FLAME ON!

Overrated rock classics and the slaughter of Holy Cows...

Mar 19, 2026

Mere moments do not a great artist make.

I have often found myself in a minority of one, declaring that certain Sacred Cow bands are simply fodder for the sheep who are settling for acclaimed greatness instead of really seeking it out for themselves.

At the risk of being strung up for heresy, I’m naming and shaming some of the bands I consider to be the main offenders, whose popularity and adoration seems to be fuelled more by hyperbole than the tunes themselves.

Or so I think, anyway.

This is a good-humoured list that will hopefully get some conversation flowing; two ‘rock’ bands from every decade since the ‘60s, each selected on the basis that, IMHO, despite having a couple of decent songs in their repertoire, are a long way away from being consistent or as flawless as popular opinion might have us believe. I haven’t gone outside that genre. I openly admit it’s not my area at all.

So…who are your favourite wastes of time?

In an era that shaped the rock and roll of the ‘50s into something closer to the rock and pop we adore today, the world became alive with clones of the successful bands of the time. Cover versions were occasionally released before the originals had time to settle and everyone seemed to be finding their own niche that was near-as-dammit a carbon copy of another band currently enjoying some success. And that was deemed OK.

There are therefore a ton of bands from the ‘60s that I’d consider disappointments, but how many are actually Sacred Cows, worthy of lighting myself on fire for?

I’m going for Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones.

While I can appreciate Jimi’s playing (to a certain extent), what I can’t get behind is his reputation as a great songwriter too. I just don’t think the songs are that good. They’re not particularly coherent and have never set my ears alight. There’s little in the way of consistent and nagging melodies; the songs have always felt, to me, like they’re a structure to be placed around the wandering imagination of his soloing. They just don’t interest me at all. Notable exceptions are Hey Joe and All Along The Watchtower. Interestingly, both cover versions. Maybe The Wind Cries Mary too.

But the rest?

Meh.

As for the Rolling Stones; there’s much to love. Their longevity is endearing and some of their songs are genuinely ace. But have they ever released a truly great LP? I don’t see it. And I’ve been beaten about my head with Exile On Main Street more times than I can count.

Their Satanic Majesty’s Request might come the closest for me. Most of their singles have their moment with me; Mother’s Little Helper owns its own soft spot at the back of my black old heart. Wild Horses is beautiful, although that’s really the ‘70s.

I often find myself enjoying covers of their songs more than the originals. The numerous versions of Paint It Black and Gimme Shelter that pepper my record collection almost always beat Keef and Mick’s originals.

And all those trite blues numbers? Dreadful.

Flame on.

The decade of ostentatious facial hair, flamboyant colours and man-made materials. My first ten years. There’s much to love; culturally and musically, for me. It’s a period of time that birthed the music I love in many ways. But there are a couple of big names from the period that are deemed untouchable, and I disagree.

Led Zep and The Clash,

Boo. Hiss.

Straddling the ‘60s and ‘70s, Led Zeppelin are undeniably responsible for originating lots that is great about modern music. Their tales of excess alone make them worthy of a timeless reputation.

But try as I might, I can’t find an LP of theirs that I love. The odd song - Stairway, obvs. Immigrant Song? Maybe. I’m hard pushed to much else by them that I couldn’t live without.

Again, like the ‘Stones, those yawning blues/rock songs are so fucking predictable and dull. I just don’t get what people see in them. Yet their contemporary Cows - Black Sabbath and Deep Purple - were churning out any number of memorable ditties, based on similar influences.

Jimmy Page can fuck off.

There I said it.

Satisfied?

You pushed me to it.

Stop encouraging me.

As for The Clash - I have a real soft spot for Give ‘Em Enough Rope - Safe European Home, especially, is bloody brilliant. There are moments on the first LP, several on London Calling, very few on Sandinista and even fewer on Combat Rock. So I struggle to see where the plaudits come from.

The lyrics, politically charged and passionate as they are, resonate with greatness, but the music has always fallen short of my own expectations, feeling closer to Pub Rock than Punk. Too much of the 101ers, not enough of their contemporaries’ bite.

