I'd say it is singularly THE most important record in the entire Alt Country scene. And I think most Alt Country heads would agree. Can you even think of an album to seriously rival its "Linchpin" status?!
It will be in MY Next Ten of 1990 for sure!
Hard ask. Alt-Country was a burdgeoning scene by 1988 with a few landmark records but none of them really defined what that sound was going to become quite like Uncle Tupelo's No Depression.
Of course, the roots go further back...there's [Sweetheart Of The Rodeo by The Byrds]
...and the Gram era albums from The Flying Burrito Brothers. Michael Nesmith and Gene Clark are both important figures. Then you have bands like Jason & The Scorchers, Blue Mountain, Whiskeytown, and X (yes, X).
Oh cool. I need to check out Michael Nesmith (of Monkee's fame , right?), Blue Mountain and Jason & The Scorchers still!
Romanelli wrote:
And I would say that if anyone involved with making decisions for The Rolling Stones ever decided to release an album of the band's best country and country influenced sides, it would show just how important they really always have been in the rise of alt-country. You ask ANY alt country musician who their influences are, and I will bet money that not a one of them fails to mention the Stones.
Can you imagine this album...
Country Honk
Far Away Eyes
Dead Flowers
Wild Horses
Torn And Frayed
Sweet Virginia
Dear Doctor
Let It Bleed
Prodigal Son
High And Dry
Moonlight Mile
No Expectations
Tumbling Dice
All Down The Line
...and you could easily double this tracklist.
This is the BLUEPRINT for No Depression. And I believe that this would be considered one of the most important alt-country albums of all time. If someone would just freakin' MAKE IT!
Now THAT is a badass Spotify playlist! <I'll make it this weekend and play the shit out of it I'm sure! >
And I completely agree! The Stones do NOT get enough credit as an influence on the Alt Country genre. Unlike Gram Parsons who's pretty much considered the patron saint of the scene. Perhaps if the Stones had only released those songs above they would have!
As a matter of fact, when we cut the tracks they sucked. <Jeffrey> was stiff. I thought, “Oh my God… disaster.” I went out and bought him a big bottle of champagne, that’s all I could afford. I said, “Drink all that and then we’ll cut it, ‘cause I’m not touching the record button until you’re drunk.” Recollected by Tito Larriva [vocalist & guitarist for The Plugz]
The Setting: It smells. Puddles of piss every which way. The toilet bowl doesn’t even have a lid. You pretty much have to squat just to take a shit. And then, to add insult to injury, good luck wiping it up. Because the toilet paper dispenser is almost always impossible to turn. Yielding nothing but one useless dainty sheet at a time. Just a matter of physics really, as the TP is wedged onto a rectangular wooden block that's been nailed into the wall. So it's NOT on an actual rotating cylinder. Just a rectangle cube nailed into the wall. And rectangles don’t roll!
BUT, us misfits of Reagan’s America wouldn’t have had it any other way. Trust me - those bathrooms kept the Biffs & Heathers FAR away. So for us, it became home. It was a place where people got our jokes. Our sensibilities. Our values. And, not unimportantly, it was a place where you could get $1 dollar PBRs and hear a decent song playing on the jukebox after a long ass day at work.
You see, Jeffrey Lee Pierce – chief resident genius of The Gun Club - didn’t come from the swamps. <Interestingly, neither did Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of his chief inspirations. > No. Jeffrey was born from the American Underground and its swamp-ass bathrooms. THIS was a place where even he and his suicidal, self-destructive tendencies could flourish. At least for a day.
The Listen: It sounds like it's all about to come undone. Jeffrey staggers, one hand on the mic and one with a death grip on his Boone's <Strawberry Hill, if you must know> and careens & stumbles into drum kit. The drummer's not fazed though. Never even misses a beat. He and the rest of the band have seen, nay endured, this all before. That’s just Jeffery, they collectively shrug. Unfettered. Unchained. And off his rails. You see this is an album of Jeffrey trying to escape. And not realizing that the person he needed to escape from was himself. It's an album of someone who needed music as much as the music needed him. This is the sound of someone killing himself – with alcohol, with drugs – in order to just feel alright. Jeffrey was so repressed, it took a bottle of cheap-ass, piss-poor champagne just to free himself from himself. We all, more or less, have an imprisoned Jeffrey lurking in our brains. Holding us back. Killing us.
