Blender mag's worst list

[quadanasaziland]

Airhead magazine's worst list.


For those interested, here is the complete list.


1. Insane Clown Posse
2. Emerson, Lake and Palmer ******* :flame
3. Michael Bolton
4. Kenny G
5. Starship
6. Kansas *
7. Asia *
8. Vanilla Ice
9. Lee Greenwood
10. Air Supply
11. Latoya Jackson
12. Tin Machine
13. Mick Jagger
14. Yngwie Malmsteen
15. Yanni
16. Oingo Boingo *
17. Benzino
18. Pat Boone
19. Dan Fogelberg *
20. Howard Jones
21. The Alan Parsons Project ******** :howl
22. Primus *
23. Creed
24. Bad English
25. Jamiroquai
26. Celine Dion
27. Colour Me Bad
28. Crash Test Dummies
29. Skinny Puppy
30. Richard Marx
31. Arrested Development
32. The Hooters
33. Japan
34. Live
35. Paul Oakenfold
36. 98 Degrees
37. The Doors ******
38. Nelson
39. Bob Geldof
40. Blind Melon *
41. Whitesnake
42. Rick Wakeman *******
43. Mike and the Mechanics *
44. Manowar
45. Gipsy Kings
46. The Spin Doctors
47. Goo Goo Dolls
48. Master P
49. Toad the Wet Sprocket
50. Iron Butterfly

*artists that I have a hard time agreeing with Airhead Magazine on

 

[Marcsten]

Let me start by saying, I love ELP. I love Parsons. I like Wakeman, Geldof, and others on the list. That said, I can see where this list is coming from. The list has a great sample of the most pretencious, over the top, over produced artists in history. That doesn't make them bad, necessarily. In the case of ELP, for example, their material would not work for me if it were any other way. Still, that doesn't make them any less excessive. Think of it this way - I LOVE the Ramones. People say to me 'how can you like them - their mustic is so stupid!' I always agree that they are correct, but that's the way the Ramones works for me. Ramones with some serious production, strings, etc. would suck. They need to be that extreme even stupid sound to work. The bottom line is, for me, don't take your favorite artists too seriously. We're just making all this stuff up, after all.
Marc

 

[quadanasaziland]

Let me start by saying, I love ELP. I love Parsons. I like Wakeman, Geldof, and others on the list. That said, I can see where this list is coming from. The list has a great sample of the most pretencious, over the top, over produced artists in history. That doesn't make them bad, necessarily. In the case of ELP, for example, their material would not work for me if it were any other way. Still, that doesn't make them any less excessive. Think of it this way - I LOVE the Ramones. People say to me 'how can you like them - their mustic is so stupid!' I always agree that they are correct, but that's the way the Ramones works for me. Ramones with some serious production, strings, etc. would suck. They need to be that extreme even stupid sound to work. The bottom line is, for me, don't take your favorite artists too seriously. We're just making all this stuff up, after all.
Marc

Well Marc I don't know, your paramitors are different than Blender's. Heres the lead in from thier website.

The 50 Worst Artists in Music History
Extended drum solos. Prog-rock concept albums. Kenny G. We endured all these — and much worse! — to bring you Blender’s list of the 50 most talentless music acts of all time. Just please don’t ask us to do it again. Ever…

The key here is "talentless music acts of all time" Not many GEN X bands on the list. So I guess NSYNC is considered talent these days.

 

[quadanasaziland]

Here is what was said about Rick, some of it not completely wrong but Yes inexcusably pompous? As opposed to Brittany? @: I don't know it just seems that the well isn't deep any longer and my never be again.



42 RICK WAKEMAN
Can play two synthesizers at once — but nothing that people want to hear
Keyboard “wizard” and professional cape wearer Wakeman’s diabolical taste revealed itself early, when he elected to join prog-rockers Yes instead of David Bowie’s backing band, the Spiders From Mars. Not content with contributing to Yes’s inexcusably pompous albums, he also spent the mid-’70s releasing a series of baroquely awful solo theme records, including The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. For reasons that are still unclear, he opted to perform that one on ice.
Appalling fact While playing Yes songs live, Wakeman would wolf down curry during sections in which he had little to do.
Worst CD Lisztomania

 

[Marcsten]

Well, that's what I get for not reading the fine print. Its tough to disagree with alot of what is in the Wakeman quote; on the other hand, I like alot of that material. True there are alot of 'current' youth acts that are equally worthy; if the test is 'talentless', then moreso actually. Backstreet Nsynch etc are all missing any value or talent.
Marc

 

[timbre4]

So... is this a magazine BY or FOR airheads? They do list some obvious losers we can all agree on, but part of the listing is just sour grapes.

ELP was my 2nd concert and King Crimson was the 3rd; these shows conviced me to become a musician.

It's very easy to slap down any music made with conviction in the past, because it didn't fit the mold.

With today's choices this is much more difficult because so much of it is pathetically weak, one doesn't know where to start!

Not that I'm stuck in the past, I bought Radiohead - Hail To The Thief and Live - Birds of Prey (with bonus DVD EP) yesterday.

