What songs to you are over-rated?

[Archae]

"Free Bird" by Lynrd Skynrd.

Cliche #1 in rock music, guy who has to "ramble."
We call them "drifters" or "bums."

[hifiguy]

1. Hard to argue with that clunker.

The lyrics are, as you say, one cliche troweled atop another, and it it's pretty much two three chord riffs, musically speaking. I never much cared for boogie bands or Southern rock to begin with.

[treestar]

4. But what about the guitar work?

I've come to appreciate that long guitar solos of southern rock.

When I was a kid thought, I always changed stations when Free Bird came on, due to its length.

[hifiguy]

9. It's OK, but Wishbone Ash's Andy Powell and Ted Turner

did dueling leads with far more imagination and no blues cliches. And Ted and Andy were doing it well before Lynyrd Skynyrd.

On the bluesier side of the tracks, Duane Allman and Dicky Betts were light years better than LS at the two-guitar call/response/harmony thing. See "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" from Live At the Fillmore. That track is 40 years old and still blows my mind, especially when Duane's slide guitar re-enters towards the end. Pure musical fireworks.

[EastTennesseeDem]

13. yes yes YES!

Wishbone Ash are among the most influential of any blues rock bands that accumulated fame of the early 70s (and late 60s). Powell and Turner are collectively my favorite guitarist.

[MiddleFingerMom]

2. Most Classic Rock "anthems" - plodding and formulaic.

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"We call them "drifters" or "bums.""
.
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No, "we" don't.
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.
.

[jobycom]

7. They weren't when they came out.

They are now because every wannabee with a garage has overplayed, over-imitated, and over-tributed them to the point where they are barely more than elevator music. Stairway to Heaven was brilliant, if pretentious, once upon a time, but now it sounds formulaic because so many since then has tried to imitate it.

[ohiosmith]

3. "Star Spangled Banner"

Lyrics are hard to understand, and you can't dance to it.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

18. It was cool when Jimi Hendrix did it at Woodstock

Not so cool when everybody else was still doing it in the 80s...

[Iris]

21. Yes, I was going to say "except for the Jimi Hendrix version"!

[treestar]

5. That song Sinead O'Connor did where she cried in the video

All hype surrounding her at the time.

[HappyMe]

6. Oh, I love that song.

She has a beautiful voice.

[Iris]

22. Me, too! Wasn't it written by Prince?

[HappyMe]

28. Yup.

[treestar]

47. Well b4 the days of texting!

2 U !!

[bigwillq]

31. You have no heart.

LOL




That song is amazing.

[OriginalGeek]

8. Nickleback

all of it.


Even if any one of their songs is rated negatively, it's still over-rated.


I do still practice the Stairway rule in my car though. That being, if I arrive at my destination and Stairway to Heaven is still playing, I do not get out until it's done. Been late for more than a few things because of it but you got ta have principles!

[cliffordu]

10. First thing that jumped into my mind after reading the title to the OP....

And, ANYTHING EVER DONE BY BURTON CUMMINGS and the "guess who"

A Randy Bachmann pukefest....(tm)

[OriginalGeek]

14. Well!

No sugar tonight in your coffee.

[gratuitous]

16. Just for that . . .

Tomorrow's AOTD will be pure ipecac.

[Art_from_Ark]

43. "American Woman" was one of my favorite songs of 1969/70

It is still one of my favorites.

[cliffordu]

44. BUT....it's not really a song, it's like a chant -

No "B" section, no verses, really, just that chorus, repeated endlessly......

[Art_from_Ark]

45. There are verses, and there's a short refrain

American woman, stay away from me
American woman, mama let me be

Don't come hanging around my door
I don't want to see your face no more
I got more important things to do
Than spend my time growin' old with you
Now woman, I said stay away
American woman, listen what I say

American woman, get away from me
American woman, mama let me be

Don't come knocking around my door
I don't want to see your shadow no more
Colored lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else's eyes
Now woman, I said get away
American woman, listen what I say

American woman, I said get away
American woman, listen what I say

Don't come hanging around my door
Don't want to see your face no more
I don't need your war machines
I don't need your ghetto scenes
Colored lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else's eyes
Now woman, I said get away
American woman, listen what I say

American woman, stay away from me
American woman, mama let me be

Go, gotta get away, gotta get away now go, go, go
I'm gonna leave you woman
Gonna leave you woman
Bye-bye Bye-bye Bye-bye Bye-bye
You're no good for me
I'm no good for you
Gonna look you right in the eye
Tell you what I'm gonna do
You know I'm gonna leave
You know I'm gonna go
You know I'm gonna leave
You know I'm gonna go-o, woman
I'm gonna leave you woman
Goodbye American Woman

[HappyMe]

11. Abba

Seriously.

[bluedigger]

12. Anything by Radiohead or Bon Iver.

I watched the live feed from Coachella the other night, and realized I had missed nothing by not being familiar with those two.

[RZM]

19. Bon Iver is way overrated IMO

He tries way too hard to capture that 80s chic and somehow make it cool. It's not. Bruce Hornsby had his place and time and this definitely is not it.

