Three immensely overrated bands from the 1960s

The 1960s were overall an excellent time for music. Bands had learned to steal from African-American artists and turn their work into top-selling songs. OH, wait. That was Elvis Presley in the 1950s. My mistake.

But the 1960s did produce a lot of fantastic music. The Kinks, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Who, Led Zeppelin, and that one Beach Boys album that was decent? That's all greatness that stemmed from about eight years.

But the 1960s, like every decade, produced some overwrought music as well. For every Bob Dylan, there is a Jim Morrison, for instance. Here are three overrated groups from the decade.

Three amazingly overrated groups from the 1960s

The Monkees

I am not even sure why people are still listening to this band artifically produced to try to take advantage of what the Beatles were actually accomplishing in music. I guess the idea was to take the Three Stooges and add a bit of bad rock music and wish for success. The band even toured for decades making money off a sound they did not create and songs they did not write.

The issue is that the Monkees produced derivative drivel that took attention away from more worthy bands. But hey, anything for a dollar or a pound, right? If that last bit is a real measure of artistic success (hint: it is not) then consider the Monkees a success.

The Doors

If you like a heavy dose of stoned California sound that becomes more and more self-important as a band continues on while the vocalist has some kind of unwarranted god complex then the Doors are for you. The Doors continue to fool many who think the group had some kind of real mysticism instead of the TJ Maxx-type Jim Morrison and the boys truly had.

To be fair, keyboardist Ray Manzarek played his instrument well. But Jim Morrison as a poet? Only those so brainwashed with the Doors would call his words poetry instead of the words of a lost soul reaching for the kind of real emotion he could never achieve. His kind of "look at me!" approach is the opposite of poetic.

The Byrds

Here is my assumption about what the Byrds were trying to do. Take any kind of rock and then turn that into a watered-down sound that has the same feel to each track. If that was their goal, they achieved brilliance. But you kind of get the gist of what the Byrds were doing after a couple of songs and then you might need to move on to more tangible music.

The Byrds weren't bad. They were just boring. And boring music is the word kind.

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