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Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2025 11:37 am
by Horse
Bigjawa wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 12:47 am
Van fucking Morrison. ... not one single person ... has a good word to say about him
Apart from "some good tunes", I don't think I've heard anyone say anything particularly nice things about him.
But, so often, it's necessary to separate the person from the art.
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2025 11:49 am
by Pirahna
David Bowie
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2025 12:45 pm
by Taipan
Pirahna wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 11:49 amDavid Bowie
I started the talentless tossers thread on VD where I named him as one of the worst live singers I've ever heard. I got hell for it!

Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2025 12:54 pm
by Taipan
The Beatles were a lot more than just a band. They pretty much spearheaded pop music as we know it today and of course were part of the merseybeat which launched Gerry and the Pacemakers,The Searchers etc. They were recognised all over the world in their heyday and are still world-renowned today some 55 years after they disbanded!
Good article on them here
https://www.soundoflife.com/blogs/mixta ... ic-forever
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:17 pm
by Le_Fromage_Grande
weeksy wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 8:06 am
Le_Fromage_Grande wrote: Sun Dec 07, 2025 6:11 pm
Personally I think the Beatles are very over rated, but I wasn't alive when they were popular, so WTF do I know.
Feck knows what music someone will decide is iconic from when I was young, 1980s, but the music that was high in the charts at the time was utter shite.
I don't like the Stones, but that doesn't change what they did. Millions upon millions love/loved them, so i assume they're not overrated otherwise they'd all be wrong. I do like the Beatles though, but having family who lived closely through their music/culture that's not hard to work out why.
I don't like the Stones or the Beatles music, but I'm 20 years too young for them to be relevant to me, the Stones are a bit dull and the Beatles music is too pop for my taste. If I'm going to listen to bands from Liverpool it would be the first 3 Echo and the Bunnymen Albums, Teardrop Explodes and the first Half Man, Half Biscuit album, I rate the Beatles on the same level as Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Sonja, even OMD are better, but at least Liverpool has some music to offer, all Ipswich has to offer is Nik Kershaw, and I don't think he was born here.
I think Shakespear is over rated, it's late medieval mass entertainment, Dickens is over rated, it's Victorian Eastenders, Jane Austen's books are 19th Century RomComs the list goes on, in the future will Four Weddings and a Funeral be held up as some great piece of cinema?
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:46 pm
by Saga Lout
Le_Fromage_Grande wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:17 pm
I don't like the Stones or the Beatles music, but I'm 20 years too young for them to be relevant to me, the Stones are a bit dull and the Beatles music is too pop for my taste. If I'm going to listen to bands from Liverpool it would be the first 3 Echo and the Bunnymen Albums, Teardrop Explodes and the first Half Man, Half Biscuit album...
The Beatles paved the way for your favourite bands. You don't have to like them to acknowledge their influence.
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2025 11:30 pm
by Bigjawa
Saga Lout wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:46 pm
Le_Fromage_Grande wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:17 pm
I don't like the Stones or the Beatles music, but I'm 20 years too young for them to be relevant to me, the Stones are a bit dull and the Beatles music is too pop for my taste. If I'm going to listen to bands from Liverpool it would be the first 3 Echo and the Bunnymen Albums, Teardrop Explodes and the first Half Man, Half Biscuit album...
The Beatles paved the way for your favourite bands. You don't have to like them to acknowledge their influence.
Did they though?
Up until Revolver, they were pretty much your average rock and roll band, after that they became much more interesting but I still reckon that Cream were every bit as innovative and better musicians.
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 12:32 am
by Felix
Taipan wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 12:45 pm
Pirahna wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 11:49 amDavid Bowie
I started the talentless tossers thread on VD where I named him as one of the worst live singers I've ever heard. I got hell for it!
Was it as bad as Fallen Angel defending U2?

Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 12:34 am
by Felix
Bigjawa wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 11:30 pm
Saga Lout wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:46 pm
Le_Fromage_Grande wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:17 pm
I don't like the Stones or the Beatles music, but I'm 20 years too young for them to be relevant to me, the Stones are a bit dull and the Beatles music is too pop for my taste. If I'm going to listen to bands from Liverpool it would be the first 3 Echo and the Bunnymen Albums, Teardrop Explodes and the first Half Man, Half Biscuit album...
The Beatles paved the way for your favourite bands. You don't have to like them to acknowledge their influence.
Did they though?
Up until Revolver, they were pretty much your average rock and roll band, after that they became much more interesting but I still reckon that Cream were every bit as innovative and better musicians.
Beatles with Joe Cocker as the front man would have been interesting.
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 6:49 am
by ZRX61
Mr Moofo wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 8:03 am
I might just throw in Led Zeppelin- who seem to have “appropriated” everything they ever did from blind bluesmen
There's a book about bands who *borrowed* other bands work/songs. The majority of the bands get one page.
