Agree or Disagree?

http://www.mtv.com/bands/w/weezer/news_feature_102504/

Disagree!

As I was reading this, just thinking the whole time, he really means Pavement doesn’t he? Not really the emo part of it but everything else. For fans S&E or CRCR (also 1994) really opened the indie universe and were actually on an indie label. “The album's success surprised the band as much as anyone.” This has to be a joke, they were signed to Geffen and that album is poppy as anything. They were also in So Cal, knew that KROQ would play them and if nothing else would have a market there, worked for Depeche Mode. I saw them in August of 1994 opening up for Lush and KROQ was playing them. They had Geffen’s money to make a Happy Days videos while Pavement where getting their haircuts in videos. If you ask most good bands whom they would say influenced them, 9 out of 10 would name Pavement instead. Maybe when I say important, it has little to do with record sales look at Velvet Underground.

If he wants to go by sales and the last ten years only than I can look at it vs. Beck. One and two are a bit backwards, “Loser” was the only hit from 1994 but the impact was big, “El Scorcho” was the only hit on Weezer’s second album. Blue and Odelay had about the same amount of hits with Beck probably selling more. Weezer next two were “disappointments” while Beck took chances and now has tags like genius thrown his way. So his whole argument is based on two albums? Please.

“Radiohead? Even they haven't topped the space-rock grandeur of OK Computer”. Why oh why did he ever go there? If The Bends is Blue and Pinkerton somehow is OK. Than Green is Amnesiac and Maladroit is Hail. Radiohead wins all of those arguments; no question and they don’t even have a Kid A or those amazing B-sides. It not fair for any band, of the last 10 years, to really compare their impact to Radiohead’s. I personally don’t think they are the best UK band of the last 10 years, that would (bee) Super Furry Animals. It’s MTV so…even Rolling Stone wouldn’t say something this dumb and I like three Weezer albums but not the last one.

My 2 cents.

Disagree. It's a solid argument from a mainstream-rock-influence and gateway-record perspective (much like Nirvana was three years before), but it also acknowledged that their last two records were throwaways. Korn and Limp Bizkit are equally worthy nominees with this logic.

For me: coin toss between Wilco and Radiohead.

I don't think it's a bad argument if you consider how many mainstream bands sound like them. The whole pop-punk/emo craze over the past few years definitely had roots in Weezer. Still, I think that scene is sort of annoying and unimportant myself, but when you look at pop radio I could see that argument holding up.

Personally, I'd also argue that Radiohead is the most important band of the last 10 years but Weezer is an interesting choice.

I think Radiohead is more important than Weezer but I would have to disagree with you Bee: I think The Green Album and Maladroit ARE indeed better than Kid A and Amnesiac.

But I like your arguments aginst the article.

This post requires a simple answer:
no.

Haven't even read the article and my answer's no.

Important is a thoroughly relative concept. Most people don't give a shit who Weezer are (though I like them) or about the the seven billion horrible groups they've inspired.

I'd say that Green Day has influenced more record company signings and promotions and band directions than Weezer has.

no

God. I read the article.



Vibrant? Not by my definition of the word. Prevalent, maybe

What a depressing sentence and I refuse to pin the blame on Weezer, any more than I'll blame Bob Mould.

I actually found this on another message board. Everyone was agreeing with the article and it drove me nuts. I posted that replay and they couldn’t understand why I would think Pavement were more important. I had a few more posts and said things like: I don’t equate success with record sales, the reason I brought up Velvet Underground originally. I believe more kids will be more excited discovering Pavement over Weezer in the long run. Also mentioned Definitely Maybe and pointed out it was released in 1994 as well and had a huge impact, though not original music.

Another reason why I love this board so much, as I knew most if not all would say hell no.

So I closed the subject with this: Much respect to you guys/girls and I know where you are coming from. I know Weezer’s influence and many bands respect them. Casual music fans bought their albums and are well known. Are they this great gateway band of which this article speaks? Are they the influence for mainstream rock/mtv today? Is Emo today all a direct result of this one band? Maybe and I’ll admit that but do those bands matter? Do critics think that Weezer is the best that rock music has to offer over the last 10 years? Do people who really love rock music, like us posting on music message boards, consider Weezer the best of the best for the last 10? I’m pretty sure the answer is NO. It’s fine for MTV but not really for the critics, hard-core fans or historical prospective that will follow.

It all boiled down to three strikes for me with what he had to say: 1. Most Important 2. Based on two albums 3. Radiohead. After that I had to say something. A real important band has more than two albums to put such a tag attached.

