Uncle Tupelo: A Genre Is Born

Ahh the 1980s, what a beautiful time for American music. (?)  It was a time of New Waves, Flocks of Seagulls, flying V's, and perhaps the last time the words men, tight leather pants, and badass could be used in the same sentence.  It seems during this time everything was getting bigger: hair, guitars, amplifiers, and with new music media like the Music Television channel it appeared the industry was bigger than ever before.  Hair metal and Madonna weren't the only things in the stadiums at this time either, as country music had crossed into the realm of arenas as well.  1989 saw the introduction of soon to be superstars like Garth Brooks along with the already established mammoths like George Straight, Lyle Lovett, and Reba McEntire all enjoying widespread popularity.  Country music had a home in the big leagues with labels like MCA, Capitol, Columbia, Warner Bros, and Sire all putting out chart topping records by various artists.

In the midst of these country music juggernauts, a few boys from a small town in Illinois were looking for their sound.  After playing in a few punk rock bands together Jeff Tweedy (who later went on to start that little country-rock band Wilco) and Jay Farrar decided to dip into some of the Rockabilly sounds of the 1950s along with traditional country like the Carter Family and see how that sounded against the punk rock like that of The Minutemen and Replacements.  What they came up with was something that was unlike anything else that came before it and their debut album, No Depression, marked the beginning of a new movement in independent music and is recognized as a launching point for the alt country genre.

This lead track off their first album, Graveyard Shift, displays the genre-juxtaposition that came to define the alt-country sound.  The entire album is, in my opinion, a little inconsistent as a whole; however it represented a fresh sound in country(ish) music that caught the attention of many people and the album name (taken from an old Carter Family traditional) became the name of the magazine that later began to cover the genre.  Here's the more subdued and traditional sounding title track from the record.

On their debut, bassist Jeff Tweedy took the role of playing right-hand man to main singer-songwriter Jay Farrar, only taking lead vocals on a few of the album's 16 tracks.  With their sophomore album Still Feel Gone however, Tweedy truly establishes his presence not only in the band, but retrospectively seems to be his introduction to the music world that would (much) later claim him as one of our most prolific (see Hipster Runoff) American songwriters.

After Still Feel Gone, the general music world began to take notice and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck stepped in to take the production helm on their 3rd record, March 16-20, 1992.  This all acoustic album represents a full step away from the punk influenced sound of their earlier work into something much more in line with traditional country and folk music of previous decades.  That's not say this album is main-lined country record by any means, with Tweedy's song Wait Up veering a folksy tune into some of the droning squalls that point to the work he would go on to do with Wilco.

Farrar's Moonshiner displays the band's connection with traditional country music, with a good-ole tear-in-your-beer tune about whiskey and women.

With this album however, tensions began to arise between Farrar and Tweedy as the two didn't see eye to eye on what their respective roles in the should be.  Their fourth album, Anodyne, would be their last but -- as so often is the case in music -- the turmoil between the two in the studio produced their apex album and and an alt-country masterpiece.  Anodyne shows the band doing everything that made their band unique in top form.  There's  few acoustic driven numbers along with sounds of their punk-infused country-rock; and without delving too far into either, the album finds the band putting forth their best and most consistent effort of their career.  Here's their national televison debut on Late Night with Conan O'Brien shorty before they broke up (Wilco lover's should check out future bassist John Stirrat on bass and the next Jay that Tweedy would go to battle with -- Jay Bennet -- on drums; weird)

So that's where the genre I've come to love officially began, though there's many predecessors that lead up to these guys who I'll delve into later.  As soon as these guys broke up, the sound they created took off and whole new wave of bands began to permeate the indie scene adopting their approach.  In the face of the stadium filling all-stars, Uncle Tupelo brought forth the notion that country music could still be approached with a real and fresh approach; something that the genre seems to need every few decades or so.