someone mentioned the McCoys, how can they be underrated when they wrote the state song of Ohio and are routinely played at OSU home football games? c'mon man!
Siouxsie was doing it way before Sinead, Alanis and Tori. Not arguing your selections...just sayin' she did it first.
Nobody ever talks about bands that are rated just right. Three little bears syndrome. Don't sleep on them.
I didn't really appreciate them for a long time, but their music was so stinking' good. I guess David Byrne didn't appreciate them either since he didn't think the band was good enough to make the music he wanted to make. I could listen to Naive Melody for hours.
Tough question as I feel there needs to be a little bit more clarification - underrated in terms of sales? underrated in terms of being known? underrated in terms of influence? I'm going to list some artists that I don't think I have seen so far: Gang of Four Magma Joy Division Roxy Music Sparks Captain Beefheart Can That's what I came up with right now but agree on the Pixies plus Pavement, Dinosaur Jr., and Yo La Tengo. Four indie bands who along with Sonic Youth were massively influential from the late 80's to today on any aspiring indie band.
Fishbone is the correct answer. CRIMINALLY underrated. They can (and do) play any genre of music, metal, funk, ska, gospel, you name it. They are all multi-instrumentalists. Singer plays sax, other singer plays trumpet, keyboard player plays trombone. Even the Chili Peppers say Fishbone should be more popular than them. Honorable Mention: Living Colour Kings X
Watched "About the Young Idea" a couple of years ago and spent the whole doc wondering "How the hell was I not WAAAAY more into The Jam back in the day?!" I knew "In the City" and "Going Underground", but that was about it.
38 Special maybe not the most underrated but still somewhat underrated. They seem to live in the shadow of being Lynyrd Skynyrd little brother.
This was my first thought, but they are too popular (?) and too well-known. But when you talk about American rock bands...they rarely come up, but they should.
Mother Love Bone They were the original grunge band that was about to explode, and they also were very influential in general alternative music. Alex Wood was going to be a massive star and the band was on it's way to being an all time great band... the music they did produce was exceptional. Their front man was basically the heart of the band and he over dosed on heroin only like a week before their first album was to be released.
