The two most overrated bands: Queen and Nirvana. Sorry.

How are they outranking bands like the Stones and The Clash?

Are we in ranking season or has my algorithm just gone haywire?

My doomscrolling lately has been interrupted by people ranking things:

Best frontman.

Best rock band.

Best punk band.

Best punk album.

I made the mistake of commenting on a couple of them, and now the algorithm has decided this is my life.

I realize it’s clickbait — and so is this! — but I will try to offer a semi-coherent argument here, and get out quickly.

What bothers me about these rankings, going back years, is two bands: Nirvana and Queen.

Mind you, both are great, in their own, different ways.

I jumped on the Queen bandwagon with the third album in ‘75 when I was 14. “Night at the Opera” blew my young mind - a crazy blend of hard rock, operatic theater, a singer with limitless range, layered guitar orchestrations and uncanny quirkiness.

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I hung with Queen through “A Day at the Races” and “News of the World,” and then came a bunch of singles I either couldn’t stand (“Bicycle Race,” “Fat Bottomed Girls,” “Radio Ga-Ga”) or just tolerated (“Crazy Little Thing Called Love”).

By then I was getting into The Clash anyway. Way better band.

Queen played Pittsburgh twice: ‘76 (I was too young) and 1980 (zero interest). The ‘75 scheduled show, incidentally, was the famous canceled one where Kansas and Styx went on without them, boosting their reputations here.

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Meanwhile, Nirvana’s impact is unquestioned. Thom Yorke recently told BBC 6 Music, “...When I first heard Nevermind and I was like, ‘OK, it’s on’.”

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” hit in ‘91, changing the entire rock landscape overnight, mostly for the better. One band and one show – “Beavis and Butt-Head” – knocked the annoying hair metal on its ass. (Now, it hangs around a little, and it’s sort of fun.)

Nirvana was a sonic upgrade on ‘80s underground rock, building on the great post-punk/noise bands – Sonic Youth, Melvins, Dinosaur Jr., Pixies, Replacements, Hüsker Dü.

Pixies were weirder, wilder, more avant-garde. The Replacements were more emotionally explosive – and hilarious. Hüsker Dü and Sonic Youth were harsher, heavier, nastier. Nirvana synthesized those influences brilliantly, with Buzzo and Mascis’ sludge, and delivered them to the masses with higher voltage, iconic videos and a prettier face.

Cobain was upfront about those influences and would probably be embarrassed to see Nirvana routinely ranked ahead of those bands.

Nirvana’s catalog? One cool start, two great albums and a nearly peerless “Unplugged” session.

Rolling Stone’s head-exploding list of Top 100 Punk Albums of All Time has “Nevermind” at No. 9, one spot above “London Calling,” which is insane. “London Calling” wasn’t pure punk like the self-titled album but “London Calling” exploded the boundaries of what punk could be: reggae, ska, soul, pop, politics, rockabilly, dub. You could form a different band based on about half the songs.

Despite it being one of the most eclectic albums of all time, it’s at least considered a punk album.

Since when was ‘Nevermind’ a punk album?

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So, Queen.

The band pops up constantly and prominently, sometimes with Oasis, on best-ever band lists.

The Extreme Music Enthusiast (who has more than 100K X followers) did one the other week. It was this:

Led Zeppelin

The Beatles

Queen

Pink Floyd

The Jimi Hendrix Experience

The Rolling Stones

Van Halen

Eagles

Metallica

AC/DC

Sorry, no.

A lot of it seems driven by the eternal popularity of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” plus the soccer anthems “We Are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You.” A lot of these lists are British.

Mercury was a gifted singer, no doubt, but not a rock’n’roll singer in the tier of Jagger, Plant, the two Beatles and Bowie.

Queen 3 and The Rolling Stones 6?

“Gimme Shelter” is light years above anything in the Queen discography. In fact, the very essence of rock ’n’ roll swag can be heard not in Brian May but in the snarling guitars of Keith and Mick (Taylor) on that untouchable four-album run from “Beggar’s Banquet” to “Exile on Main Street.”

I never got to see Nirvana or the Freddie Queen (just the Adam one). But I got to see the Stones many times – the last time was one of the best, weirdly enough — and I saw The Replacements a bunch of times (Decade, Graffiti, Syria Mosque opening for X, Petersen opening for Tom Petty). They were rock ’n’ roll’s most lovable fuckups and took every opportunity to torpedo their own careers in brilliant fashion, including playing drunk on “SNL.”

Obviously, rankings are all subjective. We can agree to disagree. That’s what makes this fun and frustrating and ultimately meaningless.

Still, if somebody ranks Queen and Nirvana over the Stones and The Clash, I reserve the right to lose my mind.