Music Banter - What About Ween?

Yes, I'm aware that there already is a thread supposedly dedicated to Ween, but noone has cared for it for about three years and it's mainly consisting of small-talk, so I think I'm justified in sparking a brand new one, hopefully to bigger appreciation.

Yes, Ween then. What about them, you say? Well, this is a rare case in which I have to begin with the conclusion: Ween is for anyone truly into music! Their thing is being the, to my knowledge, perfect meta-rock band. They present us with the very essence of music; The stylistics, the clichés, the unforgettable hooks, the prejudices, the core of emotional trigger. It's all there in spades. Okay, meta-rock in itself is not really a recent invention. Frank Zappa comes to mind, but his range of genres were rather limited and most of the time peppered with avantgarde rendering it very hard to chew on (which is alright by me, mind you). Ween, on the other hand, tackled just about every popular genre there is, from hardcore to synth to jazz-rock to prog rock to heavy metal to folk rock to sugary balladeering to everything and its grandma.

I suppose it's very easy to be put off by them, especially if you're starting with their first albums that on first listen may seem like little more than a couple of potheads toying around with a Casio and a portable cassette player, screaming obscenities into the mike (which they technically more or less are). But if you're set to 'get' them, you soon will realize that the reason they are shouting into your ear like an annoying little brother, is that the very music they're depicting is supposed to. They only emphasize its core traits to the point of absurdity which may seem as an exercise in brainless ridiculing, but the more you listen the more it becomes clear that they sincerely love the music they're interpreting and they also happen to have the talents to make it justice.

That you have to remember when treading the rather vast oceans of their output, because even if you manage to get used to their exaggerated phrasings (which by the way becomes more and more sophisticated on later records) you may as well be put off by the almost unfathomable amount of different styles. If you are however, then you're completely missing the point, which brings me back to my initial statement in underlined bold italics. Ween shows us the bare bones of music in itself, wether it's an angry hardcore rant which calls for a primal scream, or an irish folk song which calls for a severely drunken vocal delivery, or an adult contemporary sendup which calls for a slick autotuned production (really!), or a braindead stoner anthem which calls for an over-distorted fuzz riff that threatens to shake the house down, or even a Beatlish pop tune which simply calls for a beautiful melody and a master hook. The fact that they succeed in just about everything they try their hands on in this respect and also happen to write really good songs to go along with it, drives me to acknowledge them as one of my favourite bands ever, albeit based on quite different criteria than your 'normal' band for reasons which I hope has been made clear by now. I'd even go as far as to claim they are the best band to ever have arised in the last 20 years. Feel free to call me crazy, I know I am!

And, for those who are still to learn about their existence, Ween consists of the core duo of Dean and Gene Ween (Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo respectively) that began with a porta studio and some weed but eventually advanced to more professional recording environments. Blah blah blah, you can read all the facts elsewhere. Now, let's get down to business! Are you crazy enough to be with me on this one? Any particular favourites?