Guns N Roses

Madonna

Beck

Depeche Mode

Johnny Cash

The Ramones

Gang Starr

U2

Aerosmith

Sting

Guns N Roses - Made their mark with stuff like "Welcome To The Jungle", "Patience", etc. but due to a lack of longevity, they're overrated, in my opinion, compared with other loud bands. I still enjoy some of their stuff, but their bad stuff was really bad, especially any covers they did.

 

Madonna - Legend diva. I admit that Madonna got me into the music scene back when I started watch music videos heavily when I was in Grade 1. I wouldn't call myself a die-hard, but she's the type whose songs can easily get stuck in your head. I wish she'd stick to just tours these days, because she's seriously out of touch with modern day music.

 

Beck - I don't know much about Beck besides "Loser" and "Where It's At". Both songs are alright, but not the type of stuff I fall in love with.

 

Depeche Mode - Again, kind of an unknown for me. I had a friend in Grade 8 who loved them, and the only times I listened to them back then, they felt like elevator music. I need to give them another listen.

 

Johnny Cash - One of my all-time favourites. I think his stuff is not for everyone (I once brought a Cash CD to my parents' place, and they couldn't wait for me to finish listening to it), but those who can get into his stuff can REALLY get into it. Lots of his stuff is quite funny, too.

 

The Ramones - Again, not enough knowledge to judge. (Can you believe that with THIS band?)

 

Gang Starr - Again, no knowledge.

 

U2 - It's a bandwagon opinion, but I think their legacy is overrated. They had a terrible 90s era, especially with the Pop release. I still like some of their 80s stuff, but in comparison with other "classic rock" bands, they're not even in the same time zone as others. They're coming here to Ottawa in November in the most heralded concert of the year here, but I think a minimum asking price of $45 for these guys is too much.

 

Aerosmith - In a way, like U2, but I love Aerosmith's 70s stuff far, far more than U2's 80s stuff (in fact, I like Aerosmith's 80s stuff more than U2's 80s stuff), so in spite of Steven Tyler not exactly aging with grace, they're still in my good books. I'd actually like to see them live, even though they're way past their time. (Note: For how bad Tyler whores himself to the public sometimes, check out his hilariously bad cameo in Be Cool.)

 

Sting - I'm more a fan of his Police stuff than his solo stuff. Not a huge fan, but that era was really enjoyable. Could play some smooth reggae with the best of them, too.

Guns N Roses - I like "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Novemeber Rain" and a couple of thir other songs. Too bad Axel is an asshole.

 

Madonna - I have no use for her and wish I never had to hear another one of her songs.

 

Beck - "Loser" is a cute song.

 

Depeche Mode - Don't really know who they are.

 

Johnny Cash - The only time I ever heard any of his stuff was when he dies. I wasn't really impressed.

 

The Ramones - Don't like what little I've heard.

 

Gang Starr - I have an old tape of his but it's been song long since I've listened to it that I can't remeber whether I liked him or not.

 

U2 - I like a couple of their songs but have no use for their politics.

 

Aerosmith - I love Aerosmith. Everything from their 70s stuff right on up to the current shit.

 

Sting - Didn't he cover a Puff Daddy song?

Guns N Roses - Were awesome in their time, Appetite For Destruction and the Use Your Illusion albums were pretty good. Spaghetti Incident pretty much sucked. When and if another album is released by Axl and friends, chances are I won't give a shit. Velvet Revolver are pretty good mind you.

 

Madonna - Bedtime Stories, Immaculate Collection and Erotice are classics, everything else... crap or good but unimpressive. Became to reliant on Will Orbit.

 

Beck - Odelay, Midnight Vultures and Mellow Gold are good, everything else is a little out there for my tastes. Haven't listened to Guero.

 

Depeche Mode - Everything after Ultra... blah. Exciter? Hardly. Once great... now a band that should probably only tour.

 

Johnny Cash - Great lyricist if not a gifted guitarist. Kudos must be given for his reinvention of himself in the 90s and covers that didn't suck.

 

The Ramones - Couldn't play but man were they entertaining. "Pinhead" and "Blitzkrieg Bop" are sing along classics.

 

Gang Starr - Guru has always been a solid if unspectacular MC, Premier is a legend as a producer. "Just To Get A Rep" is one of my favourites of theirs.

 

U2 - Stopped being interesting or relevant after that Pop. Edge can still come up with the riffs but Bono writes too much shit these days for someone not on drugs.

 

Aerosmith - Again, used to be awesome, Just Push Play to me was the point I said "man, these guys can't do it anymore". Even their 80s come back stuff was at least decent and Nine Lives had it's moments.

 

Sting - Was good before the mid nineties. Even "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You" was half decent, but fucking tantric sex and duets with Craig David? That's the sound of a once respected rocker pissing on his legacy. "Walking On The Moon" and "Message In A Bottle" were good though.

