgot to turn notifications on. “In The Golden Autumn” is my favorite Cleaners album, but there’s also a good best-of.

  76. Noah, Small Talk (and to a lesser degree, Fresh) may not have been critically praised, but certainly Riot and some of the other early albums were far more critically praised than P.Funk ever was…if anyone ever even deigned to review a P.Funk album in places like Rolling Stone. But the way in which the mostly white rock press ignored a lot of R&B/soul/funk (especially in the 70s) is a whole other issue.

    Noah, have you ever listened to the album Standing On The Verge of Getting It On, by Funkadelic? Jam packed with all that kind of funk you just mentioned, and funny/weird as well. You might want to check out the George/Sly collaboration “Funk Gets Stronger” (from Electric Spanking of War Babies) as well. That album also has the epic, filthy song Icka Prick, which is sort of like the Johnny Ryan of funk songs.

    Regarding James Brown and overrated/underrated. Yes, James Brown now is properly venerated. But after his 70s heyday, he became a punchline for critics. Hell, even during the 70s, a lot of his albums were not especially well-respected. It wasn’t until the Star Time box set and the rise of hip-hop that Brown got a major critical re-assessment.

    Regarding Bootsy and Larry Graham, Bootsy started off playing a standard Fender P-Bass with JB. Even at that time, prior to when Larry Graham started using the slap bass style, Bootsy had an aggressive and out-front way of playing bass that made it a co-lead instrument in the JBs, even if he and his band were picked up mostly because they knew every lick of his songs. (Bernard Odom was a much more significant influence on Bootsy initially than Larry Graham.) Brown knew it and actually gave Bootsy solos during shows, which was unprecedented for him prior to that. Certainly, Bootsy then adopted Graham’s slap bass style after he popularized it, but then he immediately mutated it and took it in a very different sonic direction than the other bass players who imitated it, like Louis Johnson (of Bros Johnson). Here you could see the influence of Hendrix coming in, as Bootsy was fascinated by the way envelope filters distorted and looped his sound, giving it a greater fullness.

  77. I don’t know…P funk is pretty thoroughly venerated at this point. The only Sly album that people consistently praise are the Greatest Hits collection and There’s a Riot Goin’ On. (It looks like Sly is 43 and George Clinton is 58 on the Rolling Stone list of 100 greatest artists, fwiw.)

  78. The major reason why, of course, is that P.Funk has had a very successful second act as a touring band starting in ’89, whereas Sly went crazy and left the music biz. The veneration that P.Funk has received came as a result of their constant presence on the scene (picking up scores of white fans as well) and the fact that their library had been picked over by hip-hop. Aside from a brief window from 75-78, they were strictly a cult band.

    Whereas Riot **always** gets mentioned as one of the greatest albums ever. Sure, some of the other material is overlooked, but Riot made Sly immortal.

    You know who’s overlooked? Curtis Mayfield. From his work with the Impressions to his killer solo career, his work was intelligent, soulful, funny, political, deeply funky and quirky. Apart from Superfly, few of his records are ever really hyped.

  81. I know the question wasn’t aimed at me but Curtis is a great album to check out after Supefly. I actually prefer it to Superfly.

  82. Good point about James Brown. The 80s were hard on him. Good points about Bootsy too. I was a bit unfair and needlessly argumentative.

  83. Noah–get Curtis and Roots, his first two solo records. Those are stone classics. Most underrated is Back to the World, which is a song cycle about a returning Viet Nam veteran. Curtis was not afraid to write about real shit in an unvarnished manner. If his Impressions work was notable for coding in political and civil rights messages in pop song form, then his solo work takes away the codes and gets brutally real. His song from the film “Short Eyes”, “Do Do Wap Is Strong In Here” (about a man in prison) is jaw-dropping in its frankness. Of course, the contrast between the sweetness of his voice and the seriousness of his message makes it all the more interesting to listen to.

  84. A lot more great suggestions!

    Matt H I am high on Gang of Four, Sly and the Family Stone (Bay Area kid) and Bootsy, but but the Pixies would be on my short list for sure! They really are a complete package and their own thing.

    Anthony Stock: As to Curtis Mayfield, “Curtis!” & “Future Shock” maybe my two favorite albums from the old neighborhood. Everyone loves Stevie, but Curtis is “my man!”

  85. Hendrixs influence will forever be felt, so just say stones/Dylan, and don’t get crazy.

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