If I do a side-by-side with The Clash against Ramones, The Damned or even the Pistols, they come up very short indeed.

Style over substance.

Sue me.

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If the 1970s were ostentatious in the facial hair stakes, the ‘80s were flamboyant in their costumery, with even day-to-day garments having a sense of theatricality about them.

Likewise, the music grew larger, alongside the shoulder pads and back combed hair-don’ts, synths dominated. Everything was laden in so much reverb and chorus effects that it projected a size that, often, the writing itself was dwarfed by. Mainstream music became as much about the production as the tunes.

This was the period across which I came of age. Immersed in post-punk, goth and NWOBHM, I’m not sure that I would change those days for anything. Bauhaus, The Cure, Sisters… Saxon, Iron Maiden, PiL, Adam and the Antz… there’s so much to celebrate that has stayed with me ever since.

But there was also a ton of overrated shite, not least of all Talking Heads and Metallica.

I know, right?

Don’t get me wrong, there are songs by both bands that I adore.

‘Tallica’s early work brought some thrashing hope for greatness, before swiftly collapsing beneath the weight of their own egos by 1988. Am I compelled to listen again and again to their albums? Ride The Lightning, maybe.

If I’m really in the mood.

There was a time I was addicted to it.

But anything else? Not really. Half of Master of Puppets.

A couple of tracks off Kill ‘Em All.

Certainly nothing after those first three records. Not least of all because the lyrics are so consistently appalling - and with each successive release, the music itself became so homogenised and boring.

It blows my mind that they’re still so huge.

They became, very rapidly, the metal U2.

What a yawnfest.

Even by my standards, Talking Heads are a bit of a lame addition to this list. I’m not that convinced they’re a genuine Sacred Cow for enough people to incite a reaction. But that’s also why they’re here. They don’t incite a reaction in me.

Maybe three songs off 1977 are worthwhile. Psycho Killer has obviously become a standard, and justifiably so. Maybe The Big Country, from More Songs about Buildings… but they were both form the 70s.

Honestly, how has their brutally dull take on funky, formless “art rock” stood the test of time? It is genuinely beyond me. I question the integrity of the music media for the praise they lavished on the band’s awful 80s output: Once In A Lifetime?!?! And She Was? Burning Down The House?! ROAD TO FUCKING NOWHERE?!?!

Lest we forget, they released seven LPs throughout the 1980s.

Including live albums, that’s more than 70 songs they “contributed” to the catalogue of human artistry in that decade alone.

Maybe their status came from their early role in the CBGBs scene that ended up defining punk and new wave in America. But compare them to Television, Voidoids, Patti Smith, Blondie, Ramones… their Zoot-Sooted clownish pretensions just don’t stand up.

By their own admission, they were a bit out of place. But you shouldn’t be hailed for creating Outsider Art just because you happen to be an outsider.

Fucking awful.

No redeeming factors.

They even had a song called Radio Head.

Which reminds me…

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This decade is symbolic of independence to me. The music sound-tracked my university years, an exciting time in London. Marriage, divorce and eventual retreat to the hills.

AmRep, Sub Pop, Estrus, Headhunter and Touch and Go were labels that fueled my fever early on, then Epitaph and Burning Heart. From 1996/7, I went back to metal, via early Black, Death and some metallic hardcore. Victory Records, Ferret, Revelation… It was a great decade for music, but there was a lot of shit too.

The two I’m calling out are Pearl Jam and Radiohead.

Are you aggravated yet?

I was very much in the punk and noise camp of grunge. It was Nirvana, Mudhoney, Tad, God Bullies, Cows and Tar that pushed my buttons. I couldn’t, for the life of me, draw a line between those bands - who I was absolutely fanatical about - and the limp corporate rock of Pearl Jam, the dismal metal of Alice In Chains or the half-arsed copyist claptrap of Stone Temple Pilots and their ilk.

Or those awfully bland pussy-footing egotists, Smashing Pumpkins. They seemed to have nothing to do with it as far as I could see, and yet they received more accolades than bands far more worthy.

