Gonna try this again, because I wasn't able to articulate it the first time, and I was hoping it would come through via context from the thread itself. The power of a music act is derived in part from connection and relevance; the best recording in the world can't replicate the intensity of feeling generated from being present at a live show, and in my experience, a lot of people who are very zealous about a band are really hooked on that live-show feeling. In the same vein, many acts use their music as a platform to speak out about contemporary issues, and again, those messages just don't resonate as strongly to someone who didn't directly experience those issues and/or isn't keyed in to the lingo used. Incidentally, this is why most critical readings of the "great texts" start with a thorough study of history (and sometimes learning a new language or two).

>Also, I must insist that the name of the other band you reference is
>"Mötley Crüe". If you're going to dis one of the
>best-selling hair-metal acts of the '80s, you might as well at least
>spell their name correctly wrong. :)

Is there an easier method of generating an umlaut than the "1) Open a word processor. 2) Go to 'special characters' and select the appropriate vowel. 3) Copy and paste the vowel into the text field. 4) Hope the forum software in question didn't decide to do anything else goofy because of the external text source." method I'm currently using?

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."