Where would The Eagles and Beach Boys rank on all time band lists?
If anything the Beach Boys are very overrated. Pet Sounds is a great album, but I wouldn't bother listening to much of what they made before or after that.. and when you consider Pet Sounds was just Brian Wilson and a team of studio musicians, it's hard to say much about the "band" itself.
Eagles are overrated, only made it big when Joe Walsh joined. Catchy tunes and nice vocals. Beach Boys on the other hand are underrated, especially today. They just never got over Sgt.Pepper beating them out before they could release Pet Sounds.
"Underrated" and "Overrated" are subjective terms. What's not subjective is that nobody else sounds like The Beach Boys. They're a stand-alone anomaly in music, partly because of Brian Wilson's unique songwriting and partly because the harmonies are too complex for most other bands. If 'unique' is a measure for greatness, I'd say the only other well-known band that reaches that level was Queen.
But okay... I'll say The Beach Boys were underrated among the general public, who don't hear much beyond the catchy tunes. On the other hand, musicians typically hold Brian Wilson up as one of music's rare genius, because we geek out over the arrangements and production.
Queen is in danger of becoming overrated because of Freddie's star power. Yeah, he's probably the best front-man of all time, but to me one guy's personality is not as important as the overall writing and performance of the group. Don't get me wrong -- by every measure Queen is great and unique, but their ranking has been propped up a little by Freddie's cult of personality.
The Eagles aren't near the top in any category, but they're consistently very, very good in all of them. Some really beautiful tunes and harmonies, and I happen to love Henley's voice. I'd say they're probably underrated, not because they deserve to be in the all-time-best list, but because they're unfairly dismissed as bland/pop/top-40. They're excellent writers and have some of the best group vocals around.