[Closed] Genuinely underrated bands

The Wannadies for me - I know The You And Me Song is very well known after it got onto the Romeo & Juliet soundtrack, but they had done and subsequently did so so much more than that. Their last album, Bagsy Me is still one of my favourites.

There's a Frank Turner line I really like, "We are respected, but we'll never be famous" 😆 Lots of my bands are respected.

They've been occasionally fairly succesful but for some reason Mull Historical Society/Colin Macintyre always defaults back to playing to 100 people. But they're always among the best shows I've ever seen.

Kind of hard to pick out one track, this one's a sequel to Barcode Bypass and doesn't quite work right by itself but still

Or David Ford, if you want to make him angry by suggesting he should be bigger 😆 Not the best State Of The Union ever, didn't quite attain full sonic hell at the end, but it's a gig I was at so **** it.

Genuinely underrated bands
Who's yours?

Queue a list of fairly successful bands.

Hoodoo Gurus

The Damned

Blyth Power - intelligent pop punk folk with a historical bent, and songs about trains. They're ace live too.

Little Angels

Thunder

THE Wolfhounds. Ignored by everyone for the last 30 years.

Split up now, but Oceansize should have been massive.

Perchy speaks sense.

Two of the most entertaining bands live.

The Computers great band seen them 4 or 5 times now in past few years always great live.

As far as I know they're not big, hard working though so maybe they'll make it bigger.

Yo La Tengo, great band, great live, cult following, loved by critics, yet no one's ever heard of them!

The Cat Empire
The Skints

Seen a band at the weekend, Future of the left (formerly Mclusky(ish)) cracking band, should be bigger.

in other news, first time I've been to a gig in that new st lukes place in the barras, good spot and good sound in the hall. 🙂

Seen a band at the weekend, Future of the left (formerly Mclusky(ish)) cracking band, should be bigger.

Anyone here a fan of Do Me Bad Things?

not that they were particularly underrated - just trying to gauge forum taste 🙂

Also, any Secret Machines fans here?

Alabama 3.
Dandy Warhols.

The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing

bloody brilliant loons, fantastic Live, where else do you see a bloke in a pith helmet with a pink beard playing a saw, accompanied by a death metal cross dressing stand up comedian, singing cockney punk sea shanties in a steam PUNK Victorian era referenced, anachronistic stylee about Cthulu eating grandma at Margate, Queen Victoria raising albert as a Zombie, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, masturbation causing insanity and GIN!

3rd Album has just received a lot of critical acclaim and they are on tour at the moment. Genuine eccentric British stuff that is just a joy to listen to.

The Milk

http://www.thisisthemilk.com/

One of the few bands who music I'd actually pay for. Sadly not touring anywhere near me at the moment.

I strongly second both David Ford and The Computers. I appear to have agreed to go see Madness in August mostly because The Computers are supporting them.

Not so sure about Alabama 3. They seem to have done fairly well for themselves at times and I've enjoyed them a lot but their last few albums haven't worked for me. They're plugging the forthcoming album as a bit of a back to basics so maybe that'll bring me back into the fold.

cokie - Member
They are pretty big though, considering the genre.

Jason and the Scorchers

Joining in partly so I can fire up The Spotify later & listen to some of the bands mentioned - always looking for decent music I've not heard before.

I often say it, but for me, The Wildhearts are a massively underrated band.
Easily the band I have seen the most live & always have a great time. Admittedly, I've moved from being right down the front & bouncing away, to standing a bit further back cupping a cold beer and singing along but I love their music and energy all the same....

THE Wolfhounds. Ignored by everyone for the last 30 years.

I'll add Darren Hayman to the list as well.

Incidentally, I'm just happen to be having a day of listening to loads of African music via google radio stations today. It's an entire genre that's underrated(from our perspective). Standouts so far are; Femi Kuti(afro beat), guess his da is quite famous. Some Tuaraeg music by an band called Tinariwen, and current listening to a mob called Mbongwana Star, which is Congalese music.

The beats, in particular, and the music is tremendous! More people should explore it. 🙂

Belle and Sebastian. Masters of the craft of songwriting.
The Guillemots / Fyfe Dangerfield.
Mega City Four.
Scroobius Pip.

MrSalmon - Member
Split up now, but Oceansize should have been massive.

I see your Oceansize and raise you Kong. Seen them a few times and they were mighty. People just looked like they didn't know how to take them. They played with future of the left a few times and are one of the few bands that can match them live. Gone very quiet though.

 

Scroobius Pip.

