Music Banter - View Single Post - The Definitve List: Most Overrated Bands\Artists ever

Son of JayJamJah · 07-10-2008, 03:12 PM

13. John Lennon

Most Overrated Album: Mind Games
Most Overrated song: Starting Over

So doing this one sucks. I was always a Lennon guy over McCartney. I was 14 when Lennon released his finest solo work Imagine which is almost as good as the best Beatles albums. I loved it from note one. I followed Lennon's every move, every step he took the teenage me aspired to follow. I watched the news that day in 1980 when he was killed, I was 23, I wanted to die too. Hell I dressed as him for Halloween 11 straight years ('81-'91). Still if I'm being honest when I look back at it, he produced a metric ton of inexcusable musical waste along with that golden calf slaughtering super **** yoko Ono.

Let's first concede and happily so that Imagine is phenomenal and that Plastic Ono Band (when removed from it's sister album) also holds up never well. Songs like "Working Class Hero", "Isolation", "I Found Out" and "Love" to name a few are very good. But that's still no excuse for the other seven complete disasters. The three part Unfinished Music series was an atrocity which I only reviewed years after it's release. When you listen to it you can't help but think...this what broke up the Beatles. Then following the first two "offical albums" came "Sometime in New York" this load of garbage ruined my week in 1972. I remember the first time I heard it, we we're all confused. 10 tracks and not one of them even remotely enjoyable. Ono was a disgrace on this album, and the then controversial single "Woman is the (N-Word) of the World" is one of the single worst ideas ever. The hypocrisy of writing and\or ignorance that it takes to write that song and title it that is disturbing.

What really earns him the over rated title is that despite having only two quality albums, or at most four (Double Fantasy and Mind Games were also well reviewed mostly) he is ranked alongside the likes of Dylan, The Who, The Stones and other prolific artists\bands of the same era. Overall his solo catalog is worlds short of the Beatles run and yet there he is usually at most 20 spots behind he and the fab three in greatest ever lists. There is no disputing his talent, but he sacrificed a lot of his ability to try and carry Yoko with him and musically that was a selfish choice that deserves to has consequences and one of those is being the 13th most over rated artist in music history.

07-10-2008, 03:12 PM	#101 (permalink)
Son of JayJamJah Occams Razor Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: End of the Earth Posts: 2,472	13. John Lennon Most Overrated Album: Mind Games Most Overrated song: Starting Over So doing this one sucks. I was always a Lennon guy over McCartney. I was 14 when Lennon released his finest solo work Imagine which is almost as good as the best Beatles albums. I loved it from note one. I followed Lennon's every move, every step he took the teenage me aspired to follow. I watched the news that day in 1980 when he was killed, I was 23, I wanted to die too. Hell I dressed as him for Halloween 11 straight years ('81-'91). Still if I'm being honest when I look back at it, he produced a metric ton of inexcusable musical waste along with that golden calf slaughtering super **** yoko Ono. Let's first concede and happily so that Imagine is phenomenal and that Plastic Ono Band (when removed from it's sister album) also holds up never well. Songs like "Working Class Hero", "Isolation", "I Found Out" and "Love" to name a few are very good. But that's still no excuse for the other seven complete disasters. The three part Unfinished Music series was an atrocity which I only reviewed years after it's release. When you listen to it you can't help but think...this what broke up the Beatles. Then following the first two "offical albums" came "Sometime in New York" this load of garbage ruined my week in 1972. I remember the first time I heard it, we we're all confused. 10 tracks and not one of them even remotely enjoyable. Ono was a disgrace on this album, and the then controversial single "Woman is the (N-Word) of the World" is one of the single worst ideas ever. The hypocrisy of writing and\or ignorance that it takes to write that song and title it that is disturbing. What really earns him the over rated title is that despite having only two quality albums, or at most four (Double Fantasy and Mind Games were also well reviewed mostly) he is ranked alongside the likes of Dylan, The Who, The Stones and other prolific artists\bands of the same era. Overall his solo catalog is worlds short of the Beatles run and yet there he is usually at most 20 spots behind he and the fab three in greatest ever lists. There is no disputing his talent, but he sacrificed a lot of his ability to try and carry Yoko with him and musically that was a selfish choice that deserves to has consequences and one of those is being the 13th most over rated artist in music history. Last edited by Son of JayJamJah; 07-10-2008 at 05:24 PM.