I'm with you on them. A few years back myself and a group of friends were talking bands in the pub and it turned out that all of us loved SFA. But, strangely, none of us knew the others liked them. They were almost like some sort of secret gang. And, after this discovery we went to see them at Brixton together, and lo and behold, found other friends turning up to see them. There were about twenty of us in the end.

One of my friends likened it to wife-swapping. Lots of people do it, but often the neighbours have no idea.

The Prisoners, for those who've never heard of them, were an early 80s 60's/psych/mod/freakbeat type of thing. They came across as a mix of Small Faces, Hendrix, Deep Purple, The Doors and the whole Nuggets type of thing. All played with a ferocious punk energy.

Graham Day was the singer/guitarist/songwriter, although the others got writing credits, especially on their groovy instrumentals. The keyboard player was one James Taylor, who went on to form The James Taylor Quartet. The Prisoners went on for a few years, released four albums and then split. Graham Day went on through several other bands, The Prime Movers, The Gift Horses, The Solarflares and finally his current band Graham Day & The Gaolers. All have been cut from the same cloth, a particularly singular furrow, but one built around solid songwriting.

The Prisoners were pretty influential for a band that never had any major success. Both The Charlatans and Kula Shaker for instance owed most of their sound to The Prisoners. Interestingly Martin Blunt of The Charlatans came from the same Mod/60s scene back in the 80s and toured with The Prisoners and formed a band with Graham Day that later became The Charlatans....And as for Kula Shaker's version of 'Hush'...guess what was a staple of The Prisoners' live set?

The trouble with them was, they weren't over-poweringly charismatic, then Kasabian came along and did everything they were doing better with more silk scarves and "attitood".

I don't think the Wildhearts were overated at all. They played on Top of the Pops, they headlined Reading (I seem to recall) and they adorned the front of Kerrang more times than Funeral For a Freind have had hot dinners. I've been to see them tonnes of times and the gigs have always been packed out with adoring fans. The only thing that has ever held them back is the band members themselves. Overdosing, fighting, drinking, splitting up, reforming and releasing terrible turgid drivel like Endless Nameless ensured they were never going to make it to the top of the rock and roll ladder.

Much support for Johnny Rivers. Have just digitised three of my old LPs and enjoyed them immensely. As well as doing covers of well known songs he also introduced material from some great songwriters, including Jimmy Webb and Gram Parsons.

The Godfathers should have been huge.

What really held Mansun back was their utter crapness.

Without a doubt, I dont know if they are underrated, everyone I know likes them..they missed out for sure with Andy's refusal to tour and their appalling treatment by Virgin. But then again without all the chaos we would never have had "Apple Venus" the best record by a mile in the last 10 (or more) years. The great thing about this album is if we have people over and we put this on it always provokes a "who's this " reaction. A superb record.

Never seem to hear anything of them but they were never anything less than interesting and their best moments were simply excellent.

and

...are a band that lots of people seem to really love (and in the case of 'Skylarking', it's an album that I wonder who could actually take a serious dislike to it, but it didn't even register sales-wise in the UK) yet often gets labelled 'underrated'.

I have Mansun's 'Six' somewhere and it's undeniably an interesting listen, especially compared to some of the lauded British rock of that era (and this era too, come to it!). Same goes for Super Furry Animals, and another Welsh act, the now-defunct Gorky's Zygotic Mwnci.

I nominate a few bands that are favourites of mine that if they are mentioned, are only ever knocked. I know there's quite a few fans of Hogarth-era Marillion on this site (but I enjoy the Fish albums too) so they are my first nomination. I recommend their 1995 album 'Afraid Of Sunlight'- there was a Q magazine review of that album which said that if it had been recorded by anyone else, it would have been praised to the high heavens as being one of the best albums ever made. This was clearly in the days when Q would give more than one or two star reviews to their albums and resort to cheap jibes instead of reviewing the album.

My second is Barclay James Harvest. How ironic it is that they get knocked for being Moody Blues clones when I not only play BJH more than The Moody Blues, but I find their work has stood the test of time better. They could be labelled progressive rock but they definitely owed as much to West Coast/country rock bands as the UK progressive acts in their overall sound.

Martin Stephenson, with and without the Daintees, deserves to be heard by anyone with a discerning ear, and has been for the past 20 years. Still enjoying life in the wilds of Scotland, touring to his own schedule and releasing records full of poignancy and wit, if you can find them. Well worth a Word profile.

Only cottoned on to the website a couple of months ago so for all I know you may all be rabid Peter Case afficianados,but I haven't seen him mentioned so far.IMHO "The Man With the Blue Postmodern......" is an alltime great album.Can't see how anyone without cloth ears could fail to appreciate it's wonders.

Only cottoned on to the website a couple of months ago so for all I know you may all be rabid Peter Case afficianados,but I haven't seen him mentioned so far.IMHO "The Man With the Blue Postmodern......" is an alltime great album.Can't see how anyone without cloth ears could fail to appreciate it's wonders.

I'm not sure if there's a difference between underrated and ignored. The Distractions were underrated but that seems to be because they were largely ignored. Ditto, The Records, The Waitresses and WIN.

Some solo artists that seem to have slipped under the wire include Amy Rigby and Chris Mills - both hugely talented singer songwriters.

I agree with Geoff Washington, Martin Stephenson was/is desperately underrated. He sort of nearly made it and had a bit of critical acclaim in the 80s but disbanded the Daintees and disappeared off the radar as far as I'm concerned. His shows were great fun - really inclusive, warm and funny.

My other candidates for chronic underrating must be The Egg. They can be truly amazing as a live experience and their last album - Forwards - is a true classic. Despite reaching no3 in the charts in the guise of David Guetta vs The Egg (which was a mash up of a remix, which probably featured barely a note of their music!) and a certain ubiquity in the Citroen ad (the one with the ice skating robot), they seem doomed to obscurity.