– Let’s Talk 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.
