martin said:I think the most underrated band ever were The Wolfe Tones, but there you go.
Wolfe Tones awful rebel rousing band, noen of them can sing and when I saw them a few years ago on Holloway Rd, the most entertaining part of the evening was when 2 of the band members broke into a fight over who wrote the song about the hunger strikes.
Isn’t the problem with canonising music or even all notions of “genius” it is that it is a lie. I remember discovering all the canonised artists of the 60s in the late 80s (scanning references/influences in the NME and then going to Coventry City record library!) and being initially blown away by everything from the Beatles to Can. But in the years since as I’ve filled in more of the gaps around these bands, and have placed them into a clearer context in which they were working, and have then ended up thinking, why are these artists canonised and not the others. For some it might be bring in the right place at the right time, for others record sales, but for a few, yes they were at the top of their game and were slightly better than the others. Then there are those who lay they foundations for future/eternal canonisation - cleverly keeping myths alive that help to enfuse the interest of future generations….a bit like the claim that Newton’s theory of gravity surfaced many years after others had invented it, but the nice story about the apple duped future generations into believing that it was him