That’s a really good point about influence and something I’ve been wanting to articulate for a long time. Taking my favorite band for instance, most people don’t realize or acknowledge the amount of influence The Smashing Pumpkins have had on some of the best music of the past 20 years, the last decade especially (Alcest and Deafheaven being notable examples). They think of them as nothing more than a 90s alt-rock singles band and aren’t aware of the scope of their material.
Taking it a step further, certain bands who have actually been very influential aren’t considered so because either a) the music they play isn’t cool, b) the music they influenced isn’t cool, or c) the music they influenced is shit. As examples, Blink 182 fits all three of these, and Nirvana fits c (edit - Nirvana also has influenced some great music, but I’ve seen them get knocked down by people for influencing a lot of garbage).
Sometimes a band’s not being very good can lead them to being more influential than a better band too. Like if a new artist hears something and thinks “there’s something here but they didn’t do it very well, I could do this better.”
Overall I strongly believe that influence isn’t necessarily an indicator of the quality of a band. There are plenty of shit bands who were influential and there are plenty of amazing bands who haven’t been (or who haven’t been given the opportunity to be). So much of influence has to do with outside factors that have little or nothing to do with the quality of the music.
