What are the 5 most overrated rock albums?


1. The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band. The songs on this album are nowhere near as memorable as those on "Revolver" and "Rubber Soul". For that matter, this album is nowhere near as innovative, nor ultimately as influential, as either "Pet Sounds" or the first Velvet Underground album. I'm not the first to point out that blame for such artless excess as all seventeen minutes of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida rests primarily with Sgt. Pepper.

2. Pink Floyd: The Wall. All of the criticisms usually applied to late 70's stadium rock, i.e., that it was pretentious, bloated, pseudo-intellectual,and self-indulgent; apply doubly to this crock opera. If you want witty and insightful philosophizing on the human condition, read Nietzsche, H.L. Mencken, or Michel Foucault. To seek such wisdom from pop music, a genre defined by its righteous Dionysian folly, is the greatest folly imaginable.

Pearl Jam: 10. Johnny Rotten was bang on when he described Pearl Jam as "bloody awful" and as sounding like "Joe Cocker singing for Black Sabbath." To my ears, this sounds like so much bland 70's rock (e.g., Bad Company). As The Monkees are to The Beatles, so are Pearl Jam to Nirvana.

4. U2: The Joshua Tree. I don't know where to begin. These guys plagiarized Joy Division, and set their sublime riffs to dumbass lyrics bespeaking the most niave sort of Oprah Winfrey meets Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms bourgeois liberalism. I've said it before, I'll say it again: If you make me listen to a record by someone named Bono, his first name better be SONNY.

5. Bob Marley & The Wailers: Exodus. Not only was Bob Marley not, by a long shot, the best pop music figure to come out of Jamaica, he wasn't even my favorite member of The Wailers. The monomaniacal cult of personality surrounding the deceased Robert Nesta Marley comes at the expense of all the other, far more exciting, music to come out of that poverty-stricken island. As Lester Bangs put it:

"Toots and the Maytalls, who never got promoted properly, are the real heat from a Stax/Volt kitchen, whereas Marley always struck me as being so laid back he seemed almost MOR. Rastaman Vibration was the last straw: an LP obviously calculated to break Disco Bob into the American Kleenex radio market full force, complete with chicklet vocal backdrops chirping 'Pos-i-tive!'
tweakgeek
I thought the criticism of the Stones and Springsteen and some others was interesting. Its not supposed to be art. Mick got it right: "its only rock and roll but I like it." So what if its only three cords. Some great painters never used more than the primary colors. You can dissect it if you want but you miss the point. When you get the sound right, and turn it up does it light your candle? Without proclaiming something "is" or "is not" art I will answer the question on this thread as to what is "most overrated". For me that's anything by Jethro Tull.
The Wall is a horrific album. One can create all the thematic nuance and depth and still sound boring. A complete rip off of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Jean Paul Satre's No Exit, and too many others to mention. This was Rock's most pretentious excercise. While I don't deny it's social relevance (a lot of people were sucked in by this album) it's still musically lacking in ideas, originality, and insight. This is proof that any thing can be sold to any one. I feel dirty writing about. Always loved Roger Waters though, very candid and funny. My favorite quote from him? "We're just bloody awful, and bloody rich." He then went on proclaiming how stupid Pink Floyd fans were and how he could fart on record and it would go platinum. Very funny guy.
Of course this is the silliest posting of all time-you do not need to be Einstein to realise everybody dislikes something that is highly rated-there is hardly an artist mentioned (including my own posting)that I do not own or rate to some extent--the reason being I love music.
I pick up records where I might only like one track and collect poor albums by artists I love....I find Beowolf's comment about the Stones and Springsteen not being art interesting because I think I could a very strong argument that both these artists at their peak did in fact produce some (even if only snippets) of the greatest popular music of the 20th Century and because to me their content and impact went beyond entertainment then to me that is art........
Ultimately though only the specific listener can make their mind up but I do cringe when I see artists as important as The Smiths,Springsteen,Gabriel and the Stones slaughtered-I do wish most of these posters would give some indication of some music that is better,so I can go out and buy some more music or alternatively fall off my chair laughing....why has nobody mentioned The Cowboy Junkies...........only joking Garfish.....
Thanks for your responses. I'm glad that I was able to stir up some discussion. I'm even more glad that eveybody seems to be able to kvetch about LPs that annoy us, without getting nasty and abusive. Some of your choices for inclusion on this list are truly inspired, especially those from Kthomas.

Truth be told, a fairly comprehensive top ten list of the most overrated rock albums of all time might consist of Hotel California in the #1 slot, and everything The Smiths ever did in positions 2 through 10. I am also glad to know that I am not the only punter who thinks that Green Day bite the proverbial big one.