britney spears should be horsewhipped for her cover of 'rock n' roll.' i'm not a fan of the bust mentalitiy 'wwjjd' what would joan jett do pseudo rock girl thing but fo real, man, that just put the nail in the coffin. luckily we're all up in the alicia keys funny hats and acid wash mismashed denim era + native american accent so i don't have to think about it anymore.

got the neko case album today and listened to it excitedly. as indie rock sputtered and died, so many defected to alt.country. case is the real deal, if a canadian can be country, which thinking about marlboro ads of big mountains glistening, moose, etc makes total sense. the music, unfortunately, is saccrine, overprocessed and borderline cliched. her voice lacks the sincerity that makes smaltzy country music okay - maybe i'm the cliched one thinking that sound needs a little dusk or gravel, world wearyness. it's hard to have a good balance, it only happened once for edith frost and then she lost it, wilco has it by sheer overattention to the empathetic quality of each tune, and guys like jason molina or oldham only use it as a touchpoint. does music need to push always? no, but neko seems to settle in production, songwriting and even in her own inflections...i'll listen more and maybe understand differently.