This topic doesn't necessarily have to be limited to older, as I'm curious to see what other groups or artists you think meet the topic. But what are some bands or artists that emerged during a broader musical trend, that may have had a few good songs but had for the most part overestimated their importance? Has revisionism brought them to a newer audience to be appreciated, or are they even forgotten as they were back when they first came into being? I've always seen VON as being a culprit for their little demo which although primal sounding, never really got their career anywhere else. The same can be said for more well-known bands who were affiliated with larger acts, i,e the usual mentioning of Megadeth etc.

I'm not sure Megadeth has been overstated as much as Dave Mustaine has overstated himself. The guy says he was at least partially responsible for four of the "big five" (he considers Exodus to be just as important as the usual big four), because Kerry King played in Megadeth for like two weeks or something ridiculous and I guess he coughed on Gary Holt once.

Wintersun. Jari released one album almost ten years ago that didn't really accomplish anything original and he made his fans wait what, eight years for half of the sophomore? With infinitesimal, pointless updates during those years about how majestic it would be. Then, when only 25 people in the world gave a shit, he releases what amounts to a shitty EP. Nobody cares, dude.

Read the OP, dude.

Agh, fuck's sake!

Okay, okay..... I think that a good deal of the thrash revival bands could be accused of this. Far too many seem to think that the most important thing is to yell "THRASH" at the top of your lungs while you rip off Kreator and Slayer, and that they'll be okay as long as they stick to that. Well guys, I'm afraid to tell you that being a pirated copy of the ancient thrash giants isn't very impressive, and won't really get you anywhere.

A lot of people care though, in America the album almost broke the top 100 in its first week with little or no tour support in the States.

If I had to choose a band, I would say Hellhammer. It's influential, I guess, but it's also mostly garbage and I've never had the desire to ever listen to it again since I first heard it.

Yeah, sure, his attitude sucks but Wintersun is still quite popular, Time I got 26 reviews already (5th place ever on MA, the self titled has 27) if this means something. I guess he's important for a lot of people and I don't think they fit that thread like Megadeth does, they're more a "let's wait and see" band, a lot of peeps talk about 'em and they have a fanboy army ( )

Tom Warrior does everything but overestimate Hellhammer. He fucking hates the music he did under that name in fact, and looks at it as little more than unskilled, amateurish crap made by teenagers who didn't know what they were doing (and, to be fair, he's quite right), although that didn't stop the stuff from being massively important in the development of extreme metal.

Boy, this topic is broad and subjective as hell. It relies on the amount of cocky interviews or statements one happen to have read from band X, which then needs to be checked against how important one thinks band X actually is. Additionally, whatever one may interpret "important" as (influential versus great versus successful) also has a big impact on the answer.

For instance, take QueensRÿche. Any estimation of anything provided by Tate, especially of himself or "his" band, qualifies as ridiculously exaggerated, misguided, dishonest or all of the above. However, considering the band in general, they aren't really cocky dicks who think the universe would be lost without them; also, that band was pretty influential and successful, and once actually great, so that would be a no to the OP's question for them, despite the separate goatee on Tate's ego.

Megadeth? Really? For a band like Megadeth to possibly be said to overestimate their importance, only the "importance as greatness" definition may even be considered, because there is no question that Megadeth has been very successful over the decades and that it, or at least Megadave, was very influential to Bay Area thrash metal and beyond. As for greatness, love it or hate it, but there's a reasonable enough consensus that their early albums are at least pretty good, with a number of great tracks, and that 'Rust in Peace' is a timeless masterpiece. After that, yeah, nothing to brag about, for sure; but the classic stuff stands and for it alone, saying Megadeth was once a great thrash band is no overstatement. To overestimate their importance, you'd need to specifically speak of their quality and say something way overblown, like "Megadeth is the greatest thrash band ever", or maybe "without Medageth the metal world would have crumbled to dust", or some similar shit. So, the final question is how full of himself was Mustaine on some interviews over the years, more specifically, did he ever go that far? Hmm... Okay, I guess from that angle you win. I do remember a video interview where he was basically explaining how he invented the power chord and taught Exodus and Slayer their respective main chord progressions.

Still, pretty broad and subjective. It's going to be tough coming up with cases most of us can agree upon.

I can't say that I have an example of them personally overstating their importance, but Soilwork seem to be attributed a lot of success despite not having the musical accomplishments of the bands that they're often mentioned with (In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, et al.) and never putting out an album that seems to be acclaimed by diehard fans. They were a Swedish melodeath band that came after the classics, sort of riding in on that wave, they signed to the right label that marketed a band right, and they did what they had to do in that situation - they shifted their style from melodeath to the pop-tinged Swedish melodic groove metal, wrote a few catchy songs, and toured really hard with a lot of their contemporaries. They wrote some incredibly catchy stuff and while songs like Rejection Role and Overload are great for what they are, the band never put out a great album, they always had some strong songs and some weak songs, and they were outdone by leagues by other bands.

