The internet has not only changed the way people listen to music and discover new music; it has become a platform for millions of people to share what music they like and what music they don’t like. Through the rise of music blogs like the one you are reading right now, the internet has become an influential medium in which bands are blasted into the spotlight or shot down into the ground. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, one of the first bands to gain widespread popularity through the internet, can not only thank the web for its success, but can also thank it for the ultimate backlash they received after their initial internet driven hype got too overblown.

There has always been hype and with hype always comes a backlash, but in the age of the internet, ideas are more outspoken and spread faster. A band like Vampire Weekend went from being the most talked about band on music blogs to the band that was “cool to hate.” Just as hype can be driven by a collective mass all agreeing with each other and all wanting to believe in something, backlash can as well. It can be trendy to like things and trendy to hate things. It is unfortunate that something as amazing as music can get caught up in this game but it is hard to avoid. Sometimes we find ourselves getting too wrapped up in the overhyping or overhating of musical acts. I am guilty. We are all guilty. A certain music review website might publish a review for an album and put it in its “best new music” section and we will find ourselves listening to it more than if it didn’t receive this acclaim. When I start to get wrapped up in some of this nonsense, I repeat a phrase that I first said to myself sometime back in early high school. “Listen to what makes your ears happy.” This has been my music listening motto ever since.

I am going to go ahead and say something right now. I dig Sheryl Crow. I think she writes great catchy pop songs. There is not one Sheryl Crow song on the radio that I don’t like. I wish I could say I celebrate her whole catalog, but I don’t have any of her albums. Perhaps I should buy one. But I am too scared to “buy Sheryl Crow.” Almost as if it will taint my iTunes music library forever. No matter if is Celine Dion or The Beatles, Marroon 5 or Arcade Fire, Limp Biskit or The Strokes, “listen to what makes your ears happy.”

I know I am slightly contradicting myself by preaching to be completely non-influenced by outside forces when listening to music and condemning getting wrapped up in the overhyping of bands when I am creating a list about overhyped bands all at the same time. But part of what is fun being an avid music listener is being passionate about your likes and dislikes. Music is a passion and there is nothing more enjoyable than spending an hour with a friend debating whether The Beatles Revolver is the best album of all time or if it is Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan. I was pretty obsessed with the Strokes back when I was in college and I remember coming back to the dorms after a night of college fun and getting really really pissed at my friend Christi because she didn’t think the Strokes were amazing. I really had no argument other than playing Strokes songs on repeat and then scolding her for not thinking they were great. Its what music does to you.

Without further ado, the follow is a list of the 5 most overhyped bands in music today. When I say “overhyped” I don’t mean “overrated.” Lots of bands are overhyped for a reason. THEY ARE GOOD. I love a lot of bands on this list. But there comes a time where even if the band is good, the hype becomes a little too much. Every music website you go to, you can’t escape reading something about them. The question I ask but don’t answer in this post is, what makes bands get so much hype? Obviously its because most of the time they are pretty good, but there are a lot of great bands out there. What is the little extra thing that propels them to super hype in this internet fueled blogtastic age of music? Is it little things like their image, their band name, how they conduct themselves in interviews? If Pitchfork Media gave an album containing only the sounds of a man pooping into a bathtub while playing a fiddle a perfect 10 out of 10, would the masses join together and declare the album a triumph in the avant garde? I think it could possibly happen…..

See the list after the jump……

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Songs and melodies have the power to get stuck in our heads. Some for better and some for worse. The following songs have what I consider some of the catchiest hooks of the last ten years, for the better. I probably could make a whole separate list of the catchiest hooks of the last ten years, for the worse, but lets focus on the positives shall we? There are many catchy hooks out there by bands like Nickelback and Maroon 5, but we don’t want to have to shoot ourselves in the head. I am probably missing some songs that deserve to be on here, but theses are the ones that came to me off the bat. A few of these you will disagree with, arguing that they are not for the better because in college you rushed a frat and got locked in a closet for 24 hours while “Hey Ya” played on full volume, but that is what purely subjective music lists on blogs are for, right?

“Viva la Vida” - Coldplay
“i use to have it all….” “awhoo oo ooo……”

Do we thank Coldplay for this hook or Joe Satriani? In case your wondering what I am talking about, Joe Satriani claims Coldplay plagiarized his song If I Could Fly. All I can say is I don’t think Coldplay sat around rocking out to a washed up 1990’s guitar shredder. Joe Satriani’s song If I Could Fly is inspiring though. That is, if you are on top of a mountain wearing leather pants with a V shaped guitar and have wind blowing in your face. Perhaps you just spent 5 hours at Guitar Center as well, ripping it with fellow shredders. Do they have Guitar Centers on top of mountains? I am not sure.

Continued after the jump…..
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