>... in aping (perhaps inadvertently) that dismissive
>too-cool-for-school thing the band's anti-fans did at the time, you
>are plugging yourself into another part of the same cultural
>phenomenon.

It's possible. The band that my specific age cohort had that had high profile "this is the music we hate to prove we're cool" anti-fans was Green Day. I don't suppose the dynamic there was much different than with Nirvana.

>Nirvana was one of those bands that have basically four listener
>demographics: rabid fans, people who think they had their moments,
>people who aren't aware of them, and rabid anti-fans. A lot of bands
>only make it to the middle two, and a vanishingly rare view end up
>with the top three and not the bottom one, but most of your really
>influential acts will wind up with all four, in varying proportions.

You know, I'd never really thought about it that way. You are of course right; and in fact I'm having trouble thinking of bands that hit only the first three. The Beatles, I guess? If only because it is hard to find someone who will admit to hating The Beatles even if they do, because they don't want to be publicly seen holding an opinion just that outside the mainstream. And maybe The Beatles don't even count, because I don't think you can find anyone in the English-speaking world who is unaware of them.

>None of which affects my opinion that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" has a
>rockin' good hook, which, as you may recall was all my original post
>was about. :)

It absolutely does. That always both pleases and frustrates me. I love it when a piece of music doesn't actually need lyrics of content to stand on its own two feet, merely accompanying vocals that hit the right cadences to accompany it.

By the same token, tho, listen to the goddamn lyrics, people. They're important! Words are important! Don't play Born in the USA as some sort of hyper-patriotic anthem celebrating capitalism and American exceptionalism!

>"Hey, man. You hear about Kurt Cobain?"
>
>"Uh, yeah," I said, slightly distracted by the doings on my end.
>"Tragic, huh?"
>
>"Yeah." Pause, and then, in exactly the same matter-of-fact tone of
>voice: "It was the CIA, man."

Tangent time!

I have, no fooling, gotten to the point where if someone says the CIA is up to something, I will at least consider the notion, no matter how deep into the world of tin-foil couture it seems to be. This is just because the actual-life shit the CIA has gotten up to is often just that messed up.

I bring this up because Jeremy Renner's latest joint, Kill the Messenger, hit this weekend. It's good. Real good. Aside from Renner just generally being a good actor (he even makes that godwaful mustache he grew for the sake of verisimilitude work) it's a pretty harrowing account of how the CIA actually destroyed a man for revealing one of their more evil schemes, and the cherry on top of that shit sundae was that very few people actually believed him at the time.

I wouldn't quite say that Renner inhabits the role of Gary Webb, but he very clearly was deeply invested in the subject matter. Like when Ben Affleck makes a movie about Boston. Sort of Six Days of the Condor has a kid with All the President's Men, only without, you know, a happy ending.

Bonus points: Renner continues the trend of every character he plays being completely applicable to a single guy in UF without even a whole lot of hand-waving being needed.

-Merc
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