Top-5 Most Revered, Yet Most Over-Rated Bands: Just Because You're A Veritable Icon Doesn't Make You Exempt From My Wrath

1. The Beatles

I can hear the collective gasp emitted from my readers even as I type this, and trust me, my little fingers are quivering with fear above the keyboard. I will, no doubt, be cast to the lowest bowels of music hell for uttering such sacrilege towards the Holy Beatle Nation, whose members will most certainly flood my in-box with poorly-worded death threats and accusations regarding my mental stability. The truth is just too much for some people, I suppose. I will fully concede the fact that The Beatles had definable moments of brilliance in their rather substantial body of work. But, for every, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, there are ten of Rocky Raccoon; and anybody that tells you to your face that they actually like Rocky Raccoon is a damned, dirty liar and should not be trusted.

Most annoyingly, people seem to think that name-checking The Beatles either as a musical influence or a personal favorite lends them some sort of added level of credibility. Ask ten Beatles' fans to name 5 albums and I bet you the majority couldn't give you 3. At least John Lennon and George Harrison, the two moderately interesting members, had the good grace to just die. Nowadays, we're stuck with that useless fossil, McCartney, until probably sometime into the next century, where he will no doubt still be whoring himself out for $300 a ticket and singing When I'm 64 at the age of 108. I'd like to slap that silly little smirk off his face and if I didn't think he could afford a legal team that would make O.J. weep with bitter envy I would, too.

2. Marilyn Manson

I'll admit it, initially, I found his antics and persona mildly entertaining. At least his shtick seemed a bit different than whatever crap was populating the Billboard charts. And then I found out his name was Brian Warner and realized that he was just another one of those loser kids in high school who wore pentagrams and Pantera t-shirts and stood in the shadows practicing looks of anger and self-loathing. Rather quickly, after the initial shock had worn off, even the unwashed masses realized that without his shock-factor he was still that same kid hiding behind the lockers in his trench coat. You know you've hit rock-bottom when you have to resort to looking like an androgynous robot in order to get people to pay attention to you. Bowie beat you by 25 years, moron, and at least he did it with a bit of style and panache.

3. Phish

I must be the only self-proclaimed Deadhead who loathes Phish and thinks that Trey Anastasio is about as relevant to music as Dick Cheney's grocery list. Whether you like the Dead or not, you have to admit they were excellent musicians. Trey and the boys (I mean really, can you name one other member?) sound like they just bought their instruments from the pawn shop last week and are still on Chapter 1 of their "Guitar For Dummies" instructional guide. Insipid, would be a generous word for the lyrical content and I unequivocally refuse to advocate any band whose song titles include Scent Of A Mule and Dog Faced Boy. I'm guessing they're attempting to be witty and clever, however, they always sound like a bunch of Dungeons and Dragons nerds who got together to make jokes about their little 6-sided die. It's only funny to a very few.

4. Blondie

I'm sure I'm now gonna take some heat from the Blondie fans as well, but unlike the disgruntled Manson fans who are, in fact, probably hiding a semi-automatic weapon beneath that trench coat, I'm not particularly frightened by you people. You're probably in your late forties anyway, and think that $2,000 seems reasonable for a chance to hear The Eagles play Hotel California for the 7 billionth time. If music has taught us anything, it's that white people should never attempt to rap. A fact sorely ignored and later solidified by the advent of Vanilla Ice. People use words to describe Blondie such as "innovative" and "ground-breaking." I just see a woman with a penchant for ill-fitting clothing and a band who was at the right place at the right time. They would have most certainly stoned that woman if she had started her off-key warbling career south of the Mason-Dixon line. Rapture is no Freebird, my dear readers, I'll tell you that. Yee-haw!

5. Green Day

They have an album entitled Dookie that hasn't a trace of irony that can be found anywhere on it. Surely, that should be enough to have them drawn and quartered right there. Billy Joe Armstrong is most certainly the name of a man conceived in an illicit trailer park somewhere in the back woods of southern rural Alabama. The fact that he was actually a little poseur-kid from California is inexplicable, yet far more irritating. I would have much preferred the former as at least it would have given a completely different meaning to the song, Nimrod. Most likely because it would have described his father or brother or, hey this is Alabama- his father/brother. Far worse than Armstrong's name is his legion of fans. You know you're in trouble when even your own fans turn against you. All the little psuedo-punk kids who championed them when they were virtual nobodies, chastised them when they became uber-famous, have now hailed the advent of their new album as the second-coming of Punk music. Punk music, my ass. Just because you pretend to thumb your nose at the establishment and wear a bit of eyeliner and spike your well-coiffed hair doesn't make you punk. Listen to any album by Bad Brains or Operation Ivy and then talk to me about punk, my little deluded friends.

6* No Doubt

I'm not even going to point out the obvious and explain their place on the list as I figure most people pretty well know my feelings on the subject by now.