Most Overrated Albums of All Time – IOTW Report

Most Overrated Albums of All Time

Sunday, 22 October 2023, 14:00 Dr. Tar Uncategorized 68

Even if you disagree with those selected for this list there are some pretty good laughs to be had at the expense of the pretentious and overblown in the commentary here (looking at you Radiohead “Kid A” and Fleetwood Mac “Rumors”). Watch

I’d add Supertramp “Breakfast in America” as an album and group I can’t listen to anymore.

68 Comments on Most Overrated Albums of All Time

  1. Here’s one: Spaced Out: The Best Of Leonard Nimoy And William Shatner

    Everybody who ever actually listened to this album said it was the worst thing they ever heard. That was a gross over-rating.

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  4. One thing I learned a long time ago, re-enforced by watching Siskel and Ebert (remember those guys?) is that you like what you like, and nobody, not even a guy wearing a Tom Petty shirt (talk about over-rated), can convince you what is good or bad, or shame you for liking what he doesn’t approve of.

    Whether it be music, movies, books, art, or whatever, my preferences, even if they fall outside the norms of the “experts” are all that matters.

    And of those he mentioned, the only one that I bought (and liked) was Rumors.

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  5. @Uncle Al – I have Golden Throats.
    Shatner: ‘Lucy, in the Sky, with Diamonds.’ 🙂
    And Nimoy sings ‘Proud Mary’
    Although I like his ‘Has Been’ album. Well, a couple of songs. He doesn’t sing as much as speak – but it has Joe Jackson’s band as backup.

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  6. A few of them begin with ‘while it is a ground-breaking album…’ Not sure what he wants from it. Overrated can mean it’s a 9.5 but everyone gave it a 10, and I think he is making that argument for some of these. For others I understand his point.

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  13. I’ll listen to 70s Petty but not post 70s Petty. Can’t listen to anything by Mellencamp and I don’t like post-Terry Kath Chicago. I assume that makes the albums of those eras overrated, especially the ones that still get air play.

    I never did get the Grateful Dead cult, and agree that “Frampton Comes Alive” was a product of it’s time that doesn’t hold up today. I tried to listen to it recently and was thoroughly underwhelmed.

    Not a big fan of Jethro Tull, the flute novelty long ago wore off, so “Aqualung” would be way overrated for me.

    Sometimes I can’t believe I ever listened to the stuff I use to be into. Times change, taste change, I guess.

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  14. Some of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s rock was trash, but just about everything post 2005 or so is trash.

    The modern rock/pop music for the most part has no catchy tunes anymore. Does any of this new stuff provide anyone any pleasant ear bugs? A tune that stays in your mind day after day? Not me, because it is all eminently forgettable.

    My theory: remember when George Harrison got sued for supposedly stealing the tune from a 1960s Motown group? His song was My Sweet Lord, and the tune he stole was He’s So Fine, by, I think, The Chiffons.

    So finding unique tunes that have never before been recorded, is a difficult thing now. They have to try to come up with melodies that can’t be construed as having been stolen from a prior recording.

    Composers have run out of tunes, just like Hollywood has run out of stories. For me, the result is I don’t need so-called entertainment much any more. There are better things to do.

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  17. Some say “Po-ta-to” some say “Po-tah-to.”
    Some say “To-ma-to” some say “To-mah-to.”

    Q: “Why is it your favorite?”
    A: “I guess cuz I like it the best.”

    It’s all great fun.

    mortem tyrannis
    izlamo delenda est …

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  19. I have around 300 vinyl LPs from the 70s I won’t listen to. They were OK for the time, but I don’t want to re-live the 70s over and over even though it was a good time for me. So I’m thinking all the suggestions are just outdated rather than over or under-rated.

    The best I’ve heard about my collection is when someone told me I was probably sitting on a small gold mine. It came up in conversation because some 20-something and 30 something tenants had Lps from the 70s currently on their turntables when I serviced their units and I thought that was interesting. The albums were from before their time, so I guess it’s all new to them. They both decorated their walls with album covers I have in my collection. I can say mine are in better shape than the ones displayed.

    Oh yeah, How about Heart? lol I have an album they did where the vinyl is also the artwork.

