This is a piece from "A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas By: Chuck Klosterman IV" The piece is titled "CERTAIN ROCK BANDS YOU PROBABLY LIKE"
I just thought it was nifty, and since it's about music, it's going here. Boom. I know some of you listen to at least one of these bands through last.fm, so here we go.
If you are the kind of person who talks about music too much, there are two words that undoubtedly play an integral role in your day-to-day lexicon: overrated and underrated. This is because those two sentiments constitute 90 percent of all musical discussions; people are consciously discussing who they think is overrated and who they think is underrated.
What's interesting about this phenomenon is the way no one seems to use the same criteria for either of those terms. For example, a band can be overrated because they sell more records than a certain logic might dictate (Creed, 311, Bad Company), or the can be underrated if they sell a lot of records but aren't widely regarded as brilliant (Thin Lizzy, Duran Duran), or they can be underrated because almost no one in the world seems to know who they are (Tortoise, Sloan, Lifter Puller). Bands can be overrated if they're only very good (U2, Madonna, the Eagles), and artists can be underrated if everyone thinks they're terrible when they're actually okay (Limp Bizkit, No Doubt, and--once again--Creed). Bands can be overrated because they're good-looking (the Lemonheads, in 1993), or they can underrated because they're good-looking (the Lemonheads in 1994). Some groups can overrated and underrated at the same time (Radiohead). Some groups seem overrated on purpose (Oasis). Some groups seem eternally, underrated--because--no matter how hard they try--they're just not as interesting as groups who are overrated on purpose (Blur). It is very easy to be underrated, because all you need to do is nothing. Everyone wants to be underrated.
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