Top Five Underrated Albums by (relatively) Popular Bands

[Larry Flyntz]

The reason I say popular bands is because no one (no one meaning me) wants to read lists about bands they've never heard of. Take your indie crap to your own top five list.

1. Obscured by Clouds, by Pink Floyd ... This is one of the only Floyd albums I never see pop up on Top Five Floyd lists. You see Atom Heart Mother and Meddle (two other underrated Floyd albums) pop up every once in a while, but never Obscured by Clouds. It's a shame.

2. Stand Up, by Jethro Tull ... This album is on the same level as Aqualung and Benefit, but you never hear it come up in Jethro Tull discussions.

3. Goat's Head Soup, by The Rolling Stones ... Same reason.

4. Close to the Edge, by Yes ... This album does get some respect, but by and large, it is overshadowed by Fragile, The Yes Album, and Tales. And that's just wrong!

5. Houses of the Holy, by Led Zeppelin ... Similar to my reasoning for #4. Houses does get respect, but I-IV always get more accolades, when, in my opinion, Houses is the best Zeppelin album.

[The Ocean]

1. Ramones - Pleasant Dreams. This album contains the best examples of Joey Ramone's vocal range, and does some great throwbacks to 50's rock n roll. "We Want The Airwaves," "The KKK Took My Baby Away," "Come On Now," "It's Not My Place (In The 9 To 5 World)," "Sitting In My Room," etc, all great tracks that get little mention or play on the radio.

2. Pearl Jam - Vs. People can talk about Ten by Pearl Jam all they want, but as far as I'm concerned, Vs. is a better album. It has much more diverse sounds to it. And the songs are a bit more memorable. "Go," "Animal," "Daughter," "Dissident," "Rearviewmirror," are all great tracks. And some of the ones that get little airplay like "Blood," "Small Town," or "Indifference," are some great ones. "Blood" is some REAL aggresive stuff.

3. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III. Led Zeppelin III's acoustic sound on side B seems to turn a lot of people off. There are some still great tracks that should have been hits like "Out On The Tiles."

4. Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy. Houses Of The Holy... well... it is only the album that contains the greatest song ever written, "The Ocean." (and I'm not just saying that to be a jackass, that's why I chose my screenname, not the other way around).

5. Queen - Queen. If you wanna hear what heavy metal, classic rock, and prog rock sound like combined, this is the album. Starting with some pop, going to a song that starts like mellow rock, then turns heavy, then mellows out again, then to two songs that COULD be prog rock if they weren't so gritty sounding. Then there is "Liar," a masterpiece of hard rock. It starts off like classic hard rock, then gets to sound more like metal, then eases off to something spacy and acoustic... then goes metal again. And it is all so SEAMLESS. The descriptions I gave sound rediculous but they work. Then there is the 50's rock and roll throwback "Modern Times Rock N Roll," with vocals by Roger Taylor. Just pure fun.

[Rhino......................]

Define "indie crap" you wretched hog lump. (I am not in a very tasty mood my friends)

1. Air - 10,000 Hz Legend (According to Dan, no one liked this album. That is all the proof I need.)
2. Pink Floyd - The Final Cut
3. Pink Floyd - Meddle
4. Pink Floyd - Animals
5. Primus - Antipop (Although it's probably their weakest album, aside from that  half-assed "Animals Should Not Try to Act Like This is a Cop-out Five Track Album" thing, it's still got some terrific songs on it.)

In other words, get off your Dark Side of the Moon high-horses, you shit beetles.

[Larry Flyntz]

Define "indie crap" you wretched hog lump. (I am not in a very tasty mood my friends)

I really don't know a better way to describe it than that. Like obscenity, I know indie crap when I see it.

Ha ha, Supreme Court humor...

Anyway, let's try. Indie crap could be defined as any obscure indie band that "you've probably never heard of." If that last quote can't be applied to the average music listener, it is not indie crap. The whole point in saying "no indie crap" is that of course indie music is underrated. It's not heard because it's indie. That's the whole point of indie. So, we have the reason for its being underrated right in the name of the genre. And that's no fun.