And his work with Dan Le Sac as 'Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip'

It's pushing it to call them underrated because they've had some massive successes, particularly in the US, but while seeing The Heavy in poky little Oran Mor at the weekend I was thinking that stadium-sized audiences should be joining in with songs like Big Bad Wolf and What Makes a Good Man?

jimjam - Member

Queue a list of fairly successful bands.

You can be fairly succesful, and still underrated.

As predicted early on there's many suggestions here of bands that have hardly slipped under the radar - didn't Little Angels sell out the Albert Hall for their farewell show?

(Not knocking them btw, saw them live a few times and liked them)

Wildhearts is an interesing one - Ginger certainly has the knack of writing a catchy hook and with a bit less swearing and heroin could probably have been massive, but it always seemed like he didn't want it - whenever they appeared to be on the cusp of massive success, they'd fall out with the record company, fire a member or two or just split up for a bit. I came into the thread thinking "Wildhearts" but equally thinking that someone would have beaten me to it..

So, since we're clearly good to go with bands that have been heard of, had hits etc. I'd say, in this country at least, Jane's Addiction. Some cracking records, widely considered by numerous well respected musicians back in the day to be the best live band out there bar none (sadly, not so hot these days) and also considered by many of the same to be the ones who blew the corporate rock-by-numbers doors off, made "alt-rock" as it was then called a thing, and thereby set the stage ready for the early 90s "grunge" explosion.

Imploding just as they were becoming massive did them no favours in terms of the collective memory, and some less than marvellous work since the inevitable reunions hasn't helped either (and some very iffy solo output from Perry Farrell), but Ritual de los Habitual and Nothing's Shocking are two of the best albums of the last 30 years imho.

and +1 for Scroobius Pip albeit again, he actually does seem to be quite well known, a surprising number of my friends and acquaintances are aware of him, and he does get a bit of radio play here and there.

I remember reading a piece in a music magazine years ago pretty much saying that the official answer to this question is Arcade Fire. I think it was just after The Suburbs had come out. They were playing some huge gigs but apparently even the staff at a lot of the venues had no idea who they were!!

Another vote for The Damned. The Black Album and Phantasmagoria are seriously good works.

Garbage. Fantastic band, never got the aclaim they were due.

I'm resisting the temptation to make up a list of unsavoury words/phrases and pretend they are real bands. Saying that, i'm a big fan of Thalidomide Octopi.

I'm with seosamh77 re Afro-beat in general, it doesn't get anywhere near enough airplay on commercial radio for my liking and it truly is irresistable IMO. Check out Antibalas too, they are amazing.

+1 Tinariwen, seen them live a couple of times.

My quick list of UK bands I love but hardly hear played or mentioned in proportion with their awesomeness:

British Sea Power

Thumpermonkey

Knifeworld

And worldwide (if not underrated then definitely the most under-appreciated)

[b]Magma[/b] (stand-out, truly unbelievably awesome yet off most radars for the last four decades, I was 32 before hearing them)
Josephine Foster
Naibu
Gas (Wofgang Voigt)
Cornelius
Destroyer (Dan Bejar)

Here's Thumpermonkey (video NSFAnyone):

Me, nobody likes my album "A Mouthful of Chubstr" - a 3 hour rant at a seagul backed up by a peruvian acoustic bass guitar quintet

Failing that, +1 for Yo La Tengo, and my current personal favourite, Wussy

Lucius are pretty awesome, took my dad and sister to see them in Leeds before Christmas and they subsequently got the ferry to Belgium to see them the following weekend. Loved their cover of The Kinks' "Strangers".

Oooh, another Blyth Power fan.
🙂
I think that's three of us on here now.
😀

Most underrated band?
The Astronauts.
The Beta Band.
And The Beatles.

Indiana and Rag'n Bone Man are two that jump to the front for me.

Baffled that no-one's mentioned Cardiacs yet - I know there are a few Pondies in here apart from me:

Euro - Member

I'm resisting the temptation to make up a list of unsavoury words/phrases and pretend they are real bands.

We used to hang out in the cas rock cafe and tap o lauriston a lot and everyone in there was in a band. So we invented Millstone. They were pretty heavy (if grindcore had been a thing back then, we'd definitely [i]not [/i]have been grindcore, too obvious)

Little Angels

Thunder

In a similar vein,

Gun.

Electric Boys.

I Am Kloot, John Bramwell is one of this countries finest songwriters.

Also Shack (and any Head brothers band).

