June 27, 2005
Chest pains
Posted by Stacy Chandler at June 27, 2005 3:45 AMJesus, "No Depression," way to give me a heart attack. I just got the July/August issue in the mail today, and immediately I checked to see what funny, snarky way they chose to word their tagline this time. What do I see?:
NO DEPRESSION
The last alt.country (whatever that is) bimonthly
So of course I freak out, tear off the cellophane, and rip pages in my frenzied effort to find out what they mean by "last." Are they folding? Or are they going monthly????
I read the editor's letter and now have calmed down a bit. Unless there's some other explanation in the mag I haven't gotten to yet (gimme a break, people! I've only had it for 10 minutes now!), it seems to be a declaration of a somewhat broader scope. The letter is an extensive defense of putting jazz singer Lizz Wright on the cover and how no one's saying she's alt.country, but no one's saying she doesn't deserve exploration on that magazine's pages, either. Oh, OK.
I have mixed feelings, if this means ND is abandoning its focus on alt.country. I'm all for being open-minded about music, and indeed my CD collection spans all sort of genres. But I can read about jazz singers (not that I want to -- I have to admit I detest jazz) in jazz magazines. And I can read a cover article about Billy Corgan (I'm talking you, "Paste" magazine) in "Entertainment Weekly" or "Spin" or "Rolling Stone," thanks. So I hope, in all this open-mindedness, we don't lose all publications that focus on alt.country (whatever that is), because someone needs to be the go-to source, after all.
Guess hickorywind.org will have to be the sole powerhouse now ... ;)
Stacy, I did the same double-take on Saturday morning... eek! I didn't make it to the editor's page though. I figured it was just a song lyric from the cover artist -- a common thing for them to do, when I didn't see any "this is our last issue" comments anywhere. (I'll have to read that editorial page now when I get home.)
I'm sure ND will maintain an alt country/Americana focus though, right? I don't care if they branch out, but I hope they stay true to their roots. *Someone* has to. Americana music is only as relevant as the people listening, playing, and buying it makes it. (If ND loses focus... what does that have to say about the future of our music?)
Posted by: larry at June 27, 2005 10:50 AMAlso on this subject, there's a great letter to the editor in that issue (yay! I'm FIVE pages in now!) expressing dislike for the Gretchen Wilson shout-out on the ND 2004 best-of list and the huge Dierks Bentley article last issue. The letter writer says he has no beef with mainstream country, but there are plenty of other places for him to read about ol' Gretchen and Dierks and the like if he wants to. Amen, brother.
Posted by: Stacy at June 28, 2005 2:38 AMI'm not sure how I feel about the cover choice even though I've had a few days to think about it. What I do know is this: it points out the futility in trying to label music.
For each of us, there are only two types of music: the stuff we like and the stuff we don't like.
Alt.country is a flawed label at best. Bands such as The White Stripes make it into ND (the reviews section, at least) all the time. Wilco is a mainstay in the magazine, though the band is a long way from where it started post-Uncle Tupelo. We could probably all agree that reading about Dwight Yoakam in ND is OK, but he's not alt.anything. He's a country singer.
Which brings me to contemporary country. There's already evidence that the pendulum is swinging from the pop-crossover trend to more traditional forms of the music. When it swings all the way back, what will we call alternative then?
Posted by: sean at June 28, 2005 8:45 AM
