The Most Underrated Supergroups Of All Time

When talking about supergroups, everyone eventually brings up the same bands: Traveling Wilburys; Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young; Cream; Derek & the Dominoes; The Highwaymen, etc. We do the same thing at Grunge; whether it's the best folk rock supergroups of the 60s or the best pop duos of the 80s, we celebrate the same incredible bands everyone knows and loves. But what about the underrated groups?

The music world is full of supergroups that didn't have international appeal, only made one album, or didn't find critical success until long after the band had dissolved. They are fragile entities that have the potential to make music that transcends any of solo acts or bands the musicians come from, and deserve celebration.

These bands were chosen either because they lack the mainstream attention granted the aforementioned groups, are too young to have cemented their legacy, or have begun to fade due to their short life spans. Each of these groups made incredible records that have earned them a spot in the annals of music history, and all of them are supergroups worthy of celebration, even if they haven't been celebrated as much as they deserve.

While The Highwaymen are an appropriately-rated supergroup of country all-stars, their female counterparts, The Highwomen, are unfortunately underrated. While rock history is full of incredible female-led supergroups, the phenomenon is not as common in country music. The Highwomen formed in 2019 and consists of Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Amanda Shires, and Natalie Hemby. The band released one self-titled studio album in 2019 and a handful of singles, including a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain," as well as a live album.

The band's beginning stems from Shires, who conceived the idea of a band like The Highwaymen, which she pitched to her producer, Dave Cobb. He referred her to Brandi Carlile, who agreed to form a group, and suggested Morris. The band added Hemby, who had already been hired to help write some of their new songs.

Although the band has a relatively small body of work, it leaves little to be desired. The group boasts incredible vocal talent, broadcasted by their outstanding harmonies and top-notch songwriting centered around female narratives, aided by the likes of Miranda Lambert and Jason Isbell. Like a modern-day Trio (the supergroup consisting of Dolly Parton, Linda Rondstadt, and Emmylou Harris) The Highwomen are carrying the torch of female excellence in country music. And although their discography is still small, the band is far from finished. In 2025, Shires told Rolling Stone that they were reuniting that winter to write new material for a follow-up album. In 2026, the group released a live album of their 2023 performance at The Gorge, but since then have yet to release a studio album.

In 1978, three Japanese electronic music stars united to form Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) and show the world why a supergroup is called "super." Yukihiro Takahashi, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Haruomi Hosono were all rock stars in 1978: Takahashi as a member of the Sadistic Mika Band, Sakamoto as a solo artist and session musician, and Hosono as a member of the bands Apryl Fool and Happy End. Their debut album and accompanying single, "Computer Game," was a worldwide hit, with the single peaking at No. 17 on the U.K. Official Singles Chart and No. 60 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

The band's prevalent use of synthesizers, drum machines, and sequencers has been praised for its influence on '80s electronic music. YMO has been sampled extensively by American artists, including on Jennifer Lopez's "I'm Real," and " Mariah Carey's "Loverboy." The band released a string of successful albums until 1984 when they went on hiatus to pursue their own solo projects; Sakamoto famously went into film scoring, where he won an Oscar, a Grammy, and two Golden Globes.

The band reunited several times across the '80s and '90s before Takahashi and Sakamoto both died in 2023. Although a reunion is now impossible, their legacy lives on in wide stretches across the media landscape. Akira Toriyama, the mangaka and creator of the Dragon Ball series, named YMO as his favorite band, Todd Rundgren allegedly kept their album on his wall for inspiration, and even Eric Clapton covered their song, "Behind the Mask." Like many underrated bands, YMO is probably your favorite artist's favorite artist.

It's rare to see a supergroup form from such young individuals, but with three Grammys already under their belt, it's hard to question their "super" status. Consisting of indie darlings Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus, the indie-folk trio boygenius met in 2016 when Dacus and Bridgers both filled opening slots on Baker's tour. After becoming friends over their shared love of music, the trio planned a co-headlining tour together and recorded the "boygenius" EP in a few days.

That one-off adventure was not the end for boygenius — the group sporadically reunited for several years, appearing on Hayley Williams' 2020 solo album, "Petals For Armor," and each of their respective follow-up solo albums. In 2022, they reunited officially, and in 2023, released their first full length album, titled "the record." The album was met with wide critical acclaim and was nominated for six Grammys, winning three. After touring "the record," the group went back on hiatus.

Although they are sonically different individually, with Bridgers pulling influence from acts like Elliot Smith and Bright Eyes, and Baker drawing from Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance, the group's different unique styles come together to create something wholly different: part The Chicks and part Paramore. Their poetic, introspective lyrics display a wisdom beyond their years and their tear-stained music backs it up. They might be underrated due to their age right now, but they may be rock 'n' roll legends sooner than later.

Velvet Revolver is the zombified Frankenstein's monster born in the wake of the dissolution of Guns N' Roses. With ex-members Slash, Duff McKagan, and Matt Sorum, the group enlisted Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots as their front man, and released their first album in 2004, "Contraband." The album went No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and went double platinum in the U.S. The lead single, "Slither," peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Airplay chart and won a Grammy in 2005 for Best Hard Rock Performance.

The band did not release a follow-up until 2007, when they put out their last record, "Libertad." It received solid reviews from publications like Billboard, Rolling Stone, and the BBC, but it failed to repeat the sales figures of "Contraband." The band reunited sporadically across the early 2010s for several benefit concerts, but never recorded another album, and dissolved permanently when Weiland was tragically found dead from an overdose in 2015.

Guns N' Roses have since reunited, making a return of Velvet Revolver quite unlikely, but for a brief minute the band delivered a breed of rock 'n' roll music we just don't see very much of anymore. Their brassy rhythms, cantankerous songs, and shredding guitars represented peak dad rock. They had all the gnarliness of early '90s grunge with the bravado and licks of '80s hair metal, like an Alice in Chains/Poison crossover. We may never see their like again.