I'm struggling to think of most of the bands or artists mentioned as being 'underrated', possibly because I'm a huge music fan, and have been for most of my life; doesn't mean there aren't loads of artists/bands I don't know about, mainly because there're genres I'm just not really interested in, but I've always thought of the Wildhearts/Ginger Wildheart as being pretty highly rated, for example.
From my own point of view, there's loads of artists whose music I've loved for years, been to concerts whenever possible, but they still only play pretty small venues, Aimee Mann being a classic example. She started off in a band called 'Til Tuesday, who had a fairly big US hit with a single off their first album. Trouble was, the record companies wanted more of the same, Aimee didn't, and thus the label refused to promote the next two albums, saying they 'couldn't hear a hit single'; well, how the hell do you know if you don't promote them!
Aimee went solo, and the same thing happened, A&R people liked what she was doing, signed her, label gets a change of owner, new A&R people can't 'hear anything commercial', and refuse to promote her album, but also refuse to release her from her contract. For five years. Then the same thing happens again.
Eventually she sets up her own label, and actually starts to earn more money than any time previously.
She even has a film director friend see a story running through an album she was writing and recording, and promptly went and made a very successful movie, starring Tom Cruise, based on that album, [i]Batchelor #9[/i], the film is [i]Magnolia[/i].
Aimee misses out on an Oscar for best song in a movie soundtrack, which, IIRC, was won by Elton John for the Lion King.
Aimee still records and tours, after over thirty years recording and touring, since 1982, in fact, and the last time I saw her she was playing the Union Chapel in London! I have seen her play Indigo 2 in London twice, the only UK date on two Eurpean tours.
That's what underrated bloody well means in my book!
There are plenty of other, more recent bands/artists, as well as older bands who've sadly disappeared due to overwhelming indifference, like Thea Gilmore, Paper Aeroplanes, The Drink, The Stills, Asobi Seksu, Calexico, Curve, Dark Star (90's alt.rock trio, not current dance/electro outfit), Tiger, Thrum, Dubstar, Gemma Hayes, Howling Bells, Inara George, Mechanical Bride...
The flip side is still being able to see artists you cherish playing small intimate venues instead of soulless enormodomes and barns like the NEC in Birmingham, so it's not all bad.
I saw Gemma Hays three times last tour, in London at Oslo, Hackney, The Louisiana in Bristol, and Pound Arts in Corsham, about five miles from where I live! None of those venues are more than around 350-400 capacity, yet Gemma had been recording and touring for nineteen years, and released six albums, is a superb singer and songwriter, yet seems barely able to get arrested! She was approached by the Lois Walsh, from X-Factor, who thought she had huge potential; of course, she'd have to stop writing and singing her own songs, she'd have to be seen to be having a relationship with another big celebrity, and basically be something she clearly isn't, so she told him exactly what he could do with his ideas. This is fact, she's told this story several times.
Shows the vacuous heart of modern music promotion, where real talent is ignored in favour of short-term money grabbing.

Murry the Hump - the best Welsh band you've probably never heard of.

Named after a Welsh mobster. Immaculate indy pop. Had a song with the opening line: "My dealer drives a three wheeler, lives in a house by the side of the sea".

They did a Peel session and recorded one album but it just never happened for them.

countzero, hit enter twice every now and again! 😆

I saw Gun in some sweaty dive in Southend, before they released Swagger. Mid way through the set, a huge riff started a new track and Rankin began...

Yo, pretty ladies around the world
Got a weird thing to show you so tell all the boys and girls
Tell your brother, your sister and your mama too
'Cause we're about to throw down and you'll know just what to do

The place erupted.

The Reads

Nobody seems to have heard of them...

I saw Gun in some sweaty dive in Southend, before they released Swagger. Mid way through the set, a huge riff started a new track and Rankin began...

I'm not surprised. Back in my clubbing days I'd get to the second "E" of the opening guitar "EEEeeeeeeee......" riff before I was on the floor, and I still take extreme pleasure in telling my mate that the Korn version is the second best cover of that track ever.

To my eternal chagrin I never saw them whilst Mark was fronting. I've seen them subsequently though with Toby Jepson (Little Angels) as frontman, and a few times later still where Dante's stepped up to the plate. He's really found his groove now, they're well worth a revisit if you get chance. Properly good fun.

Magnum. Currently touring and have a new album which got into the top ten rock albums. Also features the drummer Harry James from Thunder.

Oh, that's interesting. I thought GaryHarry had retired.

Magnum are good fun, once you get past Bob Whatsisface's ego.

That's what underrated bloody well means in my book!

For anyone who hasn't come across it already, the Twisted Sister doc on Netflix is a great story of a band be underrated / underapreciated whether you like them or not!

Catatonia, thinking about it.
Musically, they were genuinely tight with great ear for a hook.
Lyrically way ahead of most of thier peers, with a nice line in self depreciating honesty.
Saw them supporting the Manics in Blackburn, excellent live too.