So I looked on Acclaimed and came up with this, based on my Pavement statement. If I did it with Beck or even worse Radiohead than it would become a joke. Artist ranking of all time: Pavement 75, Weezer 179, which is all that is really needed but:

Best albums of all time:
Pavement: S+E=104, CRCR=238, BtC=824, WZ=1092
Weezer: B=564, Pink=704, G=939

Best overall albums of the 90’s:
Pavement: S+E=13, CRCR=36, BtC=169, WZ=226.
Weezer: B=104, Pink=142, {Green=77 in the 2000’s only 3 years}

Ranking year it came out:
Pavement: ‘91 S+E=2, ‘94 CRCR= 6, ‘97 BtC=21, ’95 WZ=29
Weezer: ’94 B=17, ’96 Pink=10, ’01 G=13

Sorry for being geeky over this but felt I should explain a bit more from where I was coming from.

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Why should I put myself through this? Alcohol played a part and music shouldn’t matter this much, but it does.

Not a chance.

Christ, I guess it's been a bad decade.

Um, no

My two cents:

Looking solely at radio rock and MTV--sure, its a rock solid argument.

But emo will surely die out and be forgotten in the grand scheme of things. I mean Use Your Illusion sold better than Nevermind in 1991. Yet who gets pegged the voice of a generation?

Emo will prove to be a fad and will be remembered as fondly as hair metal. This is kind of like publishing an article in Aquanet-metal 1986 that says T. Rex and Slade are the most importamnt bands of the decade.

Also, the guy who wrote the article is a badass. And will fight any of you in person, probably.

Uh, Radiohead.

Thanks.

Bye.

Hmmm....you're saying that (bandwise) the mid-to-late 80's weren't dominated by a wicked amount of T. Rex fetishests? I thinjk I might have to go w/ that one...

i like Weezer's first two albums and they are a sorta gateway band - Pinkerton led me to the Pixies.

But to call them the most important band of the decade. Radiohead (esp The Bends) would be the most influential in Britain i suppose. America, well that's a bit harder. I guess i would go with Pavement too.

I'd like to reply to your quote, but i have no idea what you are saying.

Here's my argument more clearly.
1. Emo bands make the most popular rock music on MTV
2. Emo bands all rip off weezer
3. Hair metal bands made the most popular rock music on MTV in 1986
4. Hair metal bands all ripped off T Rex/Slade
5. Hair metal died
6. Emo will die.

Ergo, to write this about Weezer now is like writing it about T Rex/Slade in 1986--an arguement that clearly holds some weight now, but will probably not stand the test of time once the fad dies out.

What I guess you have to look at when trying to determine the "most important band" of any period of time, is the amount of quality bands they influenced musically or the amount of bands who were inspired by their general ethos.

If you follow that logic, obviously your results will vary depending where you look. For the emo kids, Weezer is hands-down the most important band of the past ten years. For the indie-rock-to-the-bone kids, I think you'd probably see Pavement mentioned a lot. For all those British bands and over-ambitious ex-emo kids, Radiohead. And, god help us, for the metal kids, Limp BIzkit and Korn.

You know what's funny, though? Do you think in 1975, people were talking about the most important band of the last ten years? And if so, how were they coming to their conclusion? Seems to me, when thinking about the 60s, you could easily make the argument that Dylan was the most important -- not only because he brought together folk music and rock and roll, but because his music was socially relevant and very timely.

Do you think we still bother to look at things that way? Instead of discussing who inspired the most people, we've become obsessed with who's inspired the most bands. I'm certainly just as, if not more, guilty of it than anyone else, but I thought it was kind of interesting.

amen.

The only problem with this is that Hair Metal lasted as the "dominant rock form into the early 90's - ergo, they dominated the entirety of the mid-to-late 80's. Therefore, you could make a valid argument that, even with hindsight, T. Rex was the most influential rock band of the 80's - plus, Bolan was all about the riffs - his influence stems all the way to bad late 90's/early 00's popular bands (Buckcherry, AWK) and hysterical bands of today, such as the Darkness....

However, Weezer is being preened about as the most important band due to a fairly recent mainstream musical trend, basically due to "Pinkerton" - I mean, the Blue album is the shazbat, but there's not much "emo" about it. My problem with this article is a time-based one as well, Whiney - whether this trend lasts more than a few years is up in the air. If "emo" becomes the most popular form of "rock music" throughout the 00's, and you want to point to Pinkerton as a (possibly the) seminal emo album, I have no problem with that. Let's just remember that, just a few years ago, Rage Against The Machine were touted as the most influential band of the 90's when the Limp Biz/Korn/Whatever bands were around...

Looking at the political arc of bands like U2, Springsteen, USA For Africa, Public Enemy, NWA et al

Looking at the punk influnced new wave of Flock Of Seagulls, Adam Ant, Modern English, et al.

Looking at the apres-punk bands like Replacements, Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Husker Du, Black Flag, et al

Even looking at the reggae-rock of UB40

Even looking at how hair-metal bands like Motley Crue and Megadeth covered punk songs

The answer is The Clash. Thanks for playing.