Your mind seems made up, but it’s hard to imagine we’d even be having this conversation if, say, Zack had stayed on Victory putting out hardcore records.

He just wouldn’t be a part of the zeitgeist in the same way. There’s an argument that a lot of what we’re experiencing now is a backlash against how well it worked. “the machine” is defending itself.

Can you imagine the president of the US using the term “Woke”, without RATM, and RATM without Sony behind them? They didn’t coin it obviously, but certainly gave it a huge boost.

It’s like a startup, the same product with a better distribution mechanic often wins.