Queen – "Fat Bottomed Girls" (1978)

Left alone with big fat Fanny

She was such a naughty nanny

Heap big woman, you made a bad boy out of me

Most of the recording artists who I have classified as overrated have released a few good records.  The problem is that there is way too much dross relative to the amount of gold in their music.

Elvis Presley, the Grateful Dead, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen . . . all of them pumped out a lot of crap.  But every once in a while, they produced a gem. 

Queen is different.  Every single one of their records is plain old unlistenable.

Leonard Pinth-Garnell would have agreed:

Dan Aykroyd as Leonard Pinth-Garnell

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Queen’s 1981 Greatest Hits album is the biggest-selling album of all time in the UK, with 6.3 million albums sold as of December 2018. 

Think about that. 

The songs on that album include “Killer Queen,” “You’re My Best Friend,” “Somebody to Love,” “We Are the Champions,” “We Will Rock You,” “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” “Bicycle Race,” “Another One Bites the Dust,” and – last but not least – “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Respondents to an informal poll conducted by humorist Dave Barry in 1992 chose Richard Harris’s recording of “MacArthur Park” is the worst song of all time.  I assume that “MacArthur Park” won only because there are so many bad Queen singles that the anti-Queen vote was split among them.

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Which of the Queen singles listed above is the worst?  

I would say “Bohemian Rhapsody” because it clocks in at almost six minutes, which makes it the longest cut on the Greatest Hits album.  (Six minutes doesn’t sound that long until you spend six minutes listening to “Bohemian Rhapsody” from start to finish.)

How would I rank the other songs on that album?   They’re all tied for second worst.

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Queen’s Greatest Hits doesn’t appear on the list of the 100 best-selling albums in the United States.

I’d like to think that’s because Americans have better taste when it comes to pop music than Brits do.  But I was quickly disabused of that notion when I looked at the list of the albums that have sold the most copies in the U.S.

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“Fat Bottomed Girls” is a one-trick pony of a song, and utterly tasteless to boot.  But it’s probably my favorite Queen song . . . which says a lot about their oeuvre as a whole.

Click here to listen to “Fat Bottomed Girls.”

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Blue Öyster Cult – "Before the Kiss, a Redcap" (1972)

Their lips apart like swollen rose

Their tongues extend and then retract

I discovered Blue Öyster Cult almost 50 years ago when I bought a Columbia Records three-record sampler album titled Music People at a record store in Houston, Texas:

Back then, record companies issued sampler albums to publicize new bands or give a bit of a goose to more well-known musicians whose forthcoming albums weren’t expected to do very well. 

The most famous of these sampler albums were the “Loss Leaders” series of mostly double albums produced by Warner Brothers/Reprise records and sold by mail order for $2. The musicians represented on The Big Ball, Schlagers, and others of that ilk included some very mainstream artists (like Petula Clark and Peter, Paul and Mary), but were dominated by crazies like the Fugs, Captain Beefheart, and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

Music People included cuts by superstars (Bob Dylan, the Byrds), cult favorites (Spirit, It's a Beautiful Day, Mahavishnu Orchestra), and some utterly forgotten never-wases (Sweathog, Compost, Grootna, and Mylon with Holy Smoke).

The fourth cut on side one of “Music People” was “I’m On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep” by Blue Öyster Cult (or “BÖC,” as I will hereinafter abbreviate it) - and it impressed me sufficiently that I immediately ran out and bought BÖC's eponymous first album, which led off with this song. 

That's right, boys and girls.  Columbia Records sucked me right in – I did EXACTLY what they hoped I would do.

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BÖC’s biggest single, “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper,” was released in 1976 on its fourth studio album, Agents of Fortune.  If I hadn’t bought Music People, that might have been the first BÖC record I ever heard.  And if that had been the case, I would never have explored the group’s earlier albums – I wasn’t a fan of “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper.”  (None of my friends owned those albums, and I never heard a BÖC song on the radio before “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” became a hit.)

But Music People caused me to buy the first BÖC album, which caused me to buy their second album (Tyranny and Mutation), which caused me to buy their third album (Secret Treaties).

The cover of BÖC’s eponymous debut album

BÖC’s first two LPs failed to crack the Billboard top 100, while Secret Treaties made it only to #53.  But those albums are chockful of great songs, none of which sound like any other group you’ve ever heard.  (The lyrics, the guitars, the drums – every aspect of those records is distinctive.)

If I put my ten favorite BÖC songs up against my ten favorite Rolling Stones songs or my ten favorite Led Zeppelin songs, I’m not sure which group would come out on top.  (I am sure that no other group’s best ten songs would match up to BÖC’s.)

Underrated?  You can say that again.

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I featured “I’m On The Lamb but I Ain't No Sheep” on a 2010 2 or 3 lines post.  I’m shocked that’s the only post about a BÖC song that I’ve ever written.

Of course, that post spends a lot of time talking about not only the featured song, but also four other songs from those first three BÖC albums – including “Before the Kiss, a Redcap” (which may be my personal G.O.A.T. BÖC song).

