I Believe You Mean "Freak Flag"

Still, this is pretty good writing. Got to give credit where it's due.

"Through the Eighties and Nineties, as the rock business became more nimble at exploiting rough sounds and raw styles, the same basic formulas were applied to a variety of different rock bands playing in a variety of genres, from gangsta rap to grunge. A familiar scenario went like this: First came an outpouring of enthusiasm, as media mavens got excited about hearing kids push the limits of their all but nonexistent musical abilities. (The enthusiasm was more intense if the band first recorded for a small, independent record label.) Then came a solemn projection of the broader social implications, as a music usefully associated with yet another colorful tribute of rebellious young people was presented to the marketplace with subversive flags flying. (The press had a crucial role to play here, since rock journalists ever since the Sixties have wanted to see themselves as custodians of subversive social significance—this is about the only thing that keeps the job interesting.) Last but not least came the commercial apotheosis and simultaneous critical backlash, provoked when some specific band, perhaps one with uncommonly talented or especially good-looking young musicians, actually succeeded in the mass market—thus ‘selling out,’ and betraying the subversive flags that had been flying."

-James Miller, Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977