Who is the most underrated band/performer?

No that's not a statement. The Who gets all the props they need.

My votes go to:
The Aquabats - Best live show around, clean/fun songs, and a loyal fan base, but not a lot of radio or MTV play (of course maybe the lack of MTVness is what makes them so great.

Sony Bono -he did a lot behind the scenes that no one realized, and yes he did make Cher.

 

Sony Bono -he did a lot behind the scenes that no one realized, and yes he did make Cher.

True, but on the other hand 'The Sony and Cher show' was an unforgivable crime against taste.

 

haha!!! good point darth karde! that show was.....umm....well.......one of a kind.

my choice is cheri oteri. one of the funniest comediennes i've ever seen. possibly the funniest person to ever be on SNL.

 

Muse - I'm am amazed to find that so little people, at least in Australia, don't know who they are. I love this band!! Their music is great, yet they get so little recognition around here.

 

Muse is great! I had to order their most recent album off of the net since it wasn't released in the U.S.A. Hopefully the new one will be.

Anyone ever listen to Thrice? It's like crossing Metallica, Refused, NOFX, and Iron Maiden. I've never heard anything exactly like it. But I like it alot.

Or, how about Pavoratti(sp?) performing "Roots, Bloody Roots" with Sepultura?

The Picnic

 

Opeth, great band. If you like good music, check 'em out.

 

The Wildhearts- they're from England. They truely ROCK!!!

 

Mary Chapin Carpenter. Doesn't get the credit she deserves because she's labelled as country and therefore ignored by a lot of people who hate that genre. But she's a great guitar player, has a gorgeous voice, and her songs are very poignant.

"I grew up in a house like this
You knew the groan of every stair
All the walls seemed to listen in
All the years seemed to take up the air
And when you dreamed it was of the wind blowing cold and hard
And in those dreams you thought you lived in a house of cards.

And I grew up in a town like this
You knew the names of every street
On the surface it looked so safe
But it was perilous underneath
That's the place where you shoved your doubts and hid your ugly scars
God forbid if word got out about your house of cards.

And now I feel the wind about to blow
Baby I'm so scared
We're repeating the past instead of letting it go
And I don't want to go back there

Now we're standing here face to face
Afraid to move or else
I want to prop up this fragile place
But I can't do it all by myself
Cause when we dream it's of the wind blowing cold and hard
And when we wake up we still live in a house of cards
When we dream it's of the wind blowing cold and hard
And when we wake up we still live in a house of cards."
--House of Cards

She also does a rendition of John Lennon's "Grow Old With Me," which he wrote based on Robert Browning's poem "Rabbi Ben Ezra."

 

Vanilla Ice

 

If I sat here and listed every underrated band IMHO that I've preached about numerous times before I'd end up sounding like a screeching broken record. I dare not bore everybody.

<[-]> Saber

 

Earthsuit.

// get lost in the continuum of subharmonic space!

 

Midnight Oil - I'll grant you they've had success, but not lasting as much as it should have.

Cyndi Lauper - Same as above. Pity about so few albums.

Sister2Sister - a duo that has one album. They toured with Britney, and then their record company dropped them. The album sounds like a good version of Britneys first album. Possibly, I am a little of their looks as well as the music so ignore me on this one.

 

Midnight Oil is great. Too bad you hardly hear of them in the U.S. anymore.

 

Paul McCartney. He was half the genius of the Beatles, and his solo stuff is much better than anyone gives him credit for. The problem is that George only put out a few albums, and John didn't put out that many, so people wered starved for their sound in the seventies, and a lot of it was really good. George's first solo album is the best of any Beatle solo effort ever.

But McCartney put out everything he had in his head, and he didn't have Lennon their to tell him when some of his stuff sucked. But McCartney solo stuff can be pretty amazing, but it can also be equally bland.

So McCartney's the most underrated, since Lennon always hands down gets props before McCartney, but McCartney's genius can be seen in the works of Sgt. Pepper's, Magical Mystery Tour, and Abbey Road, but Lennon still gets all the credit.

 

Actually, I saw a news article recently that said that they will be switching the "Lennon, McCartney" label to "McCartney, Lennon" for a number of songs for that very reason. Lennons name is always first because they listed it in alphabetical order or something like that apparantly.

However, I don't think Paul McCartney is at all "under-rated." He's one of the biggest rock stars ever. And he's a knight.

The Picnic

 

The Echoing Green- they make the most awesome techno music. The beats are great, the lyrics are intelligent and reflective, and some of their songs really touch me, which is strange when you think of a techno band (ie- "Nightfall and Splendor" is beautiful, "Waterfall" is soft and soothing). But the only place that sells their CDs is strange online shops, because they always jump around on independent labels.

Rockbridge- a group from Florida who's slightly oldies-style, but their lyrics are like poetry. They're very pretty songs.

 

The most underrated band is Metalwood and the most underrated preformer is Brad Turner.

 

What the hell is Metalwood? Is it metal?

 

The Aquabats - Best live show around

You can't really mean that.

~PAd

 

The Aquabats - Best live show around

You can't really mean that.

They fight the forces of evil, endorse products, bring out special guests, shoot fire from their instruments, totally rock out, and by the end of the show they've saved the world! What more can you want?

 

Best live show around

if you think that, that's only because you haven't seen Mutaytor or Fischerspooner live.

EDIT: oh, wow, and you live in SoCal, too. you really have no excuse not to go to a Mutaytor show now. go to their website www.mutaytor.com immediately.

 

Less Than Jake has one hell of a live show. Highlights include Spiderman, jumping onto stage from behind the curtain, shooting silly string at everyone, and then crowd diving (he was later seen that evening during the last song in the giant circle jerk on the floor of 9:30 in DC). On the songs without horns, the horn players have bags of Pez they throw to the crowd. Last time I saw them, they ended the show with breathing fire above the crowd.

Even if you don't like their music, their shows can make you crack a smile.

The Picnic

 

Spidey is cool, but only one fire-breather? dude, we have more than that at my friends' birthday parties... =)

 

Does it help that the fire breather was an oriental guy dressed like Raiden from Mortal Kombat? (and no, i'm not kidding)

The Picnic