ASK A COUNTRY MUSIC EXPERT

Dear Tyler, Alt-country. Please discuss.—©chattanoogacharmer

Goddamn it... First question? How much am I getting paid for this? All right, “alt-country” was one of several labels affixed to one of several moments in history when publicists and journalists agreed to lump a bunch of artists/bands together as if their music represented a collective and purposeful backlash to mainstream country music, a genre that almost none of the people mentioned in this sentence listened to very much at all, which was fine because neither did the audience they were trying to reach. All any of these people needed was to hear the occasional poorly played lap steel, fiddle, or banjo to agree that, yes, it was definitely alt-country. Even though none of those bands actually set out to create music they thought of as alt-country, once a few bands became marginally successful while being called alt-country by publicists and journalists, other bands who hoped to become marginally successful made their guitar player pretend to know how to play lap steel and started name-checking Hank Williams in interviews despite no sound they ever produced having anything in common with “Move It On Over” or “Wedding Bells."