"We are going to put out a boxed set thing, but I don't want to do it yet. I want to wait until we're 45 and we're bitter and broke. Then, we'll put out the comprehensive Ween boxed set"
About this Quote
The joke lands because it’s got that very musician-specific blend of self-mockery and business realism: the “boxed set” isn’t framed as a triumphal archive, it’s framed as an emergency fund. Gene Ween is poking at the classic rock lifecycle where legacy packaging arrives not at the creative peak, but at the moment the rent is due and the mythology needs refinancing. “Comprehensive” becomes a punchline - not a curator’s promise, but a late-career hustle dressed up as reverence.
The timing detail, “not...yet,” is the real tell. He’s resisting the premature canonization that turns living bands into museums. A boxed set is a way of saying: the story is over, here are the artifacts. By delaying it until they’re “45 and...bitter and broke,” he’s both ridiculing the industry’s incentives and protecting the band’s identity as something scrappy, present-tense, and a little adversarial. The humor isn’t just cynical; it’s defensive. It keeps the band from being trapped in its own nostalgia economy.
There’s also a quiet acknowledgment of how cult acts like Ween survive: not by radio dominance, but by devoted fans, reissues, and the long tail. He’s winking at the audience that already understands the bargain - you love us now, and one day you’ll buy the deluxe version of loving us. The line works because it makes that transaction explicit, then dares you to laugh anyway.
The timing detail, “not...yet,” is the real tell. He’s resisting the premature canonization that turns living bands into museums. A boxed set is a way of saying: the story is over, here are the artifacts. By delaying it until they’re “45 and...bitter and broke,” he’s both ridiculing the industry’s incentives and protecting the band’s identity as something scrappy, present-tense, and a little adversarial. The humor isn’t just cynical; it’s defensive. It keeps the band from being trapped in its own nostalgia economy.
There’s also a quiet acknowledgment of how cult acts like Ween survive: not by radio dominance, but by devoted fans, reissues, and the long tail. He’s winking at the audience that already understands the bargain - you love us now, and one day you’ll buy the deluxe version of loving us. The line works because it makes that transaction explicit, then dares you to laugh anyway.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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