Sunday, June 12, 2011

The Be Good Tanyas: Praising them, spreading the word


A lot of the best music of the '00s was Roots/Bluegrass/Americana-ish. Some of it sold well at the time (Rabbit Fur Coat, Van Lear Rose, or even Hem's Rabbitsongs) but, amazingly/depressingly those records have been almost forgotten by now (none of those albums were on the end of decade lists in 2010, indicating that their broad critical embraces had always been shallow, fashionable rather than sincere, etc.).

But of course, much terrific music from the genre never got the attention it deserved even at the time, e.g., Freakwater (although a lot of their best stuff was originally released in the '90s) and, here, The Be Good Tanyas. Both groups are amazing song-writers and good players - in short, they rule, and will always be two of my favorite groups from the '00s. They're not music for every mood (but that's true of almost every music that's non-generic/specific enough to be really good), but almost everyone's in the mood for them some of the time (at least weekly in my case). I'd urge anyone to get hold of a copy of The Be Good Tanya's Chinatown album (whence come both the tracks here).

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