Sugar were good yup.

Another criminally overlooked band was Strangelove.

XTC's "Skylarking" is easily the most underrated album in the history of popular music. I seriously can't understand why it isn't rated alongside the classics - it's a flawless collection of beautiful songs, intricately and charismatically presented, performed with passion and conviction, immaculately recorded. Andy Partridge is pop's forgotten genius, and for some reason he received next to no critical or commercial acclaim.

I also think Spiritualized's "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space" has not yet got all the acclaim it deserves, even though it's had quite a lot over the last few years.

Works In Progress by Torben Floor. I don't think they're even signed and it makes me horribly angry. From Chicago I think, you might still be able to order it over the net somehow.

Soundgarden's last studio album "Down On The Upside" never got the credit it deserved (neither did the band in my opinion). The Garden were an incredibly talented and forward-thinking band that got slapped with the grunge tag by people who never even bothered to seriously examine their music. Upside was released in 1996 and was largely overlooked due to the cancerous Britpop scene. It contains some of the most unorthodox and emotional music I've ever heard while simultaneously veering into brilliant sonic chaos at just the right moments. Lyrically, Chris Cornell is among my favourites (excluding Audioslave). Check out the lyrics to one of the albums' best tracks, Zero Chance -

http://web.stargate.net/soundgarden/cgi-bin/lyr.cgi?ly=zeroc

anything guided by voice did. ever.

or...er...bis "new transistor heroes", the first stephen malkmus album...the menswear album.

and some album by this band called radiohead - "let's go computer" or something?

alex
xxxx

for me its any album by gorky's zygotic mynci. theyre all so good.

then crash kelly - penny pills, read the review on hear, got it straight away. its all ready out of print. theyre awsome

i tell you who is overlooked constantly.

its MC Mabon, a welsh genius, his music is awsome and he does so many different styles, all with a welsh classiness.

Failure - Magnified

Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo

Jerky sci-fi surrealist garage punk, with added disturbingness. Much overlooked due to their later synthpop stuff.
"It smashed my baby's head, and now my sally's dead"

The Cat Empire.

The most talent bunch of musicians I've ever seen perform live.

They raised the roof off the Arena in March.

Thinking about it even, makes me breathless and slightly overwhelmed.

The praise I give this band is never enough. No words can do them justice.

And their album; "The Cat Empire" is one of my most treasured belongings. Brilliant.

The last Pavement album.

ANYTHING by The Afghan Whigs

It has to be Super Furry Animals - Radiator. Pure pop genius.

i always thought it was a bit strange that 'adore' by the smashing pumpkins got such a cold reception, and is considered daftness by the ban's 'fans'. Beautiful record. and just loking over at my cds i'm also thinking the last elbow record, everything by ben folds five, r.e.m.'s last three, anything by clouddead. coming up by suede- SHOULDN'T have been a great album, but, fuck, it was. post-odelay beck. 'today' by the beach boys (Five quid, twinned with another album, in bargain bins, totally ignored, but, oh- genius.) Blur by Blur.
Of course some of these albums were commercial successes but i never hear them mentioned in the canon so beloved of Q/NME etc.
And every jazz album ever, 'cos we've allowed the coolsters to taint it all with the cullum brush. For me, Kind of Blue/Bitches Brew by Miles Davis meant a lot. And The Black Saint by Mingus. And Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus by Mingus.

Trespassers William definitely. They don't even have a profile page up here, but Anna-Lynne's voice is amazing, breathtaking. Such a shame they're not better-known.

Mansun - Six, pure genius

Oh! And any of Cornershop's albums...particularly their first one...