Pearl Jam epitomise that for me. What on earth did people see in their soft corporate rock? It felt to me that it had about as much to do with the grime of grunge and post-hardcore as the Eagles. It was grunge for Mums. It didn’t share the fundamental DIY/Lo-Fi/Self-Deprecating mindset that for me was so fundamental to the movement. They were the opposite; delusions of grandeur with as much bite as a pensioner’s palsied maw.

A couple of exceptions; Alive eventually ingrained itself into my subconscious. Likewise, Once. But singles. Repetitious exposure. Certainly, nothing on any successive LPs. Ten can be tolerable in short bursts, but not from start to end.

Overproduced rubbish, with a sheen that’s been rubbed in by dollar bills.

Absolutely vile.

When I was a student, I wrote reviews for the university’s own oily little rag. Radiohead’s Pablo Honey came in upon release, and I remember, word for word, what I wrote about it:

“Third-rate Nirvana copyists who’ll never amount to anything…”.

Ha! In retrospect, it wasn’t my most astute gambit.

But I stand by the principles.

There was nothing about Pablo Honey that, taken in isolation, suggested the arty drearscapes that have sustained their career since, or that have endeared them to generations of listeners.

I’m afraid I still don’t get it. I can’t find the tunes in their songs. They seem to disappear so far up their own arses I can see them peeping from their collective windpipe. Utterly pretentious, which at times I am happy to applaud - Bauhaus, for instance - but so dreadfully dull. To my ears, they still have no redeeming factors whatsoever.

I find everything about them unconvincing, from their awful band name to their songwriting. I can’t see what the world would have missed if they’d never existed.

Coldplay for geography teachers and various heads of departments.

Music that is almost as boring as they are.

In lots of ways, the 2000s were fairly bland for me, musically.

It was the period of time given over to mainstream pop-punk; Blink 182 went huge, alongside Green Day. But it was also the lamentable period where dance music and hip-hop influences were ever-present in rock music.

It was bad enough in the 90s, but by the time the new millennium hit, it was impossible to avoid watered-down Prodigy-derived, big-beat nonsense, backed up layers of guitars masquerading as rebellion.

It was the time of Nu Metal, too - where mixing every abominable genre into a single awful collage of shit was deemed credible. It would be too easy to pop at the main contributors of that. I’m looking at you, Linkin Park, Korn, Limp Bizkit… But such is my disdain for their pointless existences, I refuse to acknowledge them as Sacred Cows. I sense too many people would agree with me and that would make this too easy.

Instead, I’m going for Nine Inch Nails and Foo Fighters.

It’s not that NIN never had some good songs. Head Like A Hole is still great.

But to me, Industrial music needs to be heavy, challenging and grim - it needs to HAMMER. I just don’t get that from NIN’s over-indulgent soundscapes.

Although Reznor’s lyrics are wonderfully bleak, the music became some kind of resurrected monstrosity that mongrelled Tool with Depeche Mode. A meaningless dirge, from The Fragile onwards.

The fact that the band became untouchable and so lauded once they took all the distortion away blew my mind. I still struggle to see why they are held in such high regard.

Corporate darkness still sucks. Just because it’s the darkest music you’ve heard, doesn’t mean it’s as dark as all that.

Put some Swans on, FFS.

Or Neubauten.

NIN is music for weekend fetishists who feel like they’ve outgrown Marilyn Manson.

I Yam What I Yam.

As regards Foo Fighters, you can’t help but admire Dave Grohl.

Pre Love-Rat, he was the nicest man in pop rock.

But still, much like Coldplay - their ‘indie’ equivalent - any member of the backing band could wee next to me in a urinal and I wouldn’t recognise him.

They are professionally bland people.

I have no idea what they look like or who does what in the band, because they could all be doing all of it. It’s hard to think of a lineup that more aesthetically generic.

They’ve got some songs, especially the singles off the first couple of albums, but even then - and I was excited to see their first UK live appearance at Reading Festival in 1995 - they were patchy, at best.

Are any of their albums wall-to-wall bangers?

Don’t be silly.

They are less capable of delivering genuine excitement than furniture polish.

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