Click here to listen to “Before the Kiss, a Redcap.”  And click here to read what Genius.com has to say about what the song means.

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Eagles – "Already Gone" (1974)

So oftentimes it happens

That we live our lives in chains

And we never even know we have the key

The best-selling album of all time in the United States is the Eagles’ Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975), which contained the most popular songs from that group’s first four studio album:

It has sold 38 million copies.  (The mind boggles.)

If that doesn’t prove ipso facto that the Eagles are overrated, it comes pretty damn close.

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“Take It Easy” – the group’s first hit – isn’t bad.  And I really like today’s featured song, “Already Gone.”

  

But the remaining songs on Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) – including #1 hits “Best of My Love” and “One of These Nights,” “Peaceful Easy Feelin’,” and “Take It to the Limit” – are just awful. 

In 2016, Gersh Kuntzman correctly opined in the New York Daily News that the Eagles were a horrific band.

“The Eagles were suburban conformity, writ large — the music you mom and dad would let you play on the living room hifi,” Kuntzman went on to say.  He took special aim at “Best of My Love,” which he said “sounds even too soft for an elevator.”

Kuntzman isn’t alone in his disdain for the Eagles.  Legendary rock critic Robert Christgau wrote this about the Eagles in 1972:  

Another thing that interests me about the Eagles is that I hate them. “Hate” is the kind of up-tight word that automatically excludes one from polite posthippie circles, a good reason to use it, but it is also meant to convey an anguish that is very intense, yet difficult to pinpoint.  Do I hate music that has been giving me pleasure all weekend, made by four human beings I've never met?  Yeah, I think so. 

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When Jeff Bridges’ “The Dude” character in The Big Lebowski gets in a cab and hears “Peaceful Easy Feeling” playing on the radio, he asks the driver to change the station. “Man, I've had a rough night,” he tells the cabbie, “and I hate the f*cking Eagles!”  

The Dude is so full of sh*t that his eyes are brown, but he was right on about the Eagles.

Vernett Bader

So was Vernett Bader, who went after her roommate and his brother with a 14-inch serrated bread knife a few years ago when they refused to stop playing Eagles records.  Click here to read more about that incident.

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Click here to listen to “Already Gone.”

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Animals – "Boom Boom" (1965)

I like the way you walk

I like the way you talk

When you walk that walk

And you talk that talk

Most people would agree that if there were a Mount Rushmore for “British Invasion” bands, the four groups represented would be the Beatles, Kinks, Rolling Stones, and Who.

The Animals just miss out.  For one thing, they didn’t stay together as long as those groups – so their musical oeuvre isn’t quite as broad and deep.  They never released an album that purported to be anything more than a collection of singles: there’s no Animals album that’s the equivalent of Sgt. Pepper or Arthur or Let It Bleed or The Who Sell Out.

The Animals performing live in 1965

Second, the Animals didn’t write any of their best singles.  Right or wrong, groups that did mostly covers aren’t given the same regard as groups that wrote their own songs.

But in a span of fourteen months, the Animals released “House of the Rising Sun” (a tour de force version of a traditional folk song) and three great singles written by Brill Building songwriters: “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” and “It’s My Life.”  

I don’t think you can point to four songs by any of the Mount Rushmore groups that match up to those four.  Despite that, most people underrate the Animals.

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Most of the tracks on the Animals’ early albums were blues or R&B covers – including songs previously recorded by Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Willie Dixon, Jimmy Reed, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and John Lee Hooker.

Hooker originally recorded today’s featured song in 1961.  The Animals covered “Boom Boom” in 1965.

Click here to listen to the Animals’ cover of “Boom Boom.” 

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Prince and the Revolution – "Purple Rain" (1984)

If you know what I'm singin’ about up here

Come on, raise your hand

(You’ll note that my hand isn’t raised.)

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I never got Prince.  He recorded a few good songs, but I find a lot of his music (including today’s featured song) very, very tedious.

OVERRATED!

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Click here to listen to “Purple Rain,” the title track from the soundtrack album of the same name (which has sold over 25 million copies worldwide).

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Kinks – "Dead End Street" (1966)

What are we living for?

Two-room apartment on the second floor

No chance to emigrate

I’m deep in debt and now it’s much too late

In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine assembled a panel of 55 musicians, critics, and industry executives and asked them to name the 100 most influential artists of the rock ’n’ roll era.  (The list was updated in 2011.)

Most of the recording artists that I will identify as “overrated” in this years “29 Posts in 29 Days” are on that list – some of them are near the top of that list.

Not surprisingly, most of the artists that I will identify as “underrated” aren’t on that list.  If the consensus is that you belong in the all-time top 100, it’s hard to make a strong case that you’re underrated.

Hard – but not impossible . . .

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I don’t think there’s much doubt that if there were a Mount Rushmore of “British Invasion” bands, the four groups that most deserve to be on it are the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, and the Kinks.

