Greatest rock band of past 20 years?
April 22nd, 2008 by Wade Tatangelo in News
The most important rock band to release its debut album in the past 20 years? It’s a tough call, one I grappled with for a music feature running in Creative Loafing April 30. The chief factors are influence, innovativeness, listenability and live prowess. I’m using the term “rock” loosely, including most of the sub-genres (emo, post-rock, etc.) that have emerged in recent years. Here’s my list of 25 bands (in alphabetical order), from which I will choose The Greatest. What would be your pick? What bands should have made the Top 25? Keep in mind, acts like the Pixies (pictured) and Guns ‘N Roses just missed the timeline cutoff.
Animal Collective
Bikini Kill
Beck
Bright Eyes
Deicide
Green Day
Interpol
Jane’s Addiction
The Mars Volta
Modest Mouse
Mogwai
Nirvana
Oasis
Pavement
Pearl Jam
PJ Harvey
Radiohead
Rage Against the Machine
Smashing Pumpkins
Sublime
Sunny Day Real Estate
Tool
Uncle Tupelo
Weezer
The White Stripes
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April 23rd, 2008 at 11:08 am
In terms if influence, I don’t think anybody on the list can even touch Nirvana.
But as far as listenability and live prowess go, I think my vote would go to Pearl Jam.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Well, the answer is…
Animal Collective
Give it another 20 years and the recognition will begin. These guys are innovators and experimenters, and they have the talent to back it all up. FEELS is the best album in the last 20 years.
These are only the opinions of Jesus and myself.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Contained within Franki’s comment are the seeds of Nirvana’s eventual fall from grace. Once the cult of personality fades, you’re left with a band who can’t compete based on “listenability.”
Hey, I like Nirvana as much as the next guy, and back when I was in high school in 1992 that shit kicked ass. Raise your hand if you listened to In Utero this week … Yeah, didn’t think so.
And just to totally open myself up to even more ridicule, the fact that you didn’t include Phish on this list is a travesty. Could it be that the other cool kids at the rock criticism lunch table would have pants you for including them?
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Yeah, Phish would have made the list … except a couple acts called the Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers mastered the whole jam-band thing in the late 1960s. I just hope Phil and Leilani don’t repay me by playing Phish during the entire 10-hour drive to New Orleans.
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:43 pm
I thought phish didn’t make the list because of the time range…but perhaps I am mistaken. If derivativeness was a part of the criteria, I imagine most of this list would be gone.
Bikini Kill
Bright Eyes
Deicide
Green Day
Interpol
Modest Mouse
Oasis
PJ Harvey
Rage Against the Machine
Smashing Pumpkins
Sublime
Tool
Uncle Tupelo
Weezer
The White Stripes
Not a one of those bands were innovators or ground breakers in any genre. You have OASIS on the list. O-A-S-I-S for Christs sake.
I have chosen not rip you mercilessly for this “list” because you had the foresight to include Animal Collective on there. Also as mentioned above, I thought phish was not eligible.
If you excluded phish with mental intent, I can only assume the mental behind it was minimal.
And don’t worry, my dad is going to lend me his Bruce Springstein records for the trip. He says before bruce there was no average music out there, that he really paved the way in that category.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I’m split. I don’t think Phish or Oasis belongs on the list, but maybe that’s just my taste.
I also agree that in the long run, PJ wins over Nirvana, but I’d even take Foo Fighters over Nirvana.
Can you really call Bright Eyes rock? Really? I’m not hating (ok, well, maybe I am), but Bright Eyes ‘rocks’ about as much as Art Garfunkel.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
That first Foo record blows Nevermind out of the water.
And the sad part is that I like Mr. Cobain and his short-lived band. I liked what he was about. I liked the attitude. I think the shotgun to the head was a bit disappointing, but who am I to judge? What I’m trying to say is that I’m a fan. And I’m trashing the Nirvana legacy.
That leads me to wonder, if I’m pissing on it and I like it, what are the next generation of kids going to do to it when they decide all that came before them is garbage?
April 24th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
“That first Foo record blows Nevermind out of the water.”
Don’t think so. As for Nirvana, “Unplugged” probably holds up better than any of their studio releases. It’s the only I can recall playing in recent months.
April 24th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I agree about Nirvanas unplugged album being a favorite, but I think what made it so magical were the choice covers they choose…not sure they deserve too much credit for the rehashing of others music.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I agree that Nirvana Unplugged is a classic, but it’s also a complete aberration in their catalog. I don’t mind all the cover songs, though, as they are performed beautifully. The thing that really puts that album over the top, though, is the knowledge that the singer blew his face off a few months later. If Cobain were playing Super Bowl halftime shows by now, I think we’d all be re-evaluating Nirvana.
As for Nevermind vs. Foo Fighters, obviously this is an “agree to disagree” conversation. Personally, I elevate Foo Fighters because of Dave Grohl’s DIY spirit, and the fact that the songs better bridge the gap between the absurdly catchy and the ear-melting.
Nevermind is a highly produced piece of pop, as Mr. Cobain would tell you if he were here. Butch Vig gets a lot of credit for that album, don’t you think? So much so, didn’t Cobain go get the engineer from the ’80s Slayer albums to remix the thing?
If we’re arguing which album was more popular, clearly it’s Nevermind. If you’re asking me which album had more of an impact on pop culture, it’s Nevermind again. If we’re gaging the music on the albums, both are good, Foo is better.
Sorry to kill your idols, but in this case, they were killing themselves long before I got here.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Well put, Joe.
