Put A Record On: Something Besides 'Americana'
We need a better word...
What is “Americana,” anyway? My first thought is (and forgive the high school essay tic here, but it’s relevant) always closest to the Cambridge Dictionary definition: “objects, especially decorative objects, that come from and are typical of the U.S.” Specifically, and my fellow online estate auction junkies will be well aware of this particular horror, the word is often used to describe racist objects — lawn jockeys, “mammy” figurines or images and the like. Those are certainly some of the more distinctly and typically American objects, though rather than dress them up with a term that seems to instantly imply patriotism and pride you’d hope people would simply destroy them…but I digress.
Americana is also, of course, a widely embraced musical term and one that has long irked me — for the associations above, for its implication that a set of sounds and styles most often incorrectly associated with whiteness is more “American” than any other, and for the idea that American-ness is something that anyone should be remotely proud of. Sure, right now America is pretty embarrassing. But the shame I personally feel around what it means to be American and live in America stretches back to our founding genocides (a feeling that is, I think, shared by many…).
The fact that “Americana,” as the term is currently used (that is, for just about any country/roots music that doesn’t get played on commercial country radio), encompasses a lot of music I like, then, creates something of a quandary. It’s why I prefer to stick to an umbrella version of “country” — a lot of these artists, though, prefer the term folk, and I’ll admit I’m not quite sure exactly where the line between them lies. The Elijah Wald Dylan book I mentioned a couple weeks ago offers a pretty interesting look at the divide, digging into how folk became more associated with urbanism and youth culture (and, let’s face it, Jews like myself and Bobby Zimmerman) making country the crass, Christian, commercial cousin — despite the fact that there’s so much shared DNA and veneration of people like Flatt & Scruggs and the Carter Family and other early vernacular heroes.
So what does it all mean? Besides that I’m something of a grump :) I don’t have a good action item, besides that you don’t need to buy into any kind of patriotism, whether it’s being shoehorned into music genre or any other place where you’d rather not think about the long-term implications of living in a nation founded on inequality and exploitation. Below are a few playlists we’ve had in circulation that might be good rebuttals if you happen to be forced to listen to anything Lee Greenwood-adjacent this holiday weekend. I hope you get days off, I hope you get to not be online, I hope you’re not too hot and regardless of the temp get plenty of watermelon and ice cream and BBQ. Abolish ICE and free Palestine and full unequivocal trans rights now; I don’t believe in America, but I believe in what we can do together if we really try.
Natalie Weiner
Natalie Weiner
Natalie Weiner