Guns N Roses - i like them fine, but they never stirred anything deep within my soul. flashy cockrock, GREAT vocals, lots of bombast, but i never thought they had the substance of, say, nirvana. "estranged" is awesome, awesome, awesome stuff.

 

Madonna - makes some fantastic singles, but all her albums i've heard are really uneven. picked up 'true blue' the other day, and oh my god is it obvious where she put the effort. "papa don't preach," "open your heart," etc., great stuff, but it's peppered with complete and utter shit like "where's the party" and "jimmy jimmy."

 

Beck - awesomely sly. i still dig the hell out of 'mellow gold', and i'm just beginning to appreciate the greatness of 'odelay'. sadly, i have no others.

 

Depeche Mode - looooooove the singles. don't have any of the albums. i'd like to get 'violator' sometime in the near future.

 

Johnny Cash - i like his style, great image, but just not my kind of music i guess, cause it's hard for me to listen to a cash album all the way through.

 

The Ramones - heard very little of them. i like what i've heard, but nothing really special.

 

U2 - o.ver.rat.ed.

 

Aerosmith - eh. only really familiar with their 80s-90s stuff, and 'get a grip' used to be my favorite album, but it seems kinda jokey and bland to me now.

 

Sting - blech. yay police, boo solo career.

Guns N' Roses - I absolutely loved these guys growing up. appetite was one of about 5 albums that could define a period of my life better than any other. the Illusion albums came out right before my mother died. Listen to "Estranged" at a tumultuous time in your life and you may believe it is the best song ever written. Clear your head a little bit and it is a little overblown. Still, a great moment for me... All ten minutes.

 

Madonna - I don't deny her impact on popular culture but I can't stand her music... any of it. Maybe some of the more organic songs but it just isn't my thing. I will say I had a huge crush on her in the "Open your Heart" video.

 

Beck - I saw him at Lollapalooza '95 supporting Mellow Gold. I love that album. After Odelay was released, I had tickets to go see him inAusinfor my birthday. There were about ten of us piled up in two cars going on the roadie. About the midpoint between San Antonio and Austin, my car broke down, I had to call y dad to come get the car towed and I missed the concert. It turns out, we would have missed most of the show if we had made it to Austin since he started earlier than announced. We had ablast that night and I can't remember most of it. His last two albums have done nothing for me.

Haven't heard his latest.

 

Depeche Mode - My friends in high school went absolutely batshit over these guys. I could never stand them. I like two or three songs tops and they give me a headache.

 

Johnny Cash - I have been listening to JOhnny Cash since I was old enough to walk. I can do some mean karaoke covers as well. One of my favorite performers of all-time. So much so, that I have a ring of fire on my right arm in tribute.

 

The Ramones - There influence is timeless. In the 70's when England was going nuts over the Clash and Pistols, the Ramones were doing their thing here and are really one of the most prolific bands ever. The made punk catchy and fun while still helping it to remain true to its roots.

 

U2 - I like songs but not really entire albums. I made a U2 compilation adn it stands as one of the best comps I have ever made.

 

Aerosmith- One of the best 70s rock bands to grace us with their presence. Toys in the Attic and Rocks are two of the best albums of the Decade. Buy the Pandora's Box box set to expose yourself to some great Aerosmith. The 80s and 90s stuff is absolutely embarassing compared to the classic stuff.

 

Sting - The Police rule. The solo stuff is really hit or miss with him missing more than hitting.

Guns N Roses - Probably the most overhyped, overbilled one album band of all time. Don't get me wrong, Appetite For Destruction is a hell of an album and "November Rain" is a great power ballad, but the amount of worship heaped onto this band in the late 90's was embarrassing and more an indictment of rock in the 80's than anything else. The success (and sound) of Velvet Revolver should be a profound indicator of just how much Axl Rose brought to the band. Janis Joplin with a penis substituted for talent. Speaking of Axl, his confrontation with Kurt Cobain at the MTV VMAs is always good for a laugh.

 

Madonna - She's put so much effort into her image that you can forget how many decent songs she's has. Probably had the best 90's out of anybody that came out of the 80's.

 

Beck - Tremendous talent who really needs to cheer up. The Pitchfork review of Guero probably sums up his career better than anything else. Like goodhelmet spoke of U2, Beck's albums don't really floor you, but you could probably make an outrageous comp of all of his hits that would never leave your CD player.

 

Depeche Mode - Maybe I was too young, but they're not really the life-changing band that I've heard many claim them to be. That being said, they're decent, though I've got to be in the right mindset to listen to them. Other than "Enjoy The Silence", most of their better songs lie on Violator and Ultra.

 

Johnny Cash - It was refreshing to see Cash, someone from the previous generation of music, tip his cap to some of the new songs with the American recordings. Ironically, his solo stuff is practically uncoverable, as nobody could ever do justice to Cash's delivery and presence.

