I heard my first Grateful Dead song three days ago. It blew my mind.

It's like how Owner of a Lonely Heart is to Yes music. A sellout shitty song next to 9 years of non stop masterpeices.

 

okay heres my 2 cents on this whole topic...

The Grateful Dead was the greatest band to ever live. They were not overrated at all in my opinion. They had a HUGE fanbase which many of them followed them show to show for years. Everyone playing in the band had incredible talent. There is no guitarist who jams like Jerry, no bassist who can play like Phil, and no rhythm guitarist like Bobby. Billy and Mickey are both incredible drummers and through all of the keyboardists many of them brought their own thing to the band. (RIP Vince). The Grateful Dead will always be my favorite band, no matter what.

 

everyone is gonna get all pissy at me, but i think the Beatles have got to be the most over-rated band of all time. they are alright. but not as great as they are made out to be

 

Very true

 

To say the Grateful Dead are overrated is kind of funny since they were never really popular or highly rated in the sense of popular music. Their songs did not reach the top 40 but a couple of times. Jerry Garcia didn't make the top ten lists of guitarists often. They did have their little spurt of popularity in the mid to late 80's with the "touch of grey" crowd, but they really were what they had always been, a counter culture scene. A huge part of America really has no idea what the music is about.

Anyway, if it's just a phase I'm guilty of being in that phase for 25 years. I listen to a lot of music, but by far the music that has meant the most for me is live Dead, especially the shows I saw live. I always have to laugh at fans of Phish or String Cheese who deny the deads influence in their music. Who knows, maybe I did do too much acid, but the dead still sound good to me.

 

but without the beatels where would we be? The fact is there were tons of bands like the dead coming out of san fransico at the same time. Like I said, if it had been another band instead of them to play the acid tests they never would have gotten as big as they did.

And over-rated does'nt mean popularity either. And the fact that jerry was able to jam with those had to do with the fact that he had the staus too. He has never been anything more then a novice guitar player to me. He made some good riffs, could pop a good jam, but never stood out as a guitar player. Now, I don't know how many of you play but I think there's a lot of people that think that he is a god at the guitar simply because he's jerry garcia. Now, I have nothing against him or the dead. I just think their not all that cracked up to be.

 

Like I said earlier I'm rather bored with them by now, but I think that is just not true.
Listen to 'Anthem of the Sun' or 'Aoxomoxoa' - who else in SF or anywhere else was producing stuff like that? Airplane? Quicksilver? I think not.
The other truth to get your head around is this : the Beatles were actually heavily influenced by the whole west coast sound which was emergent from 65- 67. If they'd never listened to that music, they'd never have recorded Sgt. Pepper.
The Dead were a truly unique phenomenon. As to 'what they're cracked up to be ' as Garcia said "we just play music". Can't please all the people all the time.

 

But the beatles happend before the dead were a thought. The beatles were reasons why the san fransico bands could make it. And when I hear garcia play something as interesting as other guitar players from the same era, I still think of him as an averge guitar player. And I would easliy pick the airplane or quicksilver over the dead any day. Again, nothing aginast the dead or garcia, just not my cup of tea I suppose.But i'd be lieing to you if I said I did'nt have a few songs on the ol' ipod.

 

I'm with you on that.

Both great bands, but did you know the Airplane credited Jerry Garcia as a musical and spiritual advisor on Surrealistic Pillow.

 

As a musician I must say that their music isn't necessarily Great, in terms of structure, dynamics, technique-

But the music they played
and what they played for
was something awesome.

They played the soundtrack to the acid wave.

I can only listen to them sometimes,
like when I'm really high driving up to the mountains.

and that is my opinion

 

they make me happy.

 

I think another thing that people dont realize that well is how the Grateful Dead more or less paved the way for bands to day to say "hey.... feel free to record our music and distribute it"... without the dead... Tapers would have died off quickly...

 

oh and as for Overrated bands... i throw The Rolling Stones into the ring of Overrated Bands... i cant see why so many people think they are god

 

Because quicksilver and the allman brothers we'rent around.

 

well there must be SOME reason the dead made it bigger than they did

 

right... one band doesnt just get further than another band 'just because'...

 

no problem babe

 

they have some good songs, like Sympathy for the Devil. but yeah, i would definatly say they are over rated

 

Why don't you put some of your tunes up here so we can listen to them?

 

I love 70's and before stones, they have songs, not noodly weak bullshit with a bunch of way too easy to please fans taking 14 hits of acid and folowing them everywhere they went because they had nothing better to do.. a cult not unlike Christianity, or Jonestown more like it

they are god? no, thats something i hear people refer to the dead as

The Stones were dark and cool, the dead was "its all good no matter what" hot dog eating shit