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b'SUPPORT ME ON PATREON\\n\\nWATCH MUSