Great Musical Bands/Artists Debate Part 1 of 2

With the release of the Beatles Rock Band this week there has been a surge in the general talk about the Beatles and some of it has centered around their place in rock and roll history. I was watching the Dan Patrick Show on Direct TVs 101 channel and one of the shows members stated that he thought that the Beatles were overrated. As you might imagine this brought quite a reaction from both the other show members and the listening/watching audience. Since it seemed that there was a commercial for the Beatles Rock Band during every commercial break while I was watching football this weekend I began to think about the Beatles and weather or not I thought they were overrated.

I think when you talk about something being overrated you have to first begin with where they are actually rated. Since things like this are subjective I can only start with my own feeling on the subject. Admittedly I don't know all of the sales numbers so I can not use facts and figures to determine who sold the most records or had the most #1 hits or spent the longest time on the charts. I can only use my experiences and observations about the band or bands in question. The first thing that needs to be done is to rate a number of bands to form a base for the argument of over or underrated. So I took into account the bands overall popularity, their impact on popular music and how good, in my opinion, their music was. Here are the bands I chose to evaluate.

The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
Led Zeppelin
Elvis Presley
Michael Jackson

I limited the list to these five because I thought that they represented the five bands or artists who have had the longest lasting influence on the music business and the most commercial success. I considered other bands like U2, The Who, or Madonna, but I felt like this list would provide a round enough argument. Also, understand that these are not my top 5 favorite bands or acts they are simply the five "biggest".

Lets start with Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop". Some people might feel that he may be misplaced on this list but his influence in the music industry coupled with the huge commercial success that he enjoyed justified that he was one of the greatest acts of all time. Maybe not top 5, but again this argument is subjective so here he is. Although I liked Michael Jackson as much as anyone during his peak, I can not say that he was ever one of my favorite artists. It is worth noting that he is one of two artists on the list who were actively making music while I was old enough to remember or enjoy it. I think that creatively Michael was innovative but not revolutionary. He has some advantage over a few of the other groups due to the, relatively, broad appeal of his music. He had a fairly long career, although there was a large gap in the middle of it. I suppose he could get points for a comeback. Overall, great, but perhaps not the greatest of all time. In the case of Michael Jackson I would have to say that he is a little overrated because I feel that while his music was good, his fame and fan base were disproportionate to the quality of his music.

Next up is Elvis Presley, the "King of Rock and Roll". Elvis' music was not revolutionary in my opinion. He took a burgeoning form of music in rock and roll that was already rooted in jazz and blues and gave it life with his stage presence. Charisma was the real magic of Elvis. He was a legendary performer and he proved it with the commercial success of his movies. It is interesting that when you read about how people felt about Elvis, at the time he was considered a threat to the social norm. Apparently most adults thought he was much to sexually provocative and all those gyrations on stage were the imitation of sexual acts and inappropriate. In light of this, it seems like Elvis' popularity was something of legend. The more time passed the bigger his legend grew. I could be totally wrong about this, but that is my perception. Looking back on his career, he seems tame and even lame now. More of a crooner than a rocker, like a Frank Sinatra or Tom Jones. Perhaps he gained his reputation early in his career and built up his fan base late in his career with his movies and his time in Vegas. Regardless of how it happened, Elvis has become HUGE, but the "King of Rock"? Hardly. His career was great, and his commercial appeal was just as big as any of our bands, but his inflated legend prompts me to label him overrated.

Led Zeppelin is by far my favorite of these five bands and it will probably be reflected in my evaluation of them. For this I do not apologize. After all, it is my blog and my assessment. Although they had broken up long before I discovered them, Led Zeppelin was the first band that I was truly awed by. The combination of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant was magic. In my opinion, Jimmy Page is one of the great guitarist, EVER, and although I don't think that Robert Plant had the greatest voice I had ever heard, it was the way in which he riffed and rocked along with his band mates that made them great as a group. Led Zeppelin was dark and mysterious. Their music wasn't especially innovative, but their technique was. There is a spiritual and earthy quality to a lot of their music which probably stems from the time in which they were written. Their commercial success was good, but historically they don't seem to have the same broad appeal as the other four bands. Perhaps this is due to the fact that their music was not "pop" music. I believe that if they had decided to continue on after the death of John Bonham they would have benefited from both the media explosion that came in later years and the increased exposure that a long career provide. Unfortunately they decided not to continue as a band, and it is because of this that I don't think that their legend became to inflated. They are considered one of the greatest rock bands of all time, but I don't think that they are considered by most people to be as great as the Beatles, and I don't think they have as many younger fans as the Rolling Stones, there for I have to come to the conclusion that they are not overrated. In my opinion they are rated right where they should be, great, even legendary, but not the greatest.