And The Beautiful South.
One of the most misunderstood bands going.
Absolute genius.

I still take extreme pleasure in telling my mate that the Korn version is the second best cover of that track ever.

Third best version. One behind Cameo.

I know they had success early on, but since the demise of emi We Are Scientists have been very overlooked. Saw them a couple of times in the last 12 months and they've been fantastic, made all the better by the fact they were in sweaty dive clubs. We met them last month too and they are also genuinely nice guys.

Even more overlooked were Aereogramme, and another fantastic Scottish band called Stapleton.

I need to properly check out Paws on WAS recommendation, they're Scottish too. There's a theme here...

Blue Aeroplanes. Saw them live many times in the 80's and later, always brilliant. Not everyone's cup of tea though...

And come to that, The Beat. Successful but not sure they got the recognition they deserved, and the later stuff when career crashed was brilliant (LP Special Beat Service full of great songwriting - one of my favourite forgotten LPs).

Forgetting about The Creepshow

Bit of classic phsycobilly...

Suuns dEUS Subtle the Uncluded Sisyphus Breton La Shark Liars Blonde Redhead Forest Swords Dalek Culprate Teengirl Fantasy Pudge The Shoes Ringo Deathstarr The Oscillation Viet Cong We Have Band All We Are Young the Giant The Busy Signals Louis XIV Jaguar Ma

Best.Bandname.Ever 🙂

That Petrol Emotion should have been HUGE!!!
A bit of me's glad they weren't though.

She even has a film director friend see a story running through an album she was writing and recording, and promptly went and made a very successful movie, starring Tom Cruise, based on that album, Batchelor #9, the film is Magnolia

Wise Up from that film soundtrack is a favourite song of mine.

Shawn Smith.

When I'm feeling sh1t his stuff lifts me. Always loved his output for years. Songs that feel alive and full of positive meaning. Yeah, he's underrated!

I'm always surprised how few people know of Efterklang, even though they have really passionate fans and are without doubt the most fantastic live band I've ever seen. And powerfuly moustached

Not a band, but DJ scotch egg.
He's a bloody genius.
[url=

Also not a band, but Current Value never seems to get enough appreciation.
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can't do videos[/url]

Finally, a real band. Atheist.
[url= https://youtu.be/DnUZ5xpcKHw ]nuff said[/url]

choppersquad - Member
That Petrol Emotion should have been HUGE!!!
A bit of me's glad they weren't though.

Chemicrazy is an amazingly good pop album.

Second cokie with The Cat Empire. Seen them more times than I can count, get shivers down my spine reach and every time.

See also The Tallest Man on Earth.

@bigjim They are glorious!! I have never heard of them before and boy do I likey.

[i]Not a band[/i]
oh, if we're going there I've got an even bigger list for that.

+1 for the Guillemots and Shack.

Also Malcolm Middleton and Arab Strap.

Another Blyth Power fan here. Better to Bat is played most weeks....what a tune

New Model Army. Obviously. Keeping it real for 35 years, and still packing out massive venues like the Robin in Bilston.

Yo La Tengo

Love them, but I thought they were a US indie institution and rated very highly. They were even in The Simpsons IIRC.

My nominations...

Almost the definition of an underrated musical genius...

@bigjim They are glorious!! I have never heard of them before and boy do I likey.

Excellent! Their albums are fantastic but they're just so much better live, especially with an orchestra. They've also done a film which is quite good fun called The ghost of piramida

Unfortunately I don't know if you'll ever get to see them live as efterklang, they are currently touring as Liima with a percussionist but although some of their songs are excellent I prefer their efterklang stuff.

As Aerogramme rightly got a mention I have to add in The Unwinding Hours. Great that Some of the people from the Aerogramme day have achieved some notability with Chuvches but it's amazing how The Unwinding Hours slipped by almost totally unnoticed, even less so even than Aerogramme.

seen no mention of my two favourite bands yet, hence they either must be vastly underrated or er..... sh1t 😀

Howlin' Rain.

seen no mention of my two favourite bands yet, hence they either must be vastly underrated or er..... sh1t

I'm sorry, Trail of Dead are certainly not underrated. 10/10 for source tags on Pitchfork. So, so good. 😆

I'm sorry, Trail of Dead are certainly not underrated. 10/10 for source tags on Pitchfork. So, so good.

Did they used to be called ...and You Will Know Us by The Trail of Dead? I quite liked em back then, but it was ages ago.

Did they used to be called ...and You Will Know Us by The Trail of Dead? I quite liked em back then, but it was ages ago.

Led Zeppelin.

So good, no matter how exalted their status becomes, they'll still be underrated.

Same goes for Enya.