I’ll get there eventually

Sleater Kinney and Neko Case are officially my new playlist for life; which is to say that I listen to them a lot. As with most music trends I came into these two late in the game, and so far I only have Sleater Kinney’s The Woods.

My partner is telling me I’m getting old listening to country music (as she calls Neko Case) and maybe she’s right. As I listen to bands I like at the moment I can’t help but think “those guitars have a nice twang to them”. How long will it be before I’m browsing the Naxos CDs in those bins outside of music stores? So I just tell myself that it’s ALT-country and I feel better.

ALT is such a good term/suffix in the English language. Be it at the front of a musical genre (i.e. ALT-Pop) or in the middle of a phrase (i.e. “why don’t you CTRL-ALT-FUCK OFF!”). It tells the listener everything they need to know about the person who is speaking it. Just take a look at number three on this Google search.

But anyway I’m straying a little here.

The last Pearl Jam album I bought sounded distinctly “country”. A quick chronological browse through their earlier stuff revealed that this sound happened over time. The guitars got “twangier” and vocals became more and more Johnny Cash-ish.

This isn’t ALT-country (by the way I’m capitalising simply for effect), its just country influenced rock. Like basil-infused olive oil (some readers are laughing at that, you know who you are).

Neko Case isn’t ALT-country either. She’s just country. But damn it’s good country (i.e. no fricking line dancing). Sleater Kinney isn’t. Sleater Kinney is rock. Oh, alright, ALT-Rock, happy?

But what is Ryan Adams (the man with the name that everyone mishears the first time)? And what about the Kings of Leon?

Sigh. This is for another time I’m afraid. I have to jet. More crap musings on Monday.