I buy music that matters to me, there's just a lot of stuff out there that is simply product and easily ignored during it's short shelf-life.

 

[sspsandy]

Music snobbery will never go out of style. Just get a soapbox, make some snide remarks, and hope that all the wanttabee sheep follow along. I'm surprised that Van Der Graaf Generator wasn't on the list, but they probably never heard of them (super band IMHO). If by Starship they mean Jefferson Starship then these guys will never be cool. Same with Iron Butterfly, an awesome early band that changed the sound of music forever, and maybe the first actual heavy metal band (the first album was called "Heavy", Iron is metal). And the 3rd ELP album, Trio? Triad? the title escapes me now I haven't owned it for years, was one of my all time favorite early records, beautiful stuff. The modern bubblegum is an easy diss, but is it any worse than the Archies, or Bobby Sherman? Nowadays, music comes in every color of the rainbow spectrum, something for every taste, which has it's good and bad points. I'm much more in favor of pointing out bands and specific albums that sound great, at least to my ears (see stereo sounding great in surround thread), to me it's far more productive, give people some idea of great music that they may never have heard. And if Progressive Rock is so lame, why has it survived all these years with no music industry support, no radio play, no MTV promotion. Bands like King Crimson, Nektar, Amon Duul, Hawkwind, Caravan, Curved Air, Gong, and of course, Jethro Tull, Yes, ELP, Peter Gabriel, etc. continue to thrive based almost entirely on support of the fans. When the NEARfest was announced last year, it sold out in 45 minutes, someone still likes Progressive Rock, even if the Airheads don't. :fly:

 

[MC Maniac]

Sandy...

ELP's 3rd album is called Trilogy..it's probably my favourite one too..just a shame they never played much from it live - due to the way it was done it is hard to play live..

Prog Rock is doing surprisingly well - especially in Europe..

I pretty much forgot about progrock during the last 15 years but recently have explored it again to discover just how much good stuff is out there..

A friend in England suggested that I might like a group called Pendragon - he was more than right..I LOVE this band - in some ways more than ELP.. The 4 original members have been intact for 20 years now - the lead singer is Nick Barrett - who sounds like a cross between Fish of Marillion and early Peter Gabriel..they have a great keyboard player - Clive Nolan - who also has his own band called Arena..

In the past couple of months I've bought about 50 CD's - from everything that Clive has been involved in - then others that fall in the Neo prog rock vein - groups like IQ, ShadowLand, Magenta, Mostly Autumn, Pallas, Transatlantic, Flower Kings..next up is a band called Ayreon based in the Netherlands..and this is just scratching the surface of what's out there in this genre..

These groups unfortunately came after the initial progrock period in the 70's so as a result never got or will get air play, so they will never get the same recognition that ELP, Yes, Genesis etc have....

I play this stuff because I really like it and it turns my crank..I could care less what some magazine writes about any band...these articles are a waste of ink - they cover too many genres and artists - music is way too subjective and personal to make any list like this one, have any validity..

 

[Scottmoose]

Well, for me I can't say I disagree about the ELP comment -I feel physically ill whenever I hear even the vaguest mention of 'Brain Salad'; but to each their own I say, and at least they had a bit of energy. That's what makes democracy nice. It would be even nicer if people would get their facts straight in the journalism world though wouldn't it? I notice that the morons mentioned Rick Wakeman's name (I'm a huge fan), and whoever wrote it didn't bother checking to see if they were speaking the truth, or reitterating drivel before opening their mouth (or keyboard). Yes? Overblown, certainly, but I still love it, and it has a damned sight more musical talent than a rather large number of more recent groups I can mention.
And that curry thing was a bit of a myth. Rick's on the record as loathing 'Tales from Topographic Oceans' -"like wading through a cesspool to reach a lilly", I believe he said, whilst releasing wind-up dinosaurs across the stage in mockery of the whole business whilst they were playing. Anyway, during the third track, while Chris and Alan were dueling away for a round 20 minutes on drums and bass, he asked one of his crew if they wanted to go out for a curry with everyone after the show. The poor bloke rather got the wrong idea, vanished, and re-emerged a few minutes later with a curry for him.
Well, what would you have done? Yep, me too. Rick left Yes (for the first time!) after they'd finished the tour for said 'Tales...'
The ice thing for '...Arthur' was caused by the fact that ice shows back in the late '70's were on the rare side, and Wembly Arena, where the concerts were being held was being used for that very purpose right up to Rick's booking, and they couldn't thaw the damned place out in time. So, knowing this, just for a laugh, he decided to get a bunch of people on hobby-horses going around, knowing it would look hysterically funny.
Take the music seriously, don't take yourself seriously.
On a different note, progressive rock is doing rather well in europe; and isn't it fascinating to observe all these modern groups, abusing prog, thinking themselves so profound and experimental, and never knowing just how hugely influenced by prog they themselves truely are. Radiohead anyone?
Ha!
Scott (Demon-progressive-rock-fiend)