The unpopular opinion thread

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Smith Corks One
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Re: The unpopular opinion thread

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vinsanity wrote:I think Pink Floyd and Phish are overrated but I think Phish and Tool are closely related.
That's...um....no. In no way are they closely related. There music is as different as...I don't know, two very different things. The Venn diagram of Phish fans and Tool fans does not intersect. Unless you were trying to compare only the rabidness of their fandom, in which case I could at least see your point, but would still like to point out that Tool has sold 13 million albums to Phish's 3 million. And to think Tool is overrated is...well, I just don't know what to say to that. I guess some people think the Beatles and Radiohead are overrated too, so different strokes or whatever.

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vinsanity
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Re: The unpopular opinion thread

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Smith Corks One wrote:
vinsanity wrote:I think Pink Floyd and Phish are overrated but I think Phish and Tool are closely related.
That's...um....no. In no way are they closely related. There music is as different as...I don't know, two very different things. The Venn diagram of Phish fans and Tool fans does not intersect. Unless you were trying to compare only the rabidness of their fandom, in which case I could at least see your point, but would still like to point out that Tool has sold 13 million albums to Phish's 3 million. And to think Tool is overrated is...well, I just don't know what to say to that. I guess some people think the Beatles and Radiohead are overrated too, so different strokes or whatever.
I worded it strangely, yes I meant I don't think either band is popular enough to be 'overrated'.

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Smith Corks One
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Re: The unpopular opinion thread

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IMADreamer wrote:Tool is really over rated.
IMADreamer wrote:I always felt like Seven Mary Three's album "Churn" was under rated
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33anda3rd
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Re: The unpopular opinion thread

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Smith Corks One wrote:And to think Tool is overrated is...well, I just don't know what to say to that. I guess some people think the Beatles and Radiohead are overrated too, so different strokes or whatever.
Tool is not in the same league as the Beatles or Radiohead. I don't begrudge anyone their taste, but were we to seek a consensus of fans or critics we would find the latter two in the top 10 bands of all-time and Tool somewhere in the....top 200?

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Re: The unpopular opinion thread

Post by go birds »

not the dreaded radiohead hot take *grooooooooooooooooooooooan*

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33anda3rd
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Re: The unpopular opinion thread

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go birds wrote:not the dreaded radiohead hot take *grooooooooooooooooooooooan*
The last album they made that I loved is well over a decade old, so really it's a pretty well-worn take. Their peak of Bends/OK Computer/Kid A is the best non-Beatles, non-Kanye run of three albums in rock history. Add Amnesiac, Hail To The Thief and In Rainbows to that and you have an unimpeachable peak. If this were a baseball HOF discussion they'd go in with like 99.8% of the first ballot.

A hot take would be: if you came off age in the era of Radiohead, Wilco, The Flaming Lips, Neutral Milk Hotel, DJ Shadow, Bonnie Prince Billy, Guided By Voices, Bjork, Beck, The Dismemberment Plan, Belle & Sebastian, Modest Mouse, Weezer, Yo La Tengo, Built To Spill, The Beta Band, Aphex Twin, The Magnetic Fields, Wu-Tang, Boards of Canada, Nas, The Beastie Boys, Notorious BIG, Outkast, Portishead, Air, Gosdpeed You Black Emperor, REM, Fugazi, Elliott Smith, Spiritualized, Blur, Pulp, Oasis, PJ Harvey, Stereolab, Jeff Buckley, Mouse On Mars, Tricky, Daft Punk, Silver Jews, Dr Octagon, Company Flow, Squarepusher, Mogwai, Massive Attack, Tortoise, Fugees, Lauryn Hill, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Jay-Z and all you've got to show for it is nostalgia for some emo-pop-punk trash then you did your musical youth wrong. I don't think geography is an excuse. I was the only kid in Canton, IL with a LA Kings cap and a Raiders Starter jacket in 10th grade. If I could find NWA and De La Soul in that cultural black hole, anyone could find better stuff to listen to than some nasal weenie in eyeliner when the internet was alive.

