Album Rating: 3.0

fineeeee ill add it to the list

Album Rating: 5.0

Yeah definitely check Summerteeth too, it's just about as good as this but more accessible.

Ftr though Con this is not alt-country

Album Rating: 3.0

less country and more alt but this is def alt-country/americana

Album Rating: 5.0

Yeah this is really far removed from alt-country.

Album Rating: 3.0

wait what in the world is alt-country then?? I always considered Wilco to be one of the best

Album Rating: 5.0

There are definitely traces of it in songs like Ashes of American Flags, but their first two albums are alt-country for instance.

Album Rating: 5.0

There's a bit of Americana here but even that is more of a minor aspect to the sound, this is pretty much alt/indie/experimental rock through and through.

Also ftr alt-country and Americana are not quite the same thing though there is a similarity and the two often come together.

Album Rating: 3.0

hm okay I always considered this a bit alt-country but I guess there's bands out there that are more alt-country than Wilco...

Album Rating: 5.0

As jtswope said their first two albums are alt-country (and even Being There starts to push beyond it in places), but since then it's been a minor aspect of their sound.

Album Rating: 3.0

gotcha thanks. ill let ya know how I feel about Summerteeth when I check that

Album Rating: 3.0

I dig alt-country with the best of 'em but this has never got into me bones.

Album Rating: 3.0

woah there zak didn't expect a 3 outta ya

Album Rating: 5.0

Best album ever.

Album Rating: 5.0

Np Con, it's not your fault, it's a fairly common misconception prop people have with Wilco, this album in particular. Since they have more mainstream/critical success than arguably anybody else related to the genre at all you get a lot of people who don't really know what alt-country is thinking that their work is alt-country throughout their career.

I personally would characterize their first two albums as alt-country and everything after that (with maybe the exception of Sky Blue Sky) as Americana-influenced alt/indie rock.

I know that itself may sound like what you would describe as alt-country but the main difference is that when you're listening to alt-country, you know what you're listening to is a "country" song. To my ears at least, Wilco have been pretty distinctly rock since Being There.

And as an addition Americana is a broader spectrum than alt-country. Americana describes anything that tends to fuse genres such as American folk, bluegrass, blues, and country.

Album Rating: 5.0

Actually I'm not surprised zak doesn't love this.

zak have you heard Being There or Summerteeth? I expect you'd dig those more.

Album Rating: 3.0

very informative thanks Boney. what are some "classic" alt-country bands then?

Album Rating: 5.0

To be fair I'm still educating myself a lot on the "classics" but the seminal alt-country band is Uncle Tupelo. Wilco actually formed out of them, Jeff Tweedy shared lead vocalist duties with another dude in that band (really back then Jeff was still finding his voice and was more of a secondary lead vocalist, he had a few songs per album but the other guy dominated), and when UT split the other vocalist started another band and the remaining members formed Wilco.

Other big ones (some I've heard and some I haven't) include Whiskeytown, Drive-By Truckers, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Neko Case, Son Volt, Old 97's, and The Jayhawks.

It's a tough genre to define because it rarely comes in a pure form, a lot of it has heavy country rock influence, while some is a lot folkier, some are bluesier, and some will vary song to song or album to album.

The basic definition is country music influenced by the alt/indie rock aesthetic but again this varies artist to artist.

Basically though the heyday for "real" alt-country was the 90s, since then there's been a lot more Ameircana than straight-up alt-country.

Album Rating: 3.0

I know Whiskeytown yeah always thought they were alt-country. I guess im more into the bands that have a rock base rather than a country one

Album Rating: 5.0

Yeah Whiskeytown are definitely more on the country rock end of the alt-country spectrum.

Album Rating: 2.5

"idk why but this doesn't click with me. Jesus Etc. is great tho"





exactly how i feel, although i was also a big fan of Kamera and Pot Kettle Black. War On War might be the worst song I've ever heard