Let YOUR Jeffrey free today!
The Verdict: One of the most important albums of the entire American Underground. Right up there with anything by Husker Du, The Minutemen, or even <genuflects to his turntable> the almighty Black Flag. It is album about escape. And music as the source of that escape. And THAT is what the American Underground was always all about. And until Kurdt broke the code <He KNEW the code!>, it was a great place to be. Shitty, broke-ass, cum-shotted bathrooms and all.
Great album and band! I'm glad we share a love for it. JLP always struck me as one of the most fascinating vocalists in rock history. He sounds absolutely wild on this album in particular. She's Like Heroine To Me is one of those songs that gets randomly stuck in my head like once a month for 20 years now and I don't know why but I like it. _________________ -Ryan
11. Public Enemy - Fear Of A Black Planet [Hip Hop]
12. The Sundays - Reading, Writing & Arithmetic [Jangle Pop, Dream Pop]
13. Dwight Yoakim - If There Was A Way [Country]
14. Primus - Frizzle Fry [Alt Metal]
15. Pale Saints - The Comforts Of Madness [Shoegaze]
16. Jellyfish - Bellybutton [Power Pop]
17. Uncle Tupelo - No Depression [Alt Country]
18. Happy Mondays -Pills, Thrills & Bellyaches [Madchester]
19. The Jesus Lizard - Head [Noise Rock]
20. Mudhoney - Superfuzz Bigmuff Plus (compilation) [Grunge]
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like Maiden… and I wouldn’t mind some of their money!” – Omen guitarist Kenny Powell
“Tired of seeing bands that are cuter than your girlfriend” – from an Omen concert flyer back in 1984.
The Setting: Sunny, hair-sprayed Los Angelas. It’s the heyday of the Sunset Strip glam metal breakout. L.A. bands like Ratt & Motley Crue dominated the airwaves and the bedroom walls <& perverted, delicious thoughts> of teen girls throughout America. Not the best place for an unapologetically rough & raw NWOBHM-influenced band to get a break. So, just like Kyuss ten years later, Omen were driven East into the deserts of Arizona to find gigs and a fan base that didn't know the secrets of four puffs of Farah Fawcett hairspray.
The Listen: Denim & leather old skool Maiden played through a leaf blower. It's music for metal lifers. Dirty & more than a bit rough around the edges. <Just like them! > It’s NWOBHM-influenced underground metal that has now been completely stripped of its 70s hard rock influences.
The Verdict: I LOVE Killers-era Maiden, and this checks off most of the boxes that made early 80s' Iron Maiden amazing. What it lacks in originality it makes up for in passion. The mag Metal Hammer has this listed as one of the defining Power Metal albums of the 80s. If this is Power Metal <rough & raw Maiden worship recorded on da cheap>, I agree! And don’t forget to check out their sophomore LP Warning Of Danger which is also ridiculously good underground metal. Omen's Battle Cry was no fluke!
The Rating:
Last edited by Repo on 11/23/2022 10:25; edited 5 times in total
cool write up on Battle Cry! That was definitely on my to-listen list for 1984 when I finally get there. It was one of the few Power Metal albums I was looking forward to sampling. This makes me all the more interested.
I recently saw this album on the top of a cool RYM list of power metal and was surprised because somehow I had never even heard of it or at least put any attention on it before seeing that list. _________________ -Ryan
cool write up on Battle Cry! That was definitely on my to-listen list for 1984 when I finally get there. It was one of the few Power Metal albums I was looking forward to sampling. This makes me all the more interested.
I recently saw this album on the top of a cool RYM list of power metal and was surprised because somehow I had never even heard of it or at least put any attention on it before seeing that list.
cool write up on Battle Cry! That was definitely on my to-listen list for 1984 when I finally get there. It was one of the few Power Metal albums I was looking forward to sampling. This makes me all the more interested.
I recently saw this album on the top of a cool RYM list of power metal and was surprised because somehow I had never even heard of it or at least put any attention on it before seeing that list.
Very cool! Do mind posting that list here?! I'd love to see it!
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