Any day now, your local newsstand will be poisoned with the latest issue of Rolling Stone. They will be trumpeting Beck or The Offspring, or maybe Jewel, as the band/artist of the decade. Rather than getting red in the face and angered beyond belief, please pay it no mind. Such decisions are based on circulation, and two things are true: One, Rolling Stone is targeted for that ever-fickle 14-19 age group. Secondly, whoever the Stones's band of the decade turns out to be, that band is a lot more popular than Phish... at the moment.

If you are reading this, you are probably logged on to jambands.com, which means that the Band of the Decade is a foregone conclusion in your mind, as it is in ours. Phish, the rock gods' gift to music in the '90s, is by leaps and bounds the most important musical outfit that has graced the past 10 years.

Not only have they dazzled with their prolific output of original tunes, their consistent touring and growth, and their multitude of onstage stunts, but they have revolutionized a music business that has sunk to the lowest common denominator, ie. the dollar is far more important than the art.

Frank Zappa once said that the music business revolves around a 12-year-old girl named Beth from Beverly Hills.

As the millennium comes to a close, the most popular bands in North America include Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync and Britney Spears. CSNY has a new album out and a tour featuring $200 seats. Alanis Morrissette and Jewel are cover girls yet real talents like Diana Krall and Vanessa Daou toil in relative obscurity.

(Believe me, it all pisses me off, and I have yet to round up a sufficient number of cronies to protest at the latest "crap" concert). A hell of a lot of people have no idea what Phish sings, or even how to spell the name of the band. More to the point, very few 12-year-old girls are, and will ever be, into Phish.

Let that not bother you. Look at Phish's marketing practices this past decade. They start the decade by allowing rampant taping of their shows. They encourage widespread trading of said concert footage. By the spring of 1994, every hip cat east of the Mississippi River, and every Jewish kid in Toronto, had a burgeoning collection of "David Bowie"'s, "Landlady"'s and "Bouncin"'s.

They except one opening slot only, for Santana.

They release one album a year. The albums aren't great - they are good - but more importantly, they seem to offer fans a chance to practice the songs for concert singalongs.

By 1995, the band is playing hockey arenas and amphitheaters, sold out on a regular basis. A lot of bands get to this point, albeit with mucho support from money-grubbing record companies. But they rarely stay there. It is important to understand how few bands sell out these venues consistently for years. We are talking Rolling Stones and Grateful Dead here. (OK, Metallica, Van Halen and Madonna too).

Phish runs a tight fan club, with free bi-monthly newsletters. OK, the newsletters are mostly order forms for tickets and merchandise, but the Phish gear is cool, you have to admit, and ... Tickets-by-mail allows "real" fans a head start on planning summer tours.

Shit, I really should talk about music, rather than the keen enterprising of the Phish organization. Well, Beck's music certainly has to rank with that of Phish, but his proficiency hasn't been delivered with such consistency. Last I checked, Beck had released three albums, compared to nine for Phish, not including three mail order-only release and the 6-CD monster box set available Nov. 23, 1999.

For trendy music magazines and radio stations, Beck would be a sound choice.

Of the lovely ladies who dominated the '90s ... Alanis, Jewel, Sarah McLachlan and one-hit wonders such as Meredith Brooks, only Sarah has any staying power. Her Lilith Fair tour, yawn, was one of the great innovations of the decade. Musically, her emotional rapt captured the imaginations of many. Historically though, her contributions do not compare with the great femmes of lore, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin or Janis Joplin.

Nirvana? Solid start to the decade and they revolutionized things quite a bit themselves. But um, their career was cut short. Pearl Jam? Anything after Vitalogy has been a complete waste of vinyl, er, CD. The rest of the Seattle bands? Man, seems like such a long time ago.

Dave Matthews Band? Come on. They are good. But Phish is just ... better. Cooler.

Phish wins Band of the Decade mostly because of their proclivity towards creativity. Musically, they speak of the glorious beginning days of rock 'n' roll, the late '60s, when the genre was in its infancy. At the same time, they embrace modernity by covering great tunes of the day, such as Beastie Boys' (hmm, another good choice) "Sabotage." Their marketing is all '90s, for example their presence on the Internet, their festival concerts such as The Clifford Ball. Ironically, they cover all the decades, with their '70s funk feel and cocaine '80s hard rock indulgences. A Phish concert is like a trip to a Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame of sorts, and not some cheesed-out wax museum in Cleveland. Those Phish Halloween shows are lectures in music history. You could feel the education seeping into Phishheads during "Loaded" in Las Vegas 1998.

Why is it important to rate a Band of the Decade anyway?

Perspective. Musically, those of us who have grown up with Phish can look back on this era of our lives and see it as a launching pad to a life full of Phish. Their choices off the stage allow us to be more ideal in our real life choices. Not everything Phish does is based on money. Yes, they make a ton of it, but you would be hard pressed to argue that the band has ever sacrificed a creative decision for a shrewd business strategy. Every risk they have taken just seemed to work, on and off the stage.

There are something like 800 jam bands (if The Man Marc Brownstein of The Disco Biscuits wasn't bullshitting me) in the United States and Canada right now. That's a lot. There is no doubting Phish's influence on these thousands of musicians. Many of these bands have created their own followings and legacies. Congratulations to all of them.

Influence is paramount in measuring a band's importance. Yep, Phish was influence greatly by the Grateful Dead, and Pink Floyd and many of the great bands of the '60s and '70s. Those bands were influenced by blues legends like Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. Those individuals had to have had mentors along the way also. Music is a "pass-the-torch" phenomenon. Right now, as the calendar flips at a key turning point in human history, Phish is carrying the flame. They may not pass it off for another decade or three.

Happy New Year and see you in Florida!