The Not-Pop Jukebox

The Old 97s are a part of a country music movement that seems to have a lot of names like No Depression, Young Country, and alt-country. The upshot seems to be combining enough twang to qualify as country and western without relying on the age-old cliches like losing your house and your wife and your dog dying, as the old joke goes. While a lot of their songs are more country and western than this, Timebomb comes across more like The Dead Milkmen than George Strait (I'll be posting something from him at a later date, though). It's harder and harder to draw lines in the sand on the genre beach these days, something that I consider an improvement. If you like this one but want a twangier sample of The Old 97s' work, bend your ear around If My Heart was a Car, a more classic country song but still alt enough to be enjoyable.