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Uncle Tupelo - No Depression (1990)

Track listing:
  1. Graveyard Shift 4:43
  2. That Year 2:59
  3. Before I Break 2:48
  4. No Depression 2:38
  5. Factory Belt 3:14
  6. Whiskey Bottle 4:48
  7. Outdone 2:49
  8. Train 3:23
  9. Life Worth Livin' 3:41
  10. Flatness 3:00
  11. So Called Friend 3:12
  12. Screen Door 2:42
  13. John Hardy 2:21

Notes


Uncle Tupelo's landmark opening salvo is the group's most rock-oriented album, steeped more in breakneck speed, punk crunch, and guitar dissonance than any of their subsequent efforts. Indeed, despite the presence of mandolins, fiddles, and banjos — as well as inclusion of the title track, a faithful cover of the A.P. Carter classic — the trio's vaunted country leanings are less musical than thematic on No Depression, thanks in large part to singers/songwriters Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy's acute depictions of rural, blue-collar life. Like the Replacements — never more obvious an influence than on this LP — Uncle Tupelo's songs paint grim, unrelenting portraits of aimless Midwestern existence, split between days working on the opening cut's "Factory Belt" and nights spent blurry-eyed and wasted ("Whiskey Bottle," "Before I Break"). Still, for all of the record's doleful cynicism — virtually every cut nods toward dashed hopes, broken promises, and paralyzing fear — there's an undeniable electricity afoot as well; by channeling the mournful clarity of country into the crackling fury of punk, No Depression brings new life to both musical camps.