I also agree that the Unplugged album by Nirvana is the best thing they ever put out.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Green Day? RATM?! Weezer?!! Oasis?!!!!! You’ve got to be flipping kidding. This list stinks.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Arcade Fire
The Violent Femmes
The White Stripes
Arcade Fire
April 25th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Hey Luc, maybe it’s not the most groundbreaking stuff of all time, but let’s not go ripping on Weezer.
I think they have some of the best pop sounds around, and Pinkerton
is, in my opinion, one of the better introspective, dark-but-happy records out there. Also by far their best effort.
April 26th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Trey Anastasio can go and gargle the Gallagher Bros. balls.
April 27th, 2008 at 8:59 am
If Phish doesn’t belong there because the Dead and the Allmans did the jam band thing in the 60’s, then Modest Mouse doesn’t belong on there because Pavement was an obvious influence on their style and Green Day had the whole punk thing of the 70’s and 80’s that did theirs. Several of the other bands had The Velvet Underground to thank… the list goes on. What Phish did was quite original. What Oasis did was about as far from original as you can get. I assume the 20 year cut off means formed after 1988? If that’s the case, Phish didn’t make the cutoff. If that’s not the case, REM should be on there.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Phish’s first full-length, “Junta,” came out in 1988 so the band did make the timeline cutoff, just not my final list of “[25] most important rock band[s] to release its debut album in the past 20 years.” R.E.M.’s debut disc, “Murmur,” came out in ‘83 or else they would have made my list.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
One of the misgivings I had when Wade introduced this list as a topic was his (intentional or not) seemingly interchangeable use of “most important band” with “greatest band,” two terms that I don’t think would necessarily yield the same results.
To use a film analogy, Citizen Kane is often referred to as the “greatest film” of all time, one of the reasons being its influence on cinema. But while I’m willing to accept an argument that claims Citizen Kane is the most important movie in cinema history because of its innovative storytelling and cinematic techniques, I don’t think I would call it the greatest film (perhaps because I wouldn’t weight its influence on the future of cinema as highly as others might, assuming that was one of the criteria.)
But based on my reading of Wade’s article on this subject (which will appear in this Wednesday’s print and online version of Creative Loafing) it’s clear that “most important band” is what he was after, and he articulates the criteria on which he’s basing his decision: listenabilty, innovativeness, influence and live prowess.
I haven’t listened to enough of the bands on Wade’s list to offer an opinion, but I have to take issue with the commenters who are quick to dismiss Oasis from the running on the basis that they are, to quote one commenter, “as far from original as you can get.”
It’s true that Oasis has proudly and loudly cited the Beatles as a chief influence, and a number of their songs (”She’s Electric,” “Wonderwall,” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger” recall specific Beatles or solo-Beatles tunes, e.g., “With a Little Help From My Friends,” “Imagine.”
But I think that criticism sells short what Oasis accomplished. Countless bands have worn the adjective “Beatlesque” over the years, but few have been able to live up to their legacy. That Oasis was able to produce driving, melodic songs with strong hooks and elliptical lyrics that linger as more than just ear candy was no small feat. Rather than try to defend them in my own words, allow me to pull an Oasis and quote Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide’s senior editor, in this intro to his allmusic.com bio on the band:
“Oasis shot from obscurity to stardom in 1994, becoming one of Britain’s most popular and critically acclaimed bands of the decade. … they are responsible for returning British guitar pop to the top of the charts. … the Manchester quintet adopts the rough, thuggish image of the Stones and the Who, crosses it with “Beatlesque” melodies and hooks, distinctly British lyrical themes and song structures like the Jam and the Kinks, and ties it all together with a massive, loud guitar roar, as well as a defiant sneer that draws equally from the Sex Pistols’ rebelliousness and the Stone Roses’ cocksure arrogance. Gallagher’s songs frequently rework previous hits … yet the group always puts the hooks in different settings, updating past hits for a new era.”
So is Oasis’ clear indebtedness to their British forefathers so easy to dismiss as nothing more than egregious pilfering, or can we at least acknowledge that, much like Bob Dylan, Oasis’ Liam Gallagher had the good sense to steal from the best while crafting a huge pop sound. He’s no Dylan, to be sure, but within the pop/rock context, he doesn’t need to be. Again, this from Erlewine:
“This is where his genius lies: He’s a thief and doesn’t have many original thoughts, but as a pop/rock melodicist he’s pretty much without peer. Likewise, as musicians, Oasis are hardly innovators, yet they have a majestic grandeur in their sound that makes ballads like “Wonderwall” or rockers like “Some Might Say” positively transcendent.”
I’m not ready to sell Oasis short on being innovators, but I suppose that depends on how you value their ability to meld the disparate styles of their progenitors. Perhaps they can be held somewhat responsible for the rise of guitar-oriented rock since they arrived on the scene in the mid-90s. But above all, I do think they’re a compulsively listenable, great rock ‘n’ roll band, and their inclusion on Wade’s list is no embarrassment to it or the other, more esteemed groups included therein.
On a side note, I have to respectfully disagree with Joe’s statement that Wade might have left Phish off the list in order to not offend the “cool kids” of rock criticism. In light of our stereotypically lefty CL readership, I think putting Phish on would have been the obviously hip move. That is, if Wade cared about being hip, which I’m pretty sure he doesn’t.
April 28th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Well-spoken, Sal. To be honest, Oasis was one of the last bands to make my final list of 25, which started with about 60. After reading your latest comment, I’m glad I included them. (By the way, I didn’t discuss my list with Sal before publishing it. Or if I discussed it in front of him with others in the office, he didn’t say anything. Mr. Salveggi’s good about not voicing his expert opinion until after he gets done making my finished copy sound literate.)
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:56 am
Wow, no Stone Temple Pilots?