Should bands be judged or derided for the crappy bands they inspire?

If this reasoning is carried to its furthest conclusion, then the only bands which would be judged positively would be the ones which influenced no one (or only influenced bands that made good music, but I suspect that for anything that's ever been good, there have been plenty of bad knockoffs of it). This does seem a little... backward.

Not at all! If a band inspires someone to make music then that is an achievement in itself and I don't think they should be derided for this!

Funnily enough I was going to post a question on a similar subject the other day, but never got round to it. It would have been something like "Album From The Last 10 Years That You Most Love Relative To The Amount Of Crap It Inspired" (I confined it to the last 10 years to avoid the obvious examples of Beatles, Zeppelin, Nick Drake's "influence" on the hateful "New Acoustic Movement", etc., etc.)

My answer would have been Company Flow's "Funcrusher Plus", because I was blown away by it when it came out, but looking back it seems to have inspired a *lot* of half-arsed, going-nowhere undie hip-hop and turntablism etc. which I initially followed cos I thought it was the hot direction to be going in, and stayed with at least a year too long before I realised that most of it was heading straight up its own arse. But I'd still call "Funcrusher Plus" classic if this was a classic or dud thread, because I think it still stands up in itself, still sounds absolutely hard-as-nails and with no timewasting and I- know-the-tricks indulgence.

I guess this is a long-winded way of saying: bands *shouldn't* be derided, on the whole, simply because of the crappy bands they inspire. Or more specifically, the crappy bands they inspire should be only a very minor criterion for judging bands.

You should certainly be able to judge a band's worth based on who they inspire (or the quantity they inspire); and I suppouse that legacy has a place in this as well: Buffalo Springfield begat CSNY, CSNY begat CSN and Neil Young, etc.

As for deriding bands based on who they inspire (Rage Against the Machine comes to mind almost immediately), it's fine for the barroom... but it really doesn't hold up in court.

Not only should they be judged but I know for a theological fact that they are. Why else would Robert Johnson be in hell for inventing the Blues?

I find it hardler to like individual albums sometimes because of what they caused, and I think if you're rating a band's importance or influence rather than quality, then you should perhaps take the quality of what they inspired into account.

Generally, though, I think you need to be quite careful. What is usually being judged in terms of influences is people taking not the sounds but the ideas of bands and using them. If a lot of rubbish results from the application of those ideas, it might suggest that the ideas, though novel or original at the time, weren't actually very valuable.

The hoary Sgt Peppers - Prog Rock argument might be an example of this.

I think it's impossible to hear a record outwith the context of the other records you've heard. The idea that you can divorce yourself from your own context and listen with 'ahistorical' ears seems a bit preposterous to me.

For example, the Jesus & Mary Chain influenced the Velvet Underground, as far as my perception is concerned. I heard "Upside Down" (which I like) before I ever heard the Velvets (who I don't, much).

So to answer the question, I find it hard to forgive the J&MC for the VU they inspired.

Similarly, I can't forgive Belle and Sebastian for the appalling Nick Drake, and Elvis Costello can do no wrong, at least for the strong influence he had on the genuinely great George Jones. I think it's fair to say that George has outgrown his / my EC influence now.

Tom:

"The hoary Sgt Peppers - Prog Rock argument might be an example of this"

The obvious example, and one I deliberately avoided invoking, but I would still defend something like "I Am The Walrus" in the sense that Lennon so clearly had total disrespect for academic ideas of "literacy" and "intelligence"; it still sounds to me like an exorcism of the cultural snobbery and superiority complexes which had been such a psychological blow. His attitude was worlds away from the dull reverence towards high culture which blighted so much prog.

Tim:

"I can't forgive Belle and Sebastian for the appalling Nick Drake."

Funnily enough, I can sort of see what you're saying here - B&S were only influenced by the Nick Drake of "Bryter Layter" (specifically "Hazey Jane II") and that is a comparatively prettified and luxuriantly of-its-time record, not least because of the presence of various members of Fairport Convention. Unembellished on "Pink Moon", he sounds like a totally different artist.

1. The questioner is right - it is an interesting topic.

2. Tim Hopkins' verve and intelligence are undimmed. His response was as intelligently awkward as I ought to have come to expect from him.

3. I'm glad that someone thinks Nick Drake is appalling - not because I think he is (Robin C has reminded me of 'Hazy Jane II', which I think is magnificent in its way if it's the track I think it is), but because nobody ever seems to, and consensus can be dulling.

4. On this issue I always turn to the relevant passage in T.S. Eliot's '*Ulysses*, Order and Myth' - not because he's right but because his opinion is forthright. I was just about to quote it to you, then found that I don't have it here. Perhaps some of you know what I mean anyway: 'From my point of view Mr Joyce's influence is immaterial. A very great book may have a very pernicious influence, and a very bad book may have a very good influence indeed', or something.

i think influential bands are mostly caricaturized by the bands they inspire. bands like nirvana have a distinct sound, sure, but the bands that follow them (all the way up to marcy playground and papa roach) take only what they can take- the actual aesthetic sound, and after three or four generations of influences, youre left with something barely resembling the original product. so i suppose i wouldnt judge the original band as being detrimental, but the influenced bands for not taking a full appreciation of the styles they borrowed from, and instead merely copying because it sounded cool. after all, copying can be done well, take for instance spoon's readily apparent affinity for the pixies' sound on their first two full-lengths.

It doesn't bother me at all that a band I like may have ended being a pernicious influence. But I've been known to dismiss artists (hell, entire genres) on the basis of the obnoxiousness of their fans (I think this was discussed in another thread a few months ago).

Pinefox:

"Robin C has reminded me of "Hazy Jane II", which I think is magnificent in its way if it's the track I think it is"

It is. Though it was probably the starting point for Belle & Sebastian, if any band's sound can be traced as far back as one particular song by someone else, so no wonder it divides opinion.

Tom wrote about it during the English Tape last May, and this can be reached directly from the NYLPM index page.