Underrated bands and musical artists

[Vel]

Who in your opinion are the most underrated musical artists?
My top 3 are
1. Asia - a wonderful rock band, but alas produced only one hit single. When they reunited in early 90s, they made many wonderful songs like "Love under fire"(you've gotta hear it, it is as perfect as "The show must go on" imo), "Someday" and "Arena".Alas, none of them became major hits, but the band is still playing, their latest album, Aura, was released in 2001.
2. Sergey Vasylevich Rachmaninov - A genious composer, romanticist, who, alas, was born before his time. His piano concertos are genious, and I must say that they are the hardest thing to play I've heard.
3. Uriah Heep - They are not exactly underrated, but are not considered rock legends as they should, in line with Pink Floyd, Deep purple and Queen. I had the chance to see them live last summer and I've gotta say that they are as good as ever. Your thoughts?

[Privateer Puddin']

m0ds?

[Nacho]

Rachmaninov is getting quite consideration since Geoffrey Rush won an Oscar playing his compositions in "Shine", IMHO.

[Gregjazz]

Actually, I find most classical pianists always rave about Rachmaninov. His stuff is hard to play, but at least it is rewarding with its very 'full' sound. Whereas Mozart's stuff...

[Migs]

{Pointless Mozart slander deleted.}

I'm certainly a Rachmaninov fan, as well as Chopin.  Both these composers stray from the general light-heartedness of classical piano music.  Rachmaninov is incredibly fun to play, if you're willing to put in extra time to learn his pieces.

[Sluggo]

On the contrary, I find Rachmaninov extremely overrated, especially his piano concertos. If you want to listen to the true art of concerto writing then listen to Mozart. Pianists rave about Rachmaninov because it's just something they can show off with, much like Liszt. And I would imagine it would be harder to play a classical concerto rather than a romantic one because of the lack of freedom. Mozart has to be clean and precise to be played well. But with Rachmaninov, the style tends to be a bit sloppy.
    Although I do find Rachmaninov's orchestral works to be of better quality than the concertos.

I think Modest Mussorgsky is also underrated. He's written some very nice orchestral works, and opera and ballet music that often gets ignored. I suppose the reason was his lack of orchestrational skills, but I think Ravel and Rimsky-Korsakov covered that pretty well

Migs:

the general light-heartedness of classical piano music

Listen to some Beethoven.

[FruitTree]

I'm a big Ravel fan
but I'm probably theonly one  

[Vel]

Not the only one, FT. Bolero is one of my favourite classical tunes.

[Peter Thomas]

Bolero annoys me. 13 minutes of music is okay, but when it's the same {insert number between 10-20} bars over and over again, with the only variation coming from crescendo's and added insrtumentation, it gets on my nerves. Don't get me wrong - I don't presume to think it lacks finesse, or skill, or style, or challenge... but it doesn't work for me personally...

Three greatest under-rated composers?? hmmm...

Liszt (only because I can play his stuff and brag about it when some of my friends can't... It's selfish, I know, but it's also very rewarding  )

Elgar!!! I have ABSOLUTELY fallen in love with 'Enigma Variations'.... *sigh* I am obsessed at the moment. He's one awesome string composer.

Handel!! I know he's pretty famous, but a dude who can write 'Messiah' in such a short amount of time, and have it sound SOOOOO amazingly cool can't get enough credit from me.

Hmm... I could probably think of a MILLION others if I tried real hard...... but I'm lazy at the moment, and I wish not to be thinking........

[Jockstrap]

What about Mike Patton?

[Vel]

Repetition is okay with me, if done good. One of my favourite songs is "you dont fool me" by Queen, which includes many repetitions, but they are done so well that they get you wnt to listen to them more.

Any thoughts about more contemporary artists(like UH or Asia)?

[Trapezoid]

What about Mike Patton?

Rock on.
Actually, the guy's a bit of a freak, but I certainly prefer him over the usual shock rockers.

Hmm... I think that Keigo Oyamada, aka "Cornelius", needs a lot more recognition, at least in the west.
Also, mustn't forget Macho Man Randy Savage. Ooh yeah.

[Blackthorne]

What about Mike Patton?

Faith No More was totally underated.  They were more than just "Epic" (Which was and still IS a great song) but they bent genre and style quite a bit; too much for mainstream type fans to catch on.  

As for Uriah Heep, they are one of those 70's bands who just don't get as much acclaim as they should.  Badfinger is another group I love, but isn't as celebrated - Sugarloaf is another one; "Green Eyed Lady" is a great tune.

I'd say Gomez, too.  They seem to be popular in England, but here in the States, no one knows them.  I'm in love with the tune "Miles End" of off "In Our Gun"

[DragonRose]

Enter The Haggis: I sincerely doubt that anyone is going to have heard of these guys, but they're a celt-rock group from Toronto.  Authors of such songs as "Ride My Monster":

I'm floating 'cross the loch on my monster again
My monster's always with me, he's my very special friend.
I'm going to see my lassy, Miss Suzy McGoo
And, if she wants to, Sue McGoo can ride my monster, too!

Makes me giggle everytime I think of that song.

The Avalanches: an Australian group that takes samples from old movies and mixes them together to make songs. Frontier Psychiatrist is my personal favourite.

[Vel]

Blackthrone, do you mean Meatloaf?

[n3tgraph]

wooo

music topic

I agree with vel on uriah.... I saw them live last year, and they rock!
for the rest in Holland Matchbox20 is highly underrated... the only well known song by rob thomas is smooth :S

and I like bands like American Hi Fi, Dream Theater which are quite underrated bands in Holland too

[Matt Brown]

big bad voodoo daddy
royal crown revue
cherry poppin daddies (they did more then zoot suit people)

retro swing gets no respect

[remixor]

Black Heart Procession needs some more damn recognition, after the staggeringly impressive creative leap they made from their already-good first three albums to their monumentally incredible 2002 concept album, Amore del Tropico.

[shitar]

Wierd Al

[Peter Thomas]

I don't buy into a lot of this modern music, for various reasons. One of them is that most bands seem to write music for money, as opposed to writing music for music.

This is the part where everyone floods me with useless messages about how {insert band name here} has really powerful lyrics and they do it to ellicit a message, not for the dough.

I am completely aware of this. That is why I used the words 'A lot of this modern music' and 'most bands' instead of 'every musician alive'.

Bands like 'A Perfect Circle' are a good example. Some of their songs are just SO amazingly cool (even though I'm not usually a fan of that genre), while others seem to have been put on just so they can fill a cd.

So it's hard for me to justify very many modern bands. I mean, seriously, when you think about it, if Bon Jovi got a song that was still remembered one-hundred-fifty years later, it'd be a miracle. The fact that Beethoven and Mozart could do exactly that says SOMETHING about what we're missing in today's society.

But then again, I'm just a twisted, bitter old man who wants violins and pianos to RULE THE WORLD like they used to...