Led Zepp got an entire chapter. They're the worlds most famous cover band.
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 7:53 am
by Count Steer
Nothing too controversial yet.
I'll give you Winston Churchill as tactically inept. See: WWI - Gallipoli, WWII - Norway, Greece and the Mediterranean. Talked a good talk, big on strategic ambition, pants at tactics but insisted on overuling those that were better.
Chuck in the betrayal and forced repatriation (and certain death) to Russia of Russian POWs - many of them the so called 'White Russians' that he'd supported to weaken or defeat the Russian communists.
....for starters
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 8:13 am
by Mr Moofo
Count Steer wrote: Tue Dec 09, 2025 7:53 am
Nothing too controversial yet.
I'll give you Winston Churchill as tactically inept. See: WWI - Gallipoli, WWII - Norway, Greece and the Mediterranean. Talked a good talk, big on strategic ambition, pants at tactics but insisted on overuling those that were better.
Chuck in the betrayal and forced repatriation (and certain death) to Russia of Russian POWs - many of them the so called 'White Russians' that he'd supported to weaken or defeat the Russian communists.
....for starters
But he did stump up when the going got tough
Possibly not the nicest human being though - a man of his time?
As we are being controversioal
"Our" NHS ...
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 9:14 am
by asmethurst99
Pink Floyd
Rush
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 9:31 am
by Jody
Pulp Fiction
Fight Club
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 9:53 am
by roadster
For me a "cultural icon" is someone or something that has become part of the educational syllabus for exam purposes. As such I would say that those are mostly overrated. For example Shakespeare and Dickens. I hated them at school and still do! Universities thrive on regurgitating them to produce an endless cycle of lifelong academics but I suppose its one way of occupying thousands of the otherwise unemployable.
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 11:42 am
by Mr Moofo
roadster wrote: Tue Dec 09, 2025 9:53 am
For me a "cultural icon" is someone or something that has become part of the educational syllabus for exam purposes. As such I would say that those are mostly overrated. For example Shakespeare and Dickens. I hated them at school and still do! Universities thrive on regurgitating them to produce an endless cycle of lifelong academics but I suppose its one way of occupying thousands of the otherwise unemployable.
I would say it is anything that is seen as the fundamental part of the culture you live in. No need to be examined in it
On that basis
And did those feet … Jerusalem. A contemptible piece of maudlin shite
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 11:57 am
by Count Steer
Mr Moofo wrote: Tue Dec 09, 2025 11:42 am
roadster wrote: Tue Dec 09, 2025 9:53 am
For me a "cultural icon" is someone or something that has become part of the educational syllabus for exam purposes. As such I would say that those are mostly overrated. For example Shakespeare and Dickens. I hated them at school and still do! Universities thrive on regurgitating them to produce an endless cycle of lifelong academics but I suppose its one way of occupying thousands of the otherwise unemployable.
I would say it is anything that is seen as the fundamental part of the culture you live in. No need to be examined in it
On that basis
And did those feet … Jerusalem. A contemptible piece of
maudlin shite
In that case you can add the dismal dirge that we call the National Anthem.
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 12:15 pm
by Taipan
Count Steer wrote: Tue Dec 09, 2025 11:57 am
Mr Moofo wrote: Tue Dec 09, 2025 11:42 am
roadster wrote: Tue Dec 09, 2025 9:53 am
For me a "cultural icon" is someone or something that has become part of the educational syllabus for exam purposes. As such I would say that those are mostly overrated. For example Shakespeare and Dickens. I hated them at school and still do! Universities thrive on regurgitating them to produce an endless cycle of lifelong academics but I suppose its one way of occupying thousands of the otherwise unemployable.
I would say it is anything that is seen as the fundamental part of the culture you live in. No need to be examined in it
On that basis
And did those feet … Jerusalem. A contemptible piece of
maudlin shite
In that case you can add the dismal dirge that we call the National Anthem.
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 12:48 pm
by dern
Everything in art and culture is subjective. To say something is over (or under) rated because of your own tastes is as dumb as a brick. Imo, obvs.
Re: Overrated cultural icons
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2025 12:53 pm
by Beancounter
Felix wrote: Tue Dec 09, 2025 12:32 am
Taipan wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 12:45 pm
Pirahna wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 11:49 amDavid Bowie
I started the talentless tossers thread on VD where I named him as one of the worst live singers I've ever heard. I got hell for it!
Was it as bad as Fallen Angel defending U2?
She'll hunt you down just after she's done Taipan.
Jody wrote: Tue Dec 09, 2025 9:31 am
Pulp Fiction
Most of Tarantino's movies IMO. Some are entertaining but never warrant a re-watch.