    I think I rated my albums on how long it took me to burn out on them.

    Worst ever for the 70s for me? The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Overplayed like it was being used for a torture chamber and the song wasn’t that good to begin with.

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  20. The topic is most overrated albums, not the stuff you didn’t enjoy. It’s okay for something you liked plenty can be on this list. If everyone had it, chances are it was overrated.

    Frampton Comes Alive is the poster child. Great album, a yard sale staple, and a Wayne’s World referential joke enjoyed by all.

    Kiss Alive III, yes. But not Kiss Alive I and certainly not Kiss Alive II.

    Riverdance. Zamphir.

    Anything by Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, or Barbara Streisand. Good music, but not stuff everyone should own.

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  28. Dad of 4, I agree with you about The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. It wasn’t exactly Gordon Lightfoot’s best song. All the dog albums and real stinkeroos my brother would take them and blast them to pieces with his CO2 powered pellet gun like he was playing a mutant game of skeet. Pull, blammo. A friend mine of back in the 90’s once brought one of his sons rap/hip-hop CDs to work with him and proceeded to destroy it with a hammer. We all joined in and cheered him on. It was a cathartic experience in joint fatherhood.

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  29. Well, I’ve lived through the albums from the 60’s, 70’s 80’s and 90’s and have a bunch of them. Some I still like and play occasionally, others I keep on the shelf just in case.

    My favorite that I haven’t tired of yet is “Time” by ELO. That’s a sit in the dark with the head phones on and forget about the real World album. To each their own I guess.

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  37. Just listened to about half of the Rolling Stoney album released on Friday. It’s a snooze fest. One song supposedly featured Paul McCartney. If he could heard in the song I didn’t hear him.

  40. ^^^ I had this same discussion with a tennis buddy about 6 months ago, the premise was that you could take the entire collection of one person (or group) to a desert island, but you would be there for the rest of your life. I didn’t have to think hard and it was a group that 1000 other people would not choose.

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  43. I caught wind this summer about Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors is the best Fleetwood Mac album, and the best album for its time. I scratched my head, and said, hmmm, I don’t remember listening to that album. Put it on while I hammered out a paver patio and have no desire to listen to it again.

    Funny I thought Nirvana Nevermind before watching and he mentions it. lol.

  44. I remember driving a UHaul with all my earthly possessions from California to Virginia in 1977 and stuck with AM radio back when Hotel California came out. The song would fade from one station as we left their broadcast area and the same song would fade up as we entered the next area. By the time we got to Virginia I never wanted to hear that song again. It was water boarding on wheels.

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  46. Rich Taylor:

    …premise was that you could take the entire collection of one person (or group) to a desert island, but you would be there for the rest of your life…

    The group I’d take would be the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

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  48. Dag nabbit, Rich! OK, then, I might change my mind after more thought, but I’m leaning toward Paul Simon, especially if I could include his early albums with that other guy who sang well but didn’t write much.

    Yeah, you can call me Al. (-:

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  52. @ PHenry SUNDAY, 22 OCTOBER 2023, 20:16 AT 8:16 PM

    I was 12 and was on a road trip from NW Indiana up to the boundary waters of northern MN. Hotel California and Barracuda played about every half hour. Great times.

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  54. These “lists” are always relative to the generation who is making the “list”. Ask someone who grew up in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and the 00s about what was the “greatest” album, and you’ll get six different answers.

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  55. Rich, I’d be delighted to take Art G. along with Paul S. The two of them did some fine work. But for that life-long desert isle sojourn, I’d want everything of Simon’s after the duo broke up.

    Paul Simon has recorded such a wide range of genres and styles, and all of it with top-notch artistry, that he may be one of a very few musical artists who could hold my interest indefinitely.

    OK, then. It’s either Paul Simon (with Art G.), or Looking Glass. *snicker*

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  63. ‘Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs’ by Derrick and the Dominos is impossible to overrate. By the way, Bruce Springsteen reeks of all that is not pure. That no-talent bastard sucks royally.

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  66. Loco, “anything by Dylan”.
    Hell yeah!

    Ditto “ “ Cher, the Beatles, Cher, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Abba (just kill me!), and hundreds more I can’t recall on short notice.

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