Americana

Have you ever noticed the number of new music genres that have popped up over the last, say 10 years or so? Now, prior to the last couple years, I had my head down in the rock genre pretty solidly, so when I started opening my eyes to the wider popular music world the genre selection was all very confusing and fascinating. As a musician and a fan, I questioned not only what genre I was in personally, but what would you call the music that I liked to listen to? So many of these “smart” playlist systems try to push specific genres on you and I’d choose one and then say, “oops, that’s not it” when I heard the artists they thought fit there.

One exciting genre I had never heard of before recently is Americana. Now, I’m not much of a country fan, but I grew up listening to a bit of John Denver, the occasional Kenny Rogers, and even watched Hee Haw here and there. Not necessarily big into folk either, but folk/rock a la Crosby, Stills, and Nash or Simon and Garfunkel are okay with me. But as country itself has gone more toward rock, and folk has people going every which way, I hear more and more about “alt-country” and “Americana” as a description for a style of music that’s not quite country, not really folk, not rock, but perhaps a bit of all three. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong on that description or has a better one.