Michigan's Bob Seger appeared old, nostalgic and melancholy, while Ted Nugent was dumbed-down and made for kids. Grand Funk Railroad was mainstream and hence uninteresting. While Alice Cooper managed to become nearly as successful, he and his group maintained the saving grace of irony. There are aspects of class in these preferences as well which I am neglecting to develop. We are all branded with our generational or Microgen habits.
Microgenerational borders break down repeatedly, and are rife with contradictions.
After all, Generation X was initially the name of a '70s punk band. Alice Cooper became famous first in Detroit because record producer Bob Ezrin's Canadian citizenship meant the album met Canadian-content laws and could be played on Ontario's powerful CKLW directly across the river. I feel obliged to diss the Grateful Dead, but they actually played onstage in Ann Arbor's West Park in 1968 at the invitation of the MC5 and White Panther Party to the same long-haired crowd. Within that Michigan moment the MC5 may be the last band of the 1960s, their contemporaries the problematic Stooges the first band of the 1970s. Besides generational and microgenerational market segments, there are conscious efforts to market performing artists to as big a public as possible, for a hoped-for transgenerational crossover success.