At 9:10 AM -0600 04/3/99, Chris Orlet wrote:
>Dare someone try to explain why so many artists/bands (Wilco, Son Volt,
>Fulks, apparently Old 97s etc) are so intent on distancing themselves from
>alt-country, even to the point of making 70s/Beach Boy-esque pop albums? I
>dont recall punk groups, or grunge acts going around denying they were punk
>or suddenly abandoning grunge and taking up jazz. What success, what base
>these artists have they have because of their early alt-country work. And
>now its seems they cant jump off the alt-country wagon full of alt-country
>hayseeds quick enough.
Well, maybe you should go to the next Wilco show and clap
very slowly between songs. Then, before the final song, you
could yell out "Judas!" <g>.
But seriously, it seems to me that artists often fall into
two different camps -- one that takes pride in the genre
in which they feel they are working, and one that chafes
under the label by which they have been designated. And
in the latter, it isn't just alt-country performers.
By 1966, Dylan would bristle to be labelled "folk". He
was a rocker, and he would insist that he had *always*
been a rocker, right from the first acoustic albums.
At that stage, he didn't want to be called a folk singer
and would openly challenge and harass any interviewer who
tried to pin him as a one.
I believe Ricky Nelson as he grew older came to resent
being labelled a pop singer, or, worse, a teeny bopper.
Of course, who wouldn't dislike that label. But it was
his teen idol status that was instrumental in marketing
his early hits, and undeniably they were songs about teens, for
teens, dealing with teen concerns. (Not that I'm putting
them down -- I love "It's Late", "Stood Up", and all those
other early Nelson gems.)
Among perhaps less respectable names, I've seen MTV
interviews with Van Halen in which the band try to brush
off their heavy metal designation. They too wanted to
be known simply as rockers, not limited (as they saw it)
to a particular niche.
And of course there's always list bugaboo Shania T., who
is currently going around saying that she's about more
than just country, that mainstream pop informs her muse
as much as country and her music has and will more and more
reflect that.
I'm sure others can come up with better examples, but the
question remains, why do some artists go out of their
way to tell interviewers what they are not, which categories
they should not be lumped into?
I would guess that it usually isn't a case of disdaining
their previous audience or wanting to put a distance
between themselves and that early audience. Maybe it arises
from reading their own reviews a bit too often. If you feel
you are incorporating new styles and new approaches in your
work, yet you perceive reviews to be dwelling on the styles
and influences that used to be the dominant feature of your
work, then you might get a bit irritated and start insisting
on pointing out your new influences to the exclusion of
acknowledging the old ones.
In quite a few cases, it would seem to me, the reviewers
aren't doing this, yet the artists seem to think they are.
Jeff Tweedy I think is an example of this -- he often seems
to pre-emptively bring up his belief that he definitely isn't
in the alt-country camp on the assumption that interviewers
are just biding their time before confining him there.
As to why Tweedy doesn't have pride in his alt-country roots,
I think it is significant that such a designation wasn't used
until people started trying to categorise Uncle Tupelo and
bands of their ilk. When UT started making music, they weren't
conciously trying to fit into a specific musical genre. I guess
I can see why he has no special attachment to a movement that
developed around him. He didn't grow up immersed in that
genre, he didn't discover it come to love it and set out to
become part of it as if he had grown up immersed in it, he
got put in it and, for whatever reason, he seems to feel it doesn't
describe what he does now.
Ross Whitwam [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Molecular Pharmacology & Therapeutics Program
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, NYC
