The Bands We Hate

The condemnation
of a popular rock band
says more about
those who condemn it
than about the band itself.

For every one who
condemns the band,
there are ten who 
adore them

and none of the condemnation
ever does a thing for the world

except perhaps serve as
a shiny little token
of our deep need to hate
something, anything,

even when we are liberal enough
or smart enough
to show no hatred for those things
which would lead to our own 
condemnation,

though
on occasion
those things can be discerned 
through analysis
of the bands we say we hate…

says the man, once a viciously cool boy,
who only dimly got
the sulfurous truth that lay behind
his generation’s “Disco Sucks”
rage,

and the later one about 
“Rap’s Not Music,”

and about something brewing now
about old versus young,
about fun versus depth,
about slick versus raw,
about…
the very notion
of 
“versus”
itself.  

Every discussion
about the bands we hate
is in fact a discussion
about the fear
of losing primacy.