There will be groans here, for sure. Messing with someone's favorite music? That is ridiculous.
Some musical artists need to be called on the carpet, however. There is a difference between being so beloved that one is incapable of seeing anything wrong with the artist's music and having an objective view. Just because the artists below on this list doesn't mean nothing they did was worthy of merit; only that not everything they did was brilliant.
People have a right to complain about the artists on this list, of course. This is not written to entice riots, however. The truth is that while no musical artist is perfect, these four from the 1970s are less equal than others.
These four overplayed bands from the 1970s get far too much attention
Rush
There is no dispute that Rush had talent. Perhaps the best rhythm section ever was Neil Peart's drum and Geddy Lee's bass. This isn't an argument that Rush were simply bad because they weren't.
What happened, though, was that the band got far too much attention for being viewed as some kind of mythological group. You either bought into the themes and concept or you were viewed as maybe not smart enough to do so. One of the issues was that all the talent the band had began to lead them into musical directions that they couldn't quite harness.
Once the band came to use more synths, they lost the uniqueness that they had as a three-piece guitar drum bass. Plus, the songs became overly long and self-important. We get it. Space people and odd mystic images. Fine, but give us some rock as well. Instead, they became a louder version of Jethro Tull.
John Denver (let's assume he had a band playing along with him)
Cheating a bit here, but Denver needs to be on this list. He is a liar. He sold listeners folk tunes about the greatness of living in West Virginia (which is doubtful and Denver never lived there), loved the outdoors, and the grooviness of getting along. All the while, Denver was likely a bear to live with and tried to choke his first wife in the course of being divorced. He also took a chainsaw to their bed.
Denver also had an issue with driving drunk. Does that mean his songs were bad? Maybe not. It just means they were insincere.
Musical artists are at their best when they write songs from their personal experiences. We want to believe they are singing to us. His fluffy country-tinged folk tunes were fine, but they were likely more of a way of making Denver money instead of a communal experience with his fans. Now, if he had written a song about putting his hands around his ex-wife's throat, the song would have sucked but at least it would have been real.
Jethro Tull
At least Jethro Tull tried something new. They wanted to add a flute to rock songs. The issue is that having that instrument in a genre that is built for volume is like having a guitar in a jazz band because the strings take away from the brilliance of the brass. The group's songs seem stuck in mythological creatures because, well...there is a flute.
A couple of thoughts come to mind with Jethro Tull. Will Ferrell's jazz flute scene in Anchorman is more interesting than Tull ever did. Secondly, at times Tenacious D appears to be doing a funny take on Jethro Tull and Jack Black and Kyle Gass's songs are still better.
Ramones
Realizing many punk fans might hate Ramones being listed here, let's just say the slant that most of the band's songs sound the same is true because they do. The problem with the band is they have become, in the eyes of many, untouchable. No band is that. Not everything Ramones did was perfect.
Did they produce a number of shorter punky songs that were hella catchy? Yep. Did the Dead Kennedys find a way to stick to a formula of not being overly produced through the 1980s and not being brilliant musicians and still make songs that sounded different from one another? Yep.
The difference is that DK was punk as it should be: Aggressive, political, and violently loud. Ramones must have created one song when they started that people liked and decided not to do much else. It's lazy.