As a child of the late eighties who grew up in Northeast Arkansas, I can tell you that nobody down here had ever heard of the Pogues in the eighties. Maybe the emo-before-emo-was-hip suicidal girl who was a big U2 fan had heard of them. But we lived in the broadcast shadow of Memphis. Our class song was "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. We were, and probably still are, very provincial. When the media were pronouncing, oh, say, The Strokes as the next great rock band, I'm pretty sure the collective response from my neck of the woods was, "Who do these pretty-boy, no-talent, dickless posers think they are? They can't hold a candle to .38 Special!"

Yeah, we're the flyover states. Sometimes we live down to the stereotypes.

All of which is my puffed-up way of admitting that I grew up in the eighties without ever hearing of the Pogues. Had to go to college for that.