Despite being on a lot of high-profile tours, they were always a secondary act - in support of In Flames in 2002 (with support from Chimaira and Unearth who would eclipse them), not long after that along with Chimaira again with As I Lay Dying as support (another band who eclipsed them), then beneath Lamb of God and Killswitch Engage, and plenty of other tours that I forget. A few years ago, they headlined a US tour with great support - Death Angel as direct support and a stable of emerging young bands (five more at the show I attended) and cheap ticket prices (under $20), they had a very poor turnout and the crowd seemed fairly apathetic towards them, most stuck around but they couldn't get anything going.

Their biggest success seemed to be centered around their partnership with In Flames (the matching videos and subsquent touring) and heavy marketing by Nuclear Blast (including the Nuclear Blast All-Stars project). While other bands rode/led this wave to significant commercial success(IF, LoG, KSE), Soilwork went way downhill with their music, the band began falling apart (one founder left, one more from their debut, and one more from their breakthrough, with both guitarists and the drummer leaving).

Machine Head have achieved a remarkable amount of success with basically nothing to back it up. They were a terrible nu-metal band in the 90s who achieved some success on what everyone hates now, but they managed to avoid/shed the nu-metal label (despite this) and re-emerge as a metal band despite their more recent material sounding like a nu-metal song, a really long guitar solo, and a groove/thrash song all mixed together into one long mess. In the 90s, at least they had some sense of songwriting, then they started just trying everything with no sense of actually making it memorable or catchy, other than their nu-metal grooves.

Despite being absolutely fucking terrible, The Blackening was considered a comeback album. I don't know how it managed to be commercially successful with four songs that are around ten minutes, dragging on forever and having the least interesting extended guitar solos I've heard, but the only decent part of the album is the nu-metal. They're just not good at the rest of it. I like some bands that are considered similar too, and even those that I don't care for like Trivium, I understand the appeal to their music. The only thing I can come up with here is that nu-metal isn't cool anymore but a nu-metal song can be redeemed if there's a long guitar solo and a groove metal song all shoved into the same abomination, but it's boring and sounds like shit. At least All That Remains' new album has tons of melodic choruses.

Sure, they're commercially successful, and they act like it, but they fucking blow. They're terrible, they built their career on being an Ozzfest nu-metal band, and they somehow revived it by getting even worse. Nu-metal is kind of like original sin, you can never repent for this:

Fucking Von. They released one obscure demo in the early 90s which got moderate attention from the underground scene and now they're milking their "legacy" for more than what they've got with a bunch of releases that revolve around the same three words.

Read the OP, comrade. Don't worry though, the same happened to me. Von is just that bad

A fair point, I guess it is more other people that overestimated as opposed to Mr. Tom himself. And by admitting this, I've just made my contribution to this thread moot

I've heard Saxon make a few comments about their importance to the NWOBHM scene - no doubt they are one of the more famous bands from that era, but I don't know if they are as influential as they sometimes make out.

I seem to remember Cronos making a comment about being more important than Iron Maiden in some ways, and whilst they weren't bad points, I'm not sure he is quite on the money there.

I find you get a lot of bands who have been around for five minutes and have way too long a biography, sometimes on here, that they obviously wrote themselves and they've done one gig or something.

Hellhammer is my favorite band of all time, and I say that with complete sincerity.



You should read his book Only Death is Real; he's greatly changed his stance on Helllhammer's music in recent years, and now is proud of what he accomplished then. As he should be, as far as I'm concerned.

This is an extremely judgemental topic, so its subjective as hell, but I'll go with Reverend Bizarre with their "Doom is Dead" sticker when finishing their shitty, boring band. Pretty glad to see how much doom has flourished and expanded since they bailed out.

I'll greatly agree with this, even though I like some of their releases. Albert Witchfinder had a HUGE ego.

Just as a disclaimer, I'm only just getting into Grindcore and punk/HC in general. On Pig Destroyers Bandcamp is says that they're the undisputed kings of Grindore. And, they're great and all, but really? There are a lot of heavier bands out there that write great Grind. And they weren't even coming close to doing anything revolutionary when prowler came out, I don't think. Again, they write good grindcore, not trying to hate, but I'd have a hard time placing them above Rotten Sound. As far as sales or popularity goes, are there any other bands that have really outperformed Pig Destroyer besides the initial bands in the genre like Napalm Death and Repulsion?

^also good call on the RB. This is obviously a subjective issue. Also I'm glad to see the jump in doom bands lol.

