If you have been trolling around Internet music message boards anytime over the last year and some change, you’d be hard pressed to argue otherwise. We first learned of the trend back in November of last year, when a tossaway line about the band resulted in a scad of defensive Third Eye Blind fans showing up in the Vulture comment section. And now, famed Internet personality and music PR honcho Sarah “Ultragrrrl” Lewitinn is finding herself on the receiving end of a vicious beatdown by enraged 3EB fans after she dared to question the artistic relevance of one Stephan Jenkins. Over at the emotastic forum Absolute Punk, over 500 comments have been posted in response to Ultragrrrl’s original post, the majority of which hail Jenkins as one of the greatest songwriters of his generation and the the band’s self-titled 1997 album as one of the pinnacles of the decade. As Seth and Amy would say, “Really?!?”
We suppose we’re much like Ultragrrrl, in that we never really gave Third Eye Blind much thought. Sure, we’re not above admitting that “Semi-Charmed Life” has one of the highest play counts in our iTunes library and that it’s just about impossible to turn the dial if “Jumper,” “How’s It Gonna Be?” or “Never Let You Go” comes on the radio, but we’ll admit to being just as baffled as Ultra when it comes to understanding how the influence of this particular band has grown so much over the years. While it’s true that there were a handful of songs and bands whose ubiquity in the nineties kind turned us off before we ever really got a chance to absorb how good they were — in particular, Marcy Playground’s “Sex and Candy” and the Gin Blossoms’ New Miserable Experience have somehow boomeranged their way back into heavy iPod rotation — we just never really viewed Third Eye Blind through that particular filter. That said, after reading the passionate defenses of the 3EB self-titled record (and especially said album’s closing four songs), we’re gonna have to break open some boxes tonight and revisit that CD to see what the hubbub is all about.
How about you, VultureWatchers? Does Stephan Jenkins speak to you like the chorus to the verse? Or have the brains of these millennial types been polluted by too much Red Bull? Let us know in the comments!
THIRD EYE BLIND EXPLAINED [Ultragrrrl]
Ultragrrrl Doesn’t Understand Stephan Jenkins [Absolute Punk]