[Populist_Prole]

15. Stairway To Heaven

I'm sorry but though it's not a bad song as such, it's nowhere near their best.

Mostly it's my backlash against brain-dead top-40 types ( or those "classic rock" types ) that only know LZ through that tune ( and want to hear no other ones )

[WhoIsNumberNone]

17. Just about all of Led Zeppelin's radio tracks

Especially Stairway to Heaven.

Everything by Kiss
Paul McCartney's solo stuff
Eric Clapton

My big cliché's are:
1) songs where the chorus is a clichéd phrase (e.g. "If Dirt Were Dollars", "Between a Rock and a Hard Place", etc) There were quite a lot of these in the mid to late 80s, and the trite sayings almost never meter well.

2) Songs about going to shows, playing shows, or writing songs. Paul McCartney is one of the worst offenders in this category, but there were a lot of people from his era who committed this particular sin.

3) "Tour songs". These always end up being little more than travelogues set to music, where they just name off a bunch of cities. (Deep Purple's "Space Truckin'" may be an exception here, since it's a tour song about going to other planets)

[RZM]

20. Good point with Paul McCartney

I never liked Wings or anything else he did after the Beatles. Just not for me.

A lot of tour songs are kind of lacking. Though I think this one is a classic. By far my favorite tour song ever

[LASlibinSC]

23. Free Bird

nuff said

[guitar man]

24. Mustang Sally

It's been played to death 20 times over. We won't play it now for less than a $100 tip.

There's even a nifty flowchart for it

[dogknob]

40. nice

[Arctic Dave]

25. Anything by the last stage Beatles.

Thank you Yoko Ono for breaking them up and stopping their hypersonic trajectory of total suck.

[harmonicon]

26. How exactly did she break them up?

They somehow managed to put out a number of albums while she was in their circle. Then, once the band did break up, the first two Plastic Ono Band albums were awesome, while Paul McCartney put out... umm... some record with some songs on it, I guess.

[dogknob]

41. Yeah. That whole "Abbey Road" affair was just unacceptable...

[Arctic Dave]

42. Yes. Absolutely horrid. Thank you.

[av8rdave]

27. Funny...Freebird was what I had in mind before I opened this thread

A weak, hit-in-a-hurry piece of work from an otherwise great band.

[GoCubsGo]

29. Yep. The ultimate overrated song, IMO.

Overrated. Overplayed. If I never heard it again, I would not miss it.

[Iggo]

30. Re: Free Bird

The first half bows.

After the singing's over, it kicks ten kinds of ass.

[Baitball Blogger]

32. I think it was suppose to take the pot smokers for a ride.

[Baitball Blogger]

33. I have serious trouble with a Horse with No Name.

It changes the chemical balance of my brain.

[Archae]

35. Oh yeah.

Sounded so "profound" decades ago, now it sounds like something some idiot wrote while stoned out of their gourd.

[RebelOne]

50. Sorry, but I love that song. n/t

[PassingFair]

34. OMG, "Color My World" by Chicago.

Worst. Song. Ever.

[Swede]

36. That one by Rick Astley that everyone keeps linking to.

Guys,it's horrible.

[AnneD]

39. I remember when I finally saw the performance video.....

When I listened to the song, I though it was by a big hulking black dude (a la Teddy Pendergrass). Then I saw this scrawny white English guy singing it. And I'll confess I did something I rarely do....I looked at his crotch because that boy had to have some serious testosterone going on.....

[pipi_k]

37. Everything by

Bruce Springsteen. Hate him, hate his voice, hate his songs.

Also, just about every Country Western song less than 35 years old.

[Archae]

38. Me too.

Springsteen has two modes of singing:

Mumble yum yumble

The sound a water buffalo would make if it was kicked in the nads.

[Zorra]

46. As a guitarist, I totally disagree that Freebird or Stairway are overrated.

I can play both songs, and the guitar solos are well constructed and clever, and they are not the simplest solos in the world to play, either.

Guitar World ranks the solo in Freebird as #3 all time, the solo in Stairway #1 all time.

http://www.guitarworld.com/50-greatest-guitar-solos?page=0,4

If you think I might be "claiming" about being able to play the solos on those songs, here is a sample of some of my guitar work on a new original tune. The first solo starts at about 2:50, the 2nd solo at 4:50.

Tastes in music are matters of opinion, but come on now, there's a whole lot of truly musically lame songs out there that are waaaay more overrated than Freebird or Stairway.

[Major Nikon]

48. Happy Birthday

[nytemare]

49. Rihanna.

I cannot even tolerate the sound of her nasaly auto-tuned voice. I go into fight or flight mode, it is so irritating to me. I can't understand how she gets played on the radio every 40 minutes, and other artists with actual talent get no airtime at all. A co-worker used to have a station on her radio, and like clockwork, I would hear. "Ohh na na, what's my name, what's my name, what's my name". If she didn't use headphones now I think I would be in the looney bin.