He also has a lot of mental problems (very very serious ones like schizophrenia). RB always had a larger than life/not quite serious attitude, Albert wrote overtly silly lyrics, so it's kinda ridiculous to take this little sticker seriously.

I don't think their importance is overestimated either, their influence on the whole Finnish doom scene is huge (check The Wandering Midget or Fall of the Idols for instance)

To be fair to them, I'm almost positive that page is managed by their label, not anyone in the band. That quote/blurb is from Relapse's press release on the album.

Hey, nice to hear that. I'll try to track the book down. Thanks for the rec!

Dream Theater. Just because your band is comprised of technically advanced musicians that may or may not be human, doesn't mean you can go ahead and claim that Progressive Metal's existence is dependent on your albums. Progressive Metal existed for a long period before Dream Theater became a progressive band and their self-inflated ego includes all sorts of self-idolizing revisionism that their ignorant fans who believe they are above "regular heavy metal" lap up like a sweating dog in a sprinkler.

I'm not too knowledgeable about the early death metal scene or the band Master, but their frontman Paul Speckkman comes off as pretty dickish and egotistical in this interview I watched a few days ago, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... bAbM#t=33s

That's what I figured. But I still frown a little on the inside when I see phrases like that, regardless of who it's about. I guess if you're in Iron Maiden or Black Sabbath you have bragging rights forever, lol, but seeing grindcore bands calling themselves kings is somewhat ironic considering the egalitarian views they tend to hold.

Also if you ask anyone who's listened to a vast amount/seeks out/collects grindcore.. they would be hard pressed most of the time to even call Pig Destroyer a grind band... nevertheless kings of the scene.

I'm not entirely sure if Anvil was mentioned, but I'll mention Anvil. Cockiest sons of bitches ever, and I guess their bassist quit because of this.

28 posts and no mention of Manowar??!

Oh yes, awful band.

Are you serious dude? You have no idea what you're talking about.

Not exactly sure if they belong to this thread, but I remember seeing an interview of Paradise Lost where the guys claim that ''they invented gothic metal'' or something along those lines.

No mention for a reason.

Municipal Waste. Such an utterly horrible band with members that conduct themselves like complete assholes. I've heard countless stories from members of bands who have played with them and from fans who have met them that they are arrogant pricks.

I'm starting to think that people are listing bands they don't like rather than bands that "overestimate" themselves. You don't have to like Manowar, but they were incredibly influential back in their time, and to say otherwise is demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of metal.

Black Crucifixion (Fin)

A lot of their interviews are about past revisionism and seeing themselves as far more imporant part of the old finnish black metal scene than how they really were with one single demo tape and EP release. Also funny part of the revisionism in their part is also taking the glory of being one of the first bands playing "post-black metal" (like that really is anything to be proud?) under the name Promethean. If anyone has heard that crap will agree that nobody would try to ride with it.

agreed on the manowar thing. if you ask joey demaio, no band has ever been better yet more misunderstood than manowar, more persecuted, more hated by the ENEMIES OF METAL, more adored by the fans, written more perfect songs, more boundary-pushing, more willing to experiment, more willing to give (condescending) gifts and bullshit to the fans, more willing to FIGHT, and no one has ever beaten joey in an argument, etc.

i have a feeling it kinda started as a bit of a marketing ploy aimed at eastern europeans and south americans, but somewhere along the line joey started believing his own retarded nonsense. and the worst part? i personally LOVE manowar. hah.

agreed on most points, hey. but i kinda have to give robb flynn some kind of award for bandwagon-jumping at every given opportunity and making a decent living out of it without really being reprimanded for it. i mean he played in possessed and vio-lence early on as thrash was huge, took the leap to groove thrash at JUST the right time (and MH's first two albums are imo great, especially the first one), then dropped it for the nu-metal stuff just as that hit it big, then managed to jump that ship just before it sank, and since then he's been playing that kinda metalcore/modern mainstream metal stuff. his entire career has been covered by magazines like kerrang and he's just done it perfectly. it's like he has a knack for it, a vision of where he'll go in an album or two and writing "transition" albums, as opposed to just changing style completely from album to album. there's always a smooth flow, and with the exception of the "true" metal fans getting pissed off with the burning red album (most of whom listen to them again now, in any case) he's pulled it off amazingly.

but is machine head an important band? i don't think so. their first album no doubt influenced a lot of nu-metal bands, but otherwise they've always just kinda existed alongside other bands. also agreed that their newer stuff fucking sucks. i've listened to their last 2 albums maybe twice each, and it's just like a collection of riffs and melodies that don't actually fit, all stuck together in a worse fashion than the last metallica album

I don't think Flynn ever played in Possessed, he did form Forbidden (Evil) though aside from Vio-Lence

ah my bad, i meant forbidden. i always get those two bands mixed up. cheers!