 

The Ramones - I'm not really a punk fan, but the Ramones are poppy and catchy enough to keep me from turning the radio dial when they come on.

 

Gang Starr - I got nothing.

 

U2 - These guys are the band that you really can't stand, but you always find yourself humming one of their songs. Seriously, "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" and "Beautiful Day" are too infectious for their own good. Can't stand the rest of their catalogue, though.

 

Aerosmith - If the rest of their 80's-90's catalogue would have sounded like "Nine Lives" or "Falling In Love (Is So Hard On The Knees)", then I'd wager they wouldn't be as reviled by 70's purists as they are today. Their collaboration with Run DMC is probably the watershed musical moment of the 80s, as it brought a new genre of music into the mainstream for good, while enabling one of the greatest rock comebacks of all time.

 

Sting - Dude managed to churn out a guilty pleasure for me any time he indulged in his cultural influences (see: "Desert Rose"). His work with the Police ain't too shabby either.

Their collaboration with Run DMC is probably the watershed musical moment of the 80s

pssh. it's all about the 'thriller', fool.

Guns N Roses - The peaks are outstanding. The low points are very, very low. All of their songs start to sound the same after a while, at least on the UYI albums, but Axl Rose has more vocal range than just about any frontman ever. "Welcome To The Jungle" is the best song from the _band_, with them showing an incredible amount of range in one song. "Civil War" is my favorite though.

 

Madonna - I'm gay, so obviously she has a special place in my heart. She's the one piece of my musical puzzle that just doesn't quite fit with the rest of my tastes, I think because I grew up with her and she rose to stardom when I was a child and has remained a huge star my entire life. Best albums are the first one, which still holds up as a great dance-pop listen today; Like A Prayer, which is haunting and very personal; Bedtime Stories, which is Madonna finding her best, most unforced-sounding music; and Ray of Light, which was the ultimate comeback album that kept Madonna relevant in the pop culture scene after Evita. Since then, she's had a couple of bombs, but her tours still gross very well, so I do think her fans are very loyal. I'm surprised someone like P. Diddy hasn't tried to exploit her entire catalog for everything it's worth. I think she could top the charts again if she worked with Missy Elliott or Timbalake.

 

(gtd mentioned True Blue, which isn't the best overall album, but has some great singles, and he's correct. "La Isla Bonita" and "Live To Tell" are still two of the best songs she's ever recorded.)

 

Beck - Huge fan whose talent is so broad in scope that it results in him being inconsistent sometimes. I don't really care for the Sonic Youth-esque approach on albums like Stereopathetic Soulmanure, but I love the more structured albums he's done. Midnite Vultures is something I'll just ignore ever happened, and I'll call myself a fan of the rest of his music.

 

Depeche Mode - Violator is amazing; the rest of their collection is best represented in singles. Oh, and MiB, "Enjoy The Silence" is on Violator. It's really the only essential purchase of all their albums unless you're a completist.

 

Johnny Cash - I find it easiest to listen to him in moderation since all of his songs seem to sound the same, but I am a fan of his music.

 

The Ramones - Really fun punk-pop group that didn't try to be anything they weren't. "Blitzkrieg Bop" is a rockin' song.

 

Gang Starr - I like what I've heard, but I haven't heard tons. I need to seek out more.

 

U2 - The lack of love shown in this thread blows me away. Sure, The Joshua Tree, War and Achtung Baby are the only really great albums, but their singles, at least prior to Pop, are terrific, and even Pop had some fun moments. Bono has an incredible voice. "All I Want Is You" is a beautiful song; I'm surprised no one has mentioned it.

 

Aerosmith - Huge fan of their 70s work, and I like maybe two of their singles since then, those being "Love In An Elevator" and "Livin' On The Edge". Steven Tyler doesn't even sound like the same vocalist now that he did in "Dream On". I've often wondered if it's really him.

 

Sting - Like most in this thread, I'm a bigger fan of the Police stuff, but I have enjoyed a few songs in his solo run, most notably "Free Free" and "Desert Rose".

Their collaboration with Run DMC is probably the watershed musical moment of the 80s

pssh. it's all about the 'thriller', fool.

Okay, Thriller sold a ton of albums, ushered in the "cinematic" era of music video direction, and made Michael Jackson's career.

 

Jackson's career is probably done now, music videos have almost completely disintegrated into irrelevance, and - while Thriller's album sales are still legendary - they don't really impact the music industry, in terms of evolution. The Eagles' Greatest Hits album and the soundtrack for The Bodyguard sold a truckload of records too.

 

The collaboration between Aerosmith and Run DMC, however, legitimized an entire genre that would dominate the mainstream medium for years, and resurrected a revered rock band (and essentially lofted them to legendary status).

 

In my opinion, it's a push, at worst.