Top 10 New Weird America Albums

1. Animal Collective - Spirit they're gone, spirit they've vanished
2. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I see a darkness
3. Jim White - Wrong-eyed jesus
4. Diane Cluck - oh vanille ova nil
5. Six organs of admittance - school of the flower
6. Antony & the Johnsons - I am a bird now
7. Devendra Banhart - rejoicing in the hands
8. M. Ward - transistor radio
9. The birdtree - orchards & caravans
10. Espers - espers

My New Weird America knowledge/record collection is pretty small.

I'm just here for the sense of community.

Thanks to moorahrahrain + drodl for your votes
Respect to boonjam for the community spirit.
Still hoping for a late surge of votes before the arbitrary deadline of 30/4.
Top 10s, 5s,3s or even ones welcome.

INCREASE THE PEACE

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
devendra banhart - rejoincing in the hands
andrew bird - the mysterious production of eggs
archer prewitt - wilderness
carissa's weird - i before e
okkervil river - black sheep boy
sam prekop - who's your new professor
iron and wine - our endless numbered days
lou barlow - emoh
micah p hinson and the gospel of progress

Oh I could go on and on... but I guess that will have to do... and if ep's counted... I'd have to add Ben Gibbard/Andrew Kenny - home

there are more than two of them in the group connections list, and they are all nwa to me.... I'm an aussie...cut me some slack, the only tunes from the USA we get here are beyonce and Greenday...lol

Yeah I guess I wouldn't call all that nwa either.

I've got stuff like EMOH and yeah it's folky, but it's not really in the style of the Chasny/Animal Collective/Rose kind of stuff, I guess.

But at the same time, stuff like Newsom isn't either.

Madness, eh?

Genre naming is very silly.

Yeah nick cave is aussie... I'm really not a fan of aussie music, architecture in helsinki and sodastream are about the only two I could say I enjoy... We are truly starved of anything but top 40 here... you really need to seek anything outside the square... sad sad place in that respect...LOL

it's all so new to me.... all this genre stuff... I don't even know what to say when people ask me what genre I am into...LOL... feel free to browse my page and let me know ;-D

I like pitchfork. In fact, I never would have discovered half the artists I like now if I hadn't started reading pitchfork. Pitchfork was my entry into interesting music. I don't agree with them on every review, but who agrees with someone else about every album? I think even their writers disagree about how other writers for the site review albums. Actually, I don't know why nobody seems to like them. I'm not looking to argue about this, but I wouldn't mind hearing some reasons why Pitchfork has such a stigma.


A little closer to the topic, though, I think free-folk is as good a designation of this type of music as any other. Why is it such a horrible phrase, Boonjam (or anyone else who wants to respond)? I think new weird americana works fairly well too, but I'm not as familiar with the word americana as I am with folk. I think for me americana carries a somewhat country connotation more than the word folk does. And yes, classification of music can get downright ridiculous, but does that mean that it doesn't have any worth? I think it is useful to be able to group things as long as we realize that there are limitations.

Closing even further on the topic:
1. Joanna Newsom (the lyrics!!!)
This is my favorite, the others aren't in any order.

Akron/Family - Akron/Family
Castanets - Cathedral
Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
Matt Sweeney and Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Superwolf <-- What do people think about this... does it fit into this category? It certainly doesn't follow traditional song structures and much of the lyrics are "weird" or at least definitely not mainstream.

Ok, I'm done for now. I'm sure plenty of people can't wait to tell me all about the evils of pitchfork, but I wrote about other stuff too.

Not seen Matt Sweeney with Oldham, but I saw him with Mike Fellows, and that was more lo-fi folky than free folky.

Yeah, my home is the sea is one of my most played songs on the list here, but only someone running is my top song. It's probably best to start with my home is the sea, though (it leads off the CD, too).

And Pitchfork... well, I like their literary aspirations. I dunno, I'm an english major and into that sort of thing so that's probably why. In regards to giving a CD a 0 score, I think in general Pitchfork likes to expect things of artists. For example, that recent cd by Travis Morrison - Travistan... I think they knew that he was capable of writing something better and they felt like he wasn't even trying. In the end, yeah, they take themselves too seriously, but I think we all tend to take ourselves a little too seriously. They are ridiculous sometimes, but that just makes it more interesting. Sometimes you have to wade through some bullshit, but I think it's worth it.

In terms of not taking themselves too seriously and having good reviews I think Stylus does a really good job. I always try to check on Stylus to see what they say about a cd that Pitchfork reviews.

Also, Americana doesn't do a very good job of denoting the fact that a lot of the artists who get collected in this genre aren't actually american. I'm sticking with free-folk.

I mostly use Fakejazz (www.fakejazz.com) for reviews, they're big fans of nwa stuff, but their reviews are pretty subjective still.

Pierro Scaruffi (http://www.scaruffi.com/) is some guy that personally reviews about every album ever. His stuff is pretty objective, and he also very rarely gives anything above a 7.

I think Fahey got a 10, but most bands barely scrape an 8 their entire discography.