I have been vociferously reading "We Rock So You Don't Have To", a collection of articles about "alternative" bands that were published in "Option" during the 1990's. Each article never fails to mine gold from the personalities they cover. I'm fascinated that each page contains intriguing insights and philosophies (in the context of deeply probing, yet always casual interviews) from my heroes and even from artists I consider to be talentless lunks. Amazingly, the introduction, written by Steve Appleford, is insightful as well:

"...when the music of scowling outcasts becomes a soundtrack for the in-crowd, something's bound to get lost in the translation. And you can't have it both ways: the only thing more repulsive than a whining rock star is a satisfied, successful one".

Fortunately, this "indie-loser" mentality which has plagued the music from the days of Reed and Cale busking in the streets of Harlem, in no way detracts from my enjoyment of the book (a side note: a close cousin of the "indie-loser" mentality is the "trainspotter" mentality. Both equate "coolness" (whatever that means, heck, I think the Spice Girls are cool but I'm sure that I'm one of the few Bardo Pond lovers that thinks so) with "exclusivity". Thus, if I'm one of only 148 fans of Generic Alterno-band then it is way cooler than being one of 20 bazillion Britney Spears fans because a) there's so few of us, so we must be that much more diehard and dedicated, and b) none of my friends will have heard of Generic Alterno-band, therefore, I can impress everyone in my musical circle because there's NOTHING cooler than making others feel inferior because I know loads of stuff about bands that they don't know jack about. But I should talk, because I've made two not-so-obvious references already in this article. Proclaimed intellectuals have a natural tendency to say and write obscure bits of information through namedropping as a code to alienate the (assumed) less intelligent beings from the proceedings). When all is said and done, the main thing that Britpop accomplished is the doing away of the indie-loser tag for any band outside the realm of shameless (read: boy band, etc.) pop. Ten years ago, Coldplay and Travis would have garnered a Soup Dragons sized following and been accepting of the fact that they would play small to mid-sized venues until the day came when artistic endeavors had to be put aside due to the need to get a real job to properly support their families. Their fanzines would go hog-wild for that career defining day when one of the bands' singles would miraculously peak at #48 on the UK singles chart. The Smiths had a rabid cult-following and were far and away the best band in the world during the mid 1980's. These accomplishments netted exactly two weeks in the UK top 10 for their seventeen wonderful singles. This, along with the downtrodden nature of their music, meant that the Smiths practically defined indie-loserdom in the UK for years. But now, Travis and Coldplay (Smiths-lite bands if there ever were any) don't have to be mopey for the rest of their lives, they can sell millions of records and go from zeroes to heroes in the space of a year, just like Britney Spears can. Britpop destroyed the notion that an entire nation, from critics to grandmas, couldn't sing along to the same tunes the way they had in the days of the Beatles. If we're living in a world where most of England knows at least two songs from "The Man Who", imagine how much more successful The Smiths would have been if they were around today.

As usual, America trails behind the UK in it's musical open-mindedness. Is the brilliance of Nirvana's "Nevermind" diminished just because everybody bought it? If so, then it's a violation of causality, since sales occur after the recording is made. The record would sound exactly the same coming out of your speakers whether ten or ten million people had bought it. It's the IMPRESSION on the listener will vary according to it's popularity, due to the variety of people that get to hear it -- and GOOD FOR THEM. Almost any artist will say that their music has no absolute meaning. It means whatever the listener wants or needs it to mean. It wasn't Kurt's fault that "Nevermind" found its way into ten million homes. That record is no less a portrait of a "scowling outcast" just because said outcast became rich as a result. This is why there's little wonder Americans revere their dead rock stars more so than their living ones. Dead people don't have to worry about finding the difficult balance between "Whining" and being "satisfied", therefore, it is impossible for them to be seen as failures, and more importantly, they fail to ever lose their coolness. Appleton rightly surmises that indie-losers strive for this for this level of coolness, but snatches away the credibility of anyone not willing to be a struggling, downtrodden loser. But Kurt was a troubled, messed-up drug abuser long before fame found him. He was a depressed rock star, but he was NOT depressed BECAUSE he was a rock star. As long as we further the impression that Kurt Cobain killed himself because "he hated the winners so much he refused to be one", then we're just baselessly promoting a false romanticism. Because at the end of the day, that's all "indie loser"-dom really is.