When "Alternative" died.

Justin Anderson complains about Nirvana making "Alternative" into mainstream in Blogcritics: Death of a Genre

A&R reps scoured Seattle and other alternative hotspots for the next big thing. Bands that would otherwise have become boy bands saw the riches at the end of the alternative tunnel. And what that meant was a diminishment in the quality of music. It also resulted in a sort of cultural imperialism in which hordes of frat boys and teenybopper girls became "alternative" overnight.

Nothing for it, Justin; you'll have to become a prog rock fan. Prog rock will never get taken over by 'lemmings', because it will never be 'cool'.

Of course, one of the tragedies of "Alternative" becoming mainstream was to kill off a lot of good music and replace it with stuff that was quite frankly inferior, just like what happened in Britain after punk in the late 70s.

I don't get the 'elitist' attitude either; I don't care how 'cool' my CD collection is, I listen to stuff I actually like. I'd rather admit to liking Marillion and Uriah Heep than have to pretend that I like REM for peer approval.