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Smith Corks One
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Re: The unpopular opinion thread

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33anda3rd wrote:
Smith Corks One wrote:And to think Tool is overrated is...well, I just don't know what to say to that. I guess some people think the Beatles and Radiohead are overrated too, so different strokes or whatever.
Tool is not in the same league as the Beatles or Radiohead. I don't begrudge anyone their taste, but were we to seek a consensus of fans or critics we would find the latter two in the top 10 bands of all-time and Tool somewhere in the....top 200?
Right...but even if I grant you those standings, the point is that to think Tool is overrated is to think they don't belong anywhere near that top 200 (or whatever) slot that they occupy - and I personally believe that to think that is as ridiculous as thinking the Beatles and Radiohead are undeserving of their top 10 slots. My point was not that they're exactly in the same league, but that if there are people that can believe that even the Beatles and Radiohead are overrated - and certainly there are those people - then it shouldn't come as a surprise that some people would find Tool overrated. Although personally, I believe that Tool is underrated in relationship to the other two bands in the sense that it's virtually impossible to argue that the Beatles or Radiohead deserve to be more highly regarded than they are, while in my opinion Tool deserves to be, if not in that exact tier, then just a notch down from that, as opposed to the "top 200" or whatever range where they might find themselves to actually land via current critical consensus.

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vinsanity
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Re: The unpopular opinion thread

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Smith Corks One wrote:
33anda3rd wrote:
Smith Corks One wrote:And to think Tool is overrated is...well, I just don't know what to say to that. I guess some people think the Beatles and Radiohead are overrated too, so different strokes or whatever.
Tool is not in the same league as the Beatles or Radiohead. I don't begrudge anyone their taste, but were we to seek a consensus of fans or critics we would find the latter two in the top 10 bands of all-time and Tool somewhere in the....top 200?
Right...but even if I grant you those standings, the point is that to think Tool is overrated is to think they don't belong anywhere near that top 200 (or whatever) slot that they occupy - and I personally believe that to think that is as ridiculous as thinking the Beatles and Radiohead are undeserving of their top 10 slots. My point was not that they're exactly in the same league, but that if there are people that can believe that even the Beatles and Radiohead are overrated - and certainly there are those people - then it shouldn't come as a surprise that some people would find Tool overrated. Although personally, I believe that Tool is underrated in relationship to the other two bands in the sense that it's virtually impossible to argue that the Beatles or Radiohead deserve to be more highly regarded than they are, while in my opinion Tool deserves to be, if not in that exact tier, then just a notch down from that, as opposed to the "top 200" or whatever range where they might find themselves to actually land via current critical consensus.
I think music is tough to use over/underrated on because it's harder to objectively rate something. I don't particularly care for the Beatles but I respect their influence and can understand why they are so highly regarded but I think it's harder to quantify or make an 'objective' case.

Tho I agree with all of your conclusions.

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Re: The unpopular opinion thread

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I get what you guys are saying, but we'd more or less end up in a place where every band is ranked #87.301. The Beatles would have to be pulled down because hey not everybody loves the Beatles. Ditto the Stones, Radiohead, Kanye, etc. Then some crap band/act like The Doors or 2Pac or Jimmy Eat World would have to be lifted up because hey some people really like them.

At a certain point, the influences certain acts have + their commercial success + their ability to capture the zeitgeist of their time + the critical consensus of their artistic merits put us to a non-objective but universally-agreed upon position. The Beatles aren't the GOAT because they're overrated, they're the GOAT because they're the perfect storm of those four buckets.

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Re: The unpopular opinion thread

Post by Jocephus »

i definitely don't like radiohead like a few people here do. i think i do own ok computer...or i did. and i do like the paranoid android music video (must have watched that so many times on mtv)... and a few other of their songs, sure. i'm not gonna call them overrated but a dreary, moaning englishman? meh.

tool is another good debate i think. i think they are/can be good but might lean on them being a bit overrated. people obsess over maynard a bit too much. though i always thought it was cool that danny carey was a small town kansas kid...and an amazing drummer.

i will always say though the most overrated is dave matthews band. though maybe it's just me, i really despised their fans in high school.

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