4 extremely overrated bands from the 1980s that get too much attention

The 1980s, am I right? What a fantastic decade for music. There was new wave and post-punk and hair metal, if that's your thing.

So many bands became household names whether they were worthy of that or not. Four of them are below. (OK, a couple began in the 1970s but they made some of their bones in the '80s.)

So who was listened to a bunch in the 1980s that shouldn't have been? Who should we avoid for bands more worthy of our attention? The four below are a good (or, in the overall case, bad) start.

Four overrated bands from the 1980s that get too much love

Guns N' Roses

There was little wrong with Guns N' Roses' early albums. Appetite for Destruction is a perfect blend of metal and punk and worthy of the millions of units it has sold. The issue with the band is that through all the rock and roll excess they thought they were supposed to have, they forgot that their fans were the reasons they were able to make a living in the first place.

For years the band came onto stage hours after their opening band making fans wait and wait some more. Or worse, the group canceled shows. It's cool to be dangerous if you are a rock band, but Axl Rose seemed to lose the ability to see how ironic the gig was supposed to be. He took the lifestyle too literally. Slipknot might have issues within the band, but they always are respective of the fans. Guns N' Roses just seemed annoyed to have any.

Van Halen

We can blame this on Eddie Van Halen, rest his soul. He made the decision to leave the glory of pure fun and great rock during the David Lee Roth days to the boredom of Sammy Hagar. Roth might not have been the best signer but he had charisma. Maybe even too much of it. But Roth's arrogance fit a hard rock band.

Hagar was meant to make pop records and had the personality of a cardboard cutout. Eddie Van Halen thought making money was better than making great music, it seems. "And the Cradle Will Rock..." is a proper rock song. "Dreams" is a rock song straining to be slightly better than a Celine Dion tune. The song even fails at that. It would have been better had Roth never been asked to leave.

Def Leppard

Between 1983 and 1987 Def Leppard went from a band that had a reputation for being intelligent heavy metal to create the dreck that is "Pour Some Sugar on Me." What happened? This was once the same band that could produce songs like "Photograph" and "Rock of Ages." Instead, they thought "Love Bites" was a good idea.

The explanation must be that the group simply ran out of ideas. They needed to make records to fulfill their record contracts and the songs they produced allowed people to think they were having a bit of fun while not having to think too hard. What is sad is that Def Leppard could have been iconic, but they chose heavy pop drivel by the end of the 1980s.

Foreigner (the putrid 1980s version)

Somehow Foreigner has found its way onto the shortlist for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This means if you are not overly original but sold records decades ago, you might be worthy of being enshrined into what is supposed to be an immortal group. The 1970s version of the band was not bad; not exactly Hall-worthy, but not bad. But the 1980s version? Ick.

Foreigner followed the smell of cash money and turned from a solid rock band to a heavier version of Chicago. "Waiting for a Girl Like You" is middle school dance bliss but without any integrity. "I Want to Know What Love Is" is worse. Because the band got stuck in middle-ground pop hell, their popularity waned by the end of the decade when people realized Foreigner was the fast food of rock.

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