The 5 most underrated bands of all time:

#1: The Meat Puppets - Those who know me knew I couldn't help but put these guys up at number 1. Those know don't know me really well probably don't even know who they are, but they're the best band you don't know if you haven't heard Nirvana unplugged and the best band you didn't realize you knew if you have. The early stuff is insane and influenced Nirvana heavily. The middle stuff demonstrated the outskirts of what can be done when a bass and guitar work together perfectly. The newer stuff has a groove to it that you just can't escape. All that together plus the fact that they have one of the most versatile catalogs ever recorded makes this one of the best bands of all time and, since you haven't heard of them AT ALL, the single most underrated band ever. Fuck the Pixies and Fugazi, THESE GUYS inspired more of Seattle's sound than anyone.

#2: Pantera - Media-wise, they lived in the shadow of the almighty Metallica alongside other great but lesser-covered heavy metal bands like Megadeth, Helmet, and Slayer. Maybe it was because Dime and Phil never learned to smile for the camera like James and Lars. Maybe it was because they didn't write ballads after their first album. Sales were a different story, though. Few people know that they were the first metal band to top the Billboard charts with the release of Far Beyond Driven. Add that to the fact that they actually APPOLOGIZED in the liner notes of the same album for covering a Black Sabbath song(Planet Caravan) because it was soft. That's how fucking metal they were. The were one of, if not THE, best metal band of all time and while people have heard of 'em, they probably can't name 3 songs.

#3: Weezer - Ok, ok, so Rivers Cuomo is a freak. So he's celebate and a monk or whatever now. But you'd go nuts if you had to live up to being Rivers Cuomo too for chrissake. In two consecutive albums these guys put two different genres of music on the map. The Blue Album made geek punk cool and Pinkerton practically invented emo. So what if they took time off to go try and graduate college and everything they've produced since has been hot stinky monkey crap? Bottom line is almost every successful punk band right now and every kid who wears black studded wrist bands with his black plastic frame glasses has Rivers Cuomo to thank for the privilige of coming after him. Think the music is "cheesey" or "dated" or whatever if you want, but then try and match what they've accomplished.

#4: Lynyrd Skynyrd - No other band has probably ever had the reaction to their name, "Oh yeah, I know that song" more often than Skynyrd. Well maybe those guys who sang "Closing Time," but I digress. Of course, they'd be talking about Sweet Home, Alabama. Said moron has probably even heard Freebird, would even claim to like it, but wouldn't place it with Skynyrd. Even if they could they haven't heard Tuesday's Gone. Crack open a Skynyrd CD someday and I'll bet you'll be surprised how hard it is to find a bad song and how many you can sing along to on the second listen. I'm of the opinion that's a good thing.

#5: Alice in Chains - I think maybe these guys should have been higher on the list, but it is what it is. They came out in the grunge era and wrote dirty, dank, nasty riffs, and so they were called grunge. But on behind the music with some hair metal band, I dont' remember who and don't care, they said they knew it was over when the poster for AiC's Dirt album was hanging in the exec's office, not Nirvana, not STP, and not Pearl Jam. It sucks how critics who praise Hendrix and Joplin and The Doors and The Dead and Pink Floyd claim AiC was crap because of Layne's drug problem. That's just stupidly hypocritical, isn't it? Bottom line is that these guys weren't grunge, they weren't metal, they weren't anything that I've ever heard played before or again. They were a band that could release Dirt, and awesomely heavy album with hits like Rooster that still managed to get airplay and then switch gears to Jar of Flies only to return to bone crushing riffs on their self-titled finale. Honestly, for a band that comes close to them in terms of versatility coupled with great musicianship, you need to look to the top of this list for a match, otherwise you won't find one outside of maybe the greatest couple bands of all time, none of which are close to being underrated.

Honorable Mention: Nirvana, Soundgarden, Blue Oyster Cult, The Who, Jet, and Leadbelly. Not necessarily in that order. And props to Jack White, the most underrated guitar player of all time.

Please, don't reply with indie bands who've released 3 albums that no one's heard of. No one cares right now, when they get to #8, let me know. Oh, and don't mention Sonic Youth. I'd put them up there, but they're actually almost overrated in the sense that everyone on earth has, at one time or another, called them underrated.