American Idiot (the album) actually has a lot of great hooks and rocks. It is very compressed sounding as I recall, haven’t listened to it in years.
I’ve heard legendary bands/performers who were terrible in live shows, and others who were completely off my radar (and disregarded b/c I didn’t think much of them) who were surprisingly good live.
If you are confining this to recorded performances only, it probably doesn’t reflect what the particular band/artist could do on a good night.
Part of this is subjective too, isn’t it? If you don’t like punk or heavy metal, etc. you aren’t going to think much of someone playing in that genre. Use Bad Brains as an example- these guy were accomplished fusion/jazz players- could turn on a dime. They decided to do a sort of punk/rasta thing which isn’t to everyone’s taste (I dug them), but you can hear how skilled they are as instrumentalists.
I can go from sappy radio pablum from the late ’60s or early ’70s to very heavy rock and enjoy it. Are there bands I don’t listen to? Many. But, probably more out of ignorance or a belief that they aren’t my cuppa than any judgment of musical quality.
If you really want to take issue with musical capability, look at the long list of ’bands’ who relied on the Wrecking Crew to record their albums. A bunch of super-talented session people were really the force behind a huge number of hits from a lot of different bands back in the day.
