Terribly Unimportant Albums - which Rock!

[Galactus]

I think the Lemonheads as a whole are almost the very definition of good but unimportant. I'm huge Lemonheads fan BTW but I'll be damned if I can think of any serious contribution they've made to the world of music.

[Fuzznuts]

Evan Dando's dreaminess?

[Paul]

What do y'all think about Beck's 'Midnight Vultures' -- IMO, it's not very important, not like 'Odelay', but it's a damn fun listen.

[kmc]

I don't think any Beck is important.

[Galactus]

A case could be made for Odelay though.

[Thorngrub]

kmc said:

I don't think any Beck is important.

Here you are wrong.
Dead wrong.

[Thorngrub]

BECK is immensely important - which of course, is a wonderful irony. No one would've dreamed it could be so w/the advent of his throwaway, faux-one-hit-wonder, "Loser". But he has consistently proven himself to not only keep pressing the creative envelope on his sophisticated whiteboy hiphop/rap, but has exceeded the parameters of that envelope already twice with the astonishing albums MUTATIONS and SEA CHANGE. Anyone worth their salt in appreciating the history of rock music who lends a careful ear to both of these wonderful albums will not be able to deny the talent on full display, here.

MUTATIONS and SEA CHANGE both are the 'proof in the pudding', so to speak, of Beck's inherent genius as a musician whose merit can easily go alongside many classic rock acts, from Floyd to Tom Waits.

If anyone were to shrug Beck off as just some skinny white rapper with a formulaic schtick, that would only reveal their inherent ignorance of his true depth and capacity to pen golden lyrics and marry them to winning, infectious melodies. His knack for having easily vaulted onto the world commercial stage only lends that much more power to him.

Beck is more than just a singer, a rapper, a musician, and an artist. He is a soldier, a scholar, a man-child, prodigy, lover, poet. His music & voice is directly hooked in to a major, growing demographic of fans who can lose themselves in his simple yet complex beats.

And he always has something relevant to say, in each and every one of his albums. Whether he's being so laid back as to parody himself, or whether he's spittin out incisive, cutting remarks about our increasingly complicated post-technological society, Beck is always on the commercial cutting edge, and always a relevant force in contemporary popular music culture.

There is absolutely no way I'm going to sit around here while people venture the ridiculous notion that Beck is in any way "unimportant". Fuck that shit; he's evolved from that "1-hit wonder" Loser guy to having straddled the world's pop music stage to command everyone's attention. He's an indispensible character in our country's music scene, period.

[Kensterberg]

kmc said:

I don't think any Beck is important.

I don't either.

[Thorngrub]

^ haha, Now whatchoo goan to say after reading my inherently indisputable analysis of Beck's unavoidable importance? I dare you to counter it w/something intelligible ;b

[Kensterberg]

I still don't think Beck is "important." He hasn't been at the center of a major (or even minor) cultural movement/trend. He hasn't launched a horde of sound-a-likes or been a big direct influence on bunches of other bands/artists. The media has always given Beck a big buzz, but I just don't see his influence on other artists or the public at large. If you remove Beck from the last fifteen years of rock and roll, I don't think you change anything to any significant degree.

To be truthful, there are really only a few handfuls of artists who actually would qualify as "important" in the big sense of the word. I wouldn't call Beck "important," but I certainly wouldn't argue with anyone who'd call his (best) work "meaningful," which is what I think you (ThoRn) just did. Wilco are a "meaningful" band, but I have a hard time arguing that they are "important" (although Uncle Tupelo definitely were an important band).

[Paul]

Beck = very good to me; don't know how important he is though...meaningful, yes. Important, well, 'Odelay' is an important 90's album. But really, is the new album, Gurerro, Sea Change, Mutations, or Midnight Vultures all that important? I like all of those albums, but I don't know how important they are.

[Thorngrub]

kenholzman said:

I still don't think Beck is "important." *He hasn't been at the center of a major (or even minor) cultural movement/trend*. He hasn't launched a horde of sound-a-likes or been a big direct influence on bunches of other bands/artists. The media has always given Beck a big buzz, but I just don't see his influence on other artists or the public at large. If you remove Beck from the last fifteen years of rock and roll, I don't think you change anything to any significant degree.

To be truthful, there are really only a few handfuls of artists who actually would qualify as "important" in the big sense of the word. I wouldn't call Beck "important," but I certainly wouldn't argue with anyone who'd call his (best) work "meaningful," which is what I think you (ThoRn) just did. Wilco are a "meaningful" band, but I have a hard time arguing that they are "important" (although Uncle Tupelo definitely were an important band).

An interesting rumination there, HOlz. (Although I'm wonderstruck at your brushing aside Wilco in favor of the more inherently unknown Uncle Tupelo).

I bolded (w/asterisks) and underlined two of your "qualifications" above, so that I might counter your allegation w/the cool observation that, in your own qualifications, then you must certainly agree that korn must then easily qualify as an "important" band. What say ye to that -?

[sisyphus]

haha

[Kensterberg]

Uncle Tupelo were instrumental in establishing the whole No Depression/alt country movement. Much like the VU, they didn't sell a lot of albums, but they influenced a bunch of other bands to do something similar. Ryan Adams (for example) owes his career to Uncle Tupelo.

As for KoRn ... I think a case can be made that they are an important band. If you remove KoRn from the mid-nineties music scene, it does look a bit different, and they have been a part of a definite cultural scene. I'm not enough of an observer of KoRn and their fans to state their relative importance overall, but I'd have a much harder time attacking the claim that KoRn are "important" than I do with Beck.

Beck is an ironic and ultimately insular musical singularity. He may be entertaining and (sometimes) meaningful (to some people anyway), but he's not a part of anything larger.

[Thorngrub]

pcook said:

Beck = very good to me; don't know how important he is though...meaningful, yes. Important, well, 'Odelay' is an important 90's album. But really, is the new album, Gurerro, Sea Change, Mutations, or Midnight Vultures all that important? I like all of those albums, but I don't know how important they are.

Gotta wonder about the inherent value to the word "important", don't we Cook?

Let's take a look at what we should all unanimously agree qualifies as the quintessential "important" band, The Beatles:

Was their music not, at the outset, but simple, melody -driven love songs, that struck a carefree note in those who heard them? Could we argue that the kind of music they produced during their formative years was essentially, no more "important" than any other infectious, happy pop song we might care to cite?

But of course, the Beatles went on to evolve into more "serious" musicians (what w/their "consciousness expansion" experimenting w/various substances and introduction to middle eastern philosphies), but it makes you wonder, what exactly was the major contributing factor that would lend itself to their fundamental "importance" -? Was it their genius for songwriting -? Lyrics -? Well I'm sure it was an amalgamation of a lot of these factors coalescing into a "total package" so to speak, which eventually lent credence to the alleghations of their importance.

We've got cultural factors, artistic merit, popularity, incisive lyrical statement, and of course perhaps the most significant aspect, influence over future artists/bands.

I think Beck is slowly gaining control over the majority of these contributing factors - - in fact, all of them with the possible exception of being majorly influential. (But it could still be too soon for his influence to be duly noted)

That said, I think Beck is well on his way towards carving an important niche for himself in the annals of popular music.