Number 5 is a good release from a great prog-rock band... Dark Side of The Moon by Pink Floyd
I know that one of their biggest radio hits came from this album and that it is considered their best album by a lot of people (or at least most people I run into), but I never found it as great as everyone said it was. I think it is a good album with some good songs but I always felt that other Pink Floyd albums were miles better than this one (The Wall and Wish You Were Here). Because of how amazing Pink Floyd's discography is it is really impossible to say that one release is THE release of their career, but Dark Side of The Moon is still good enough to avoid the top spot on this list (or the second through fourth spots).
Number 4 is the second studio album by a prog-metal band described as "the most popular band you've never heard of" and is also a band that I think, in general, is overrated (but is still a good artist)... Images and Words by Dream Theater
Yes, Pull Me Under was a top 5 hit on MTV in the early 1990s and yes, this is a good album, but it did not make prog-metal popular and it was not the first time a prog-metal band had a single with regular rotation on MTV. If memory serves, Dream Theater was the third of the three major pioneering prog-metal bands to break through to the mainstream, Queensryche (Empire - 1990) and Fates Warning (Parallels - 1991) had some singles that achieved mainstream success (granted the carpet was pulled out from under Fates Warning leaving them with less success compared to the other two).
I always hear Dream Theater fans praising the band as gods and the greatest thing ever but, like many bands praised so highly, they ultimately land in the overrated category. Images & Words is a good album but it is not great and it is far from perfect but, luckily, it is nowhere close to being the most overrated album in my opinion.
Number 3 is called their greatest album by the mainstream but is also called a sellout and a betrayal of the sub-genre... The Black Album by Metallica
When this album came out it was a success and turned Metallica into a mainstream success... and a rock band. This is certainly not Metallica's best album and, in a way, it was a bit of a betrayal to a lot of die-hard thrash fans. When I was in high school I had a lot of rage and frustration, and thrash metal was something that helped me through it... the people I didn't like very much (for various reasons) were the kind of people that this album attracted, people who just didn't "get" thrash. That is part of the reason why people felt it was a betrayal, I mean think about it... first you think it's not good then the people who caused your frustration and rage start saying how great the Black Album is.
Anyways, time to get off that little rant and onto the album itself. I do enjoy some of the songs on this album but I don't like the production much because it feels to rock n' roll for a thrash metal band, the songwriting is not up to the standard set by the prior albums, it just feels like a sell-out (I don't know how else to put that) and yet, so many people say it is Metallica at their best. Ultimately this is one highly overrated album, but it still has some moments good enough to keep it ahead of the next 2.
Speaking of that, number 2 has one of the most overplayed singles on it... Nevermind by Nirvana
This album hit number 1, helped put grunge on the map which pushed glam into a tiny hole (which it kind of got out of) as well as metal in general and I have heard so many people say how great the album is. I don't think the album is as good as most people think it is but it does have one thing that mainstream music doesn't have, pure raw emotion and intensity. They were never the greatest band, the greatest songwriters, great musicians but somehow I've run into people that think they are all of the above. If there's one thing I have to say its that Nevermind is very overrated and Nirvana's debut album Bleach was much better, but one thing I can never argue with is that Polly is a great song. It's overrated but there are some decent songs on the album and the music may not be that great but it is real and heartfelt, and I do like listening to it on occasion.
... and the number 1 most overrated album in history is... a tie between every pop star from the late 1980s to present. Well, it would be... but I don't review that kind of music. So the number 1 spot on my list instead is still a tie, but all 3 albums are from the same artist... We Are Not Alone, Phobia and Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin
I used to be into this band but my tastes changed and when I went back to listen to the music, I couldn't tell the difference between 90% of the music. I did not include the debut Saturate because it is actually a decent album. All I've ever heard from Breaking Benjamin fans is that they are perfect and that any list that does not include them as the best rock/hard rock/metal band is not a true list and is someone's "idiotic opinion". Well, here's my idiotic opinion for everyone to see: the musical evolution of this band is non-existent, the singing is bland and unemotional, and the songwriting sounds like the copy & paste function was used one too many times. I still listen to some songs from all their albums on occasion because sometimes I feel like listening to that stuff, but I still feel the way I do about these albums. If they weren't praised as highly as they are by their fans then they may not have ended up here, but they are so... they are.
So, as always, if you want to comment on anything here go for it, just respect people's opinions and they (including myself) should do the same.
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