Weezer

Excuse me? Weezer is TOTALLY influenced by arena rock! I don't even see why this was ever an argument. Have you heard the new song? Perfect Situation, or something like that. It has not one, but TWO guitar solos, for fuck's sake - one of them is the intro, ie the first thing we hear is a guitar solo. And, may I remind you that it is no longer 1993, so we can't blame it on something in the water, like Weezer was just another victim of the epidemic. In 2005, you have to really WANT to be arena rock to play guitar solos.

And Beverly Hills: it has one of those guitar-vocal solos that Slash always used to do. What more do you need?

Call it ironic if you'd like. But I maintain that you don't make music you consider shitty just to be ironic, if music is what you do as a profession.

(ps - This is not to say that Weezer is predominantly arena rock. They have other influences as well. This post was very argument-specific.)