Andrew Payne, Starpulse contributing writer

Some of these solo artists have received glowing reviews when completely unwarranted. Others have been nearly deified when all they were nothing more than pretty good musicians and some were forgotten completely despite impressive careers that should have seen them remembered as legends.

The following is a list of the most underrated and overrated solo artists of all time, with a few non-Americans thrown in for good measure...

Overrated:

5. Aretha Franklin

There's no denying her voice. It's huge, it's pure, it's clean, she sounds like a soulful opera singer. Great singers, however, are a dime-a-dozen and great songwriters are priceless. Aretha's never touched a pen to paper, yet her recording's of other people's classics have long been held in a regard that make them seem like Aretha originals. Sure, she's absolutely killed a few songs, and turned Otis Redding's "Respect" from a misogynist footnote into an anthem of empowerment for women, but her career also disappeared into a black hole for the entire decade of the 70s only to re-emerge with a string of horrible 80s pop trash that made her seem like a poor woman's Whitney Houston. You can't doubt her vocal ability, but to call her a transcendent artist is vastly overrating her.

4. John Lennon

Lennon's overratedness applies only to his solo career. Anybody who would call his musical contributions as a member of the Beatles shouldn't be allowed to listen to music. His solo career was a bit more inconsistent. For every "Imagine" he wrote there was a Yoko Ono-influenced mess to nearly negate it. He produced a ton of great songs after he left the Beatles, but it's hard to say his catalog compares to the work of Paul McCartney and certainly not to George Harrison. Yet somehow, he's been raised to the nearly the status of a deity among music fans. This has a lot to do with his political activism and the belief of some that his "Give Peace a Chance" rallies actually made some sort of a difference in the shape of history. Also, his tragic death created a sort of mythical quality around him causing him to be heralded more than he deserved. For his solo career, Lennon should be remembered as a solid songwriter who never quite lived up to the promise of his previous work and not as the nearly Christ-like figure that's become so common in the memory of many.

3. The Notorious B.I.G.

Like Lennon, Biggie was tragically gunned-down far before his time. Unlike Lennon, his murder is the sole reason he's been hailed as a great artist. The Notorious B.I.G. had a few nice songs that turned into club staples, but this is mostly due to the work of ace producer Puff Daddy whose innovative use of samples made old songs feel new again. As an MC, Biggie was very clumsy with a lazy flow and simplistic lyrics that could not match the work of his contemporaries on the West Coast. Had he not been murdered, he would have probably emerged as a poor man's Jay-Z (an overrated artist in his own right), a commercial gangsta with great producers to drown out his shortcomings as an MC. Instead, he's a legend in the world of Hip-Hop despite a sorely lacking skill set.

2. Bob Marley

Much like John Lennon, Bob Marley made some good music and somehow was hailed as a sort of deity after his death. A good indication was the recent performance of "I Shot the Sheriff" by Jason Castro on "American Idol" that led Simon to remark, "You just don't do Bob Marley." Why not? What was Bob Marley but a good time dude who made some fun, laid-back tunes to listen to at the beach? His deeper cuts did reveal a political fire burning within, but essentially he was a rich man's Jimmy Buffet with his most well-known songs being "One Love" and a cover of "Stir It Up". Somewhere, somehow, somebody got the idea that Marley was a sort of modern-day saint, that his political songs are anthems for the oppressed and that he did more for the underprivileged than any other man of the 20th century. Well, Bob Geldof and Bono have both done a tremendous amount more that is tangible for these suffering countries than Marley ever though of. Maybe it's because he was too busy fathering 11 children with nine different women, the exact type of behavior that would brand modern-day rock stars with the type of scorn reserved for Hester Prynne. Bob Marley should be remembered as a gifted musician who created some fun tunes that sound great on the beach, and not the prophet of the third world that many critics have dubbed him.

1. Janis Joplin

What exactly did Janis Joplin ever do? How exactly did she come to be hailed as the pinnacle of sixties music? It's incomprehensible. Joplin did her best work with Big Brother and the Holding Company and then went solo, covered a good Kris Kristofferson song, sang a poem a capella, drank more whiskey than a high school football team in Alabama and died. That's it. She never did anything more than that. Other than running around half-naked in San Francisco with a bottle of Jack Daniels in her hand and screaming about this that and the other thing, her whole career fits into one sentence. Yet somehow, she's held in similar regard to Jimi Hendrix, CSNY, and other legendary acts of the sixties. It's unreal. Her career was a blip at best. Joplin would be inconsequential if it weren't for her becoming so massively overrated over time. Most cases of overratedness can be explained, but aside from her dying young, this is a complete mystery. Making her the most overrated solo artist of all time.

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