They Might Be… the most influential band of my time.

The Blogagauntlet is on. Ryan’s challenge today is nothing short of epic. At least half of it, anyway.

ROUND 3

The Debate:
Who would you consider to be the most influential artist of your lifetime?
The Hunt:
Find the best sports blooper.

Such a bold statement needs some conditions set. Here’s my criteria.

- The artist has to have been actively creating during the same time that I’ve been actively consuming music, and at a good level. I’ve left out bands like R.E.M. and Nirvana since they were (and, in the former, still are) creating good music, but the good stuff was really before my time;

- Influence should not only be of breadth but of depth. A lot of people, in a big way; and,

- Influence is not only of music, but of mentality.

And it is that point that brings me to my nomination for the most influential artist of my time.

Consider these facts

- They pioneered indie distribution. They had dial-a-songs. They had one of the first podcasts. After being screwed by their record label in 1997 for not doing commercial forced promotions, they ditched them and went solo, and the did a damn good job at it. They were the first major artist to sell an album exclusively as mp3s (in 1999!)

- They get that modern artists diversify revenue models. They do TV themes and commercials and books. And somehow, they keep their style and maintain their identity.

- In the end, it’s all about the music. They Might Be Giants were not band in the traditional sense. They were a duo out to make songs. They were one of the first to use instruments like the accordion and horns not for their artistic value, but simply as sound sources. They appreciated intelligence and humor, while still keeping to rock and roll. In an era where rock music was getting darker, serious, more sorrowful, They Might Be Giants taught us how to not take ourselves so seriously. Thanks to them, The Decemberists can sing songs about whaling, The White Stripes can belt “Conquest,” and Radiohead can tell us about aliens that are all too uptight.

John Flansburgh (one of the two Johns):

I think that describing our audience as a cult is kind of inaccurate though. I feel like we exist in the world as a mainstream act, but what we’re doing has nothing to do with Top 40 radio or anything even vaguely resembling the ultra hot cutting edge of music. If you tried to pitch a story to Access Hollywood on They Might Be Giants, they would laugh you out of the room, but the truth of the matter is that what we do is understood; the general public gets it. You would think by the way we are described in the music press, that we are this 80-foot cyclops of unknowable music—like we are the strangest of the strange and people just knock themselves out saying what a bunch or weirdos we are—but I think on some level we’ve achieved some very mainstream acceptance for what we do. We do big shows for thousands of people in big cities and they’re of all ages and all different backgrounds. They’re not fanatical—of course the people in the front rows know every lyric to every song and sing along—but there are a tremendous number of people in our audiences that may be into other bands more than us but they enjoy what we do and just know that it’s going to be a good show.

It ain’t about the major label, or the artist relations, or putting lines of interns and managers between the artists and fans like some people think it needs to be. They embody over 20 years of solid indie rock styling, and there’s no way me or you would be creating the way we do if it weren’t for them.

And for the clip, it’s hard to get blooperier than on ice… maestro:

1…2…3… triple deek? anyone?