Rolling Stone ranks the Beatles as #1 on its “most influential list,” with the Rolling Stones at #4, the Who at #29, and Kinks at #65.

The Who should rank higher, and the Kinks should rank much higher.  They had their share of hit singles – “You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night,” “Tired of Waiting for You,” and “Lola” all made the top ten in the U.S. – but few Americans paid much attention to their albums.

[NOTE: Can you believe that the Who had only one top ten single in the U.S. – “I Can See for Miles”?]

Virtually every album that the Beatles or Rolling Stones released in the second half of the sixties made it to#1 or #2 on the album charts, while the Kinks were lucky when one of their albums cracked the top 50.

In fact, most of their very best albums – albums like Something Else and Arthur – never even made it into the top 100.

Go figure.

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Rolling Stone chose Peter Buck of R.E.M. to write a brief essay on the Kinks for its top 100 article.  I’m not a big fan of R.E.M., but Buck’s appreciation of the Kinks is excellent:

I’ve got pretty much every note the Kinks recorded on my iPod — certainly everything through 1980.  And it all sounds good.

The Kinks are the only major band from the sixties I can think of that didn’t go psychedelic, didn’t do any of that crap that all of the other big bands did at the time.  When everyone was writing song cycles about Eastern mysticism, Ray Davies was writing about a two-up/two-down flat in some English suburb.

Ray wrote songs about the things that were important to him.  He invented his world and gave it life.  And in that world, people weren't wearing Nehru jackets, smoking pot and jamming for 24 hours a day. . . .

The Kinks slipped into rock history through the back door. All of those great albums that we talk about now, like Face to Face, Something Else by the Kinks and Village Green Preservation Society — nobody bought those records in the sixties.  But those of us who love those records — and a lot of us are musicians — have loved them for decades.

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The Kinks recorded a lot of songs about real people – adults, not teenagers – dealing with real problems.

Click here to listen to “Dead End Street,” which is one of those songs.  

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.

Dave Matthews Band – "Too Much" (1996)

Traffic jam got more cars

Than a beach got sand

Suck it up, suck it up, suck it up

Today is the first day of February.

If you’re a regular reader of 2 or 3 lines, you know that means that it’s time for “29 Posts in 29 Days.”  To quote our old pals Gilbert and Sullivan, “Oh joy! Oh rapture!”

Having two 2 or 3 lines posts a week to enjoy is pretty darn special . . . but having a new 2 or 3 lines post every day for an entire month is much, much specialer.  Even if that month is February, the shortest month of the year.

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This year’s “29 Posts in 29 Days” will feature songs by recording artists that I believe are underrated and overrated.

Many of you will disagree vehemently with one or more of my choices.  Whenever this happens, I would ask you to repeat this famous maxim to yourself: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

I would also ask you to remember that whenever we disagree on whether an artist is overrated or underrated, 2 or 3 lines will be right and you will be wrong.  Capisce, kemosabe?

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You can expect my February posts to be short and sweet.  After all, I have to crank out a new one every day, and I’m a very busy man – for one thing, my current Netflix “My List” has dozens of shows, with more being added regularly.

The “overrated” posts will usually be quite succinct – perhaps even terse.  The music of those artists will speak for itself, and the words that music will speak is “I SUCK!”

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Here are some quotes about the Dave Matthews Band from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website:

They have been called a college band, a jam band, a pop band . . . . Hailing from Charlottesville, Virginia, the band formed in 1991 and cultivated a trademark sound that includes long, intricate solos, non-traditional rock & roll instruments, unique time signatures, and an electric live show.  

[NOTE: “College band” = a band whose audiences are composed mostly of blackout-drunk students.  “Jam band” = a band that does not know when too shut up.]  

The band quickly generated strong word of mouth thanks to endless live shows and an active tape sharing community.

[NOTE: “Endless live shows”?  Truer words were never spoken.  (I didn’t say “endless” – that’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame talking.]

Dave Matthews Band became the top-selling live act from 2000 to 2009 and is the only band to have seven consecutive albums debut at #1.  

[NOTE: It’s truly astonishing that a band can crank out seven #1 albums and not have one single song worth listening to.]

The band has influenced a generation of acoustic-driven singer-songwriters like John Mayer, Jason Mraz, and OAR.

[NOTE: In other words, not only has the DMB produced a lot of crap music itself, it’s inspired many others to produce a lot of crap music.]

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This just in: although they won this year’s fan vote by a wide margin, the DMB were not included in this year’s group of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

That is encouraging news for those of us who had pretty much given up on the RaRHoF.  But it was discouraging news for those of you who were still clinging to the hope that Americans aren’t a bunch of stupid wankers.

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So what’s the final 2 or 3 lines verdict on The Dave Matthews Band?  

OVERRATED!

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Click here to listen to “Too Much,” which was released in 1996 on the group’s biggest-selling album to date, Crash:  

The aptly-named song is too much, all right – like about four minutes and 22 seconds too much.

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: