Top Ten Things that Can Make an Artist Underrated

Only less than 0.1% of artists become very popular or even noticed by the music industry today. If you're wondering why the band may be so underrated, this list may answer your questions.
The Top Ten
1 Unrecognized by the Music Industry

Justin Bieber became popular because a talent manager randomly stumbled across one of his youtube videos. If it weren't for that stupid guy finding his videos, he would still be unknown today.

MorbidCannibalSlayer - you have no right to speak about Justin like that. If he didn't have the talent do you think that a TALENT MANAGER would choose him?

Was I the only one who initially thought that this list was about like painters and stuff?

2 Lack of Radio Play

If no radio stations liked the band, they wouldn't play the music and metal fans would've never heard about their music. This was one way artists could become popular.

Well, most of the metal bands lack radio play, unless it's a metal music station.

3 Overshadowed by Other Bands in the Genre

RED is a good example of this. When it comes to Christian hard rock, Skillet is the first band to come to most people's minds, though many will argue that RED, or many other bands deserve the recognition given to Skillet.

Example: Exodus - They were a good thrash metal band, but were overshadowed by Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax. Pretty much any band not in the big four was forgotten.

4 Their Music is Too Complex and Lengthy for the Masses

Example: Jethro Tull - An underrated Progressive rock band overlooked by bands such as Pink Floyd and Genesis, whose music was too complex due to 45 minute long songs. Pretty much any prog rock songs are underrated, which includes Prog Metal bands like Nevermore and Meshuggah.

Mars Volta. Frances the Mute has 4 minutes of a bird chirping loop

5 They are a Christian Band or Singer

Most people will ignore a band or singer if they have the Christian label on them, even though your beliefs do not change the quality of your music.

6 Their Style Is Not Selling-Out
7 Not Singing In English

This is true. There are only several exceptions - in metal this includes parts of folk metal and black metal because sometimes singing in other languages sounds more authentic. Rammstein is also an exception since they are neither folk metal nor black metal.
I personally have no problem with music in other languages as long as I like the music - I listen to metal songs in many languages.

Absolutely truth. I mostly listen to English and Bangla songs. Cause I understand them most. But I also listen songs from different countries. Africa, Iran, Turkey, Italy, Sweden etc. I don't care about the language. I like what have talent/creativity in it. I don't wanna restrict my music taste only to English and Bangla.

A lot of artists from Europe and Asia suffer because of this.

Non-English singing artists are usually unknown.

8 Their Genre Was in Decline During Their Peak

Example: Evile - A thrash metal band of the 2000s who missed their opportunity during the 80s. They were at their best when the genre wasn't good anymore. Since Pop music is popular now, a bunch of crappy artists are getting all the attention and bands like Evile are overshadowed since thrash metal isn't as good anymore.

Example - Annihilator. Great debut album, a thrash masterpiece (Alice In Hell) but released in 1989. Second great album in 1990. Problems: 1) circa 1990 major labels got more interested in grunge than in metal, 90s were hard for metal bands, 2) it was too late for the Big-4.

I feel sorry for bands like Devildriver and Lost Society who are underrated and overlooked because of bad artists like Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj being so popular

9 Their Style is Past Its Time
10 They Aren't Hot

Was looking for this before making it myself, very true. How many unattractive (dare I say, ugly) pop artists do you know? There are people who you may not find attractive, but there are a large population who do.. somebody who is sadly not very attractive would not do very well in achieving fame, sadly.

Looks does not mean good. Quality of Music matters more. Ever heard of Geddy Lee (Rush) or Lemmy (Motorhead)? They may look ugly, but their music is good.

The Contenders
11 They Have An Awful Personality
12 Artist Was Thought to Be Satanic

One of the main reasons why Metal isn't a very popular genre is because of the satanic references found in songs causing many to believe that the whole genre is full of Satan worshippers. This isn't true since some of the most popular Metalcore bands, including As I Lay Dying and August Burns Red are Christian, and Black Sabbath even wrote a christian song called After Forever.

Iron Maiden was accused of being satanic just because they made a song called The Number of the Beast which mentions 666 stupid Media I have always hated the media

I once stumbled upon a question that said what are some of non satanic Metallica songs. Wait, Metallica's satanic? Haha, wait till this guys listen to slayer

How is metal satanic?

13 Little to No Live Performances

Example: Burzum - Once did he not play live so he wouldn't get popular because of that. If he did tour live, he'd probably be a more popular black metal act.

14 They Don't Sing

People think that music producers have to sing to be good

15 Very Little Content

Example: Necrophagist - They only had 2 studio albums so the people who listen to the band get bored of the music easier than people who listen to Megadeth. Because of this, they end up getting forgotten.

This is true and there are only several exceptions: Sex Pistols - one album only, Nirvana - 3 albums, and maybe several more artists.

Nirvana made like five albums. Amoc made one. He is still in progress though.

16 They Only Create Video Game Music

I agree. Most of the music I listen to is VG music, so I never hear it anywhere else. No matter how talented the artists are, they never seem to be able to make themselves known to the rest of public.

Some of my favorite compositions are video game soundtracks.

17 Lack of Influence on Other Artists

Diamond Head wasn't a very successful band and neither was Budgie, but they gained some attention for being an influence to bands like Metallica. This would lead them into becoming well-known, and Am I Evil is now considered a metal classic because of it's influence to thrash metal.

18 Bad Single Choices
19 Their Music Was Released Without Much Promotion
20 Lack of New Content

Bands that disbanded or haven't released anything in over ten years will eventually be forgotten unless if they were The Beatles or Metallica or something.

21 The Genre They Played Becomes Outdated

Example when Grunge was becoming popular Thrash Metal And Glam Metal became seen as "Old" and many bands switched genres including Metallica Megadeth, Anthrax, Pantera and Overkill

22 Unnecessary Use of Autotune
23 The Genre is Dead
24 Scary songs

Rammstein - Sonne

25 They've composed for a movie/TV show/video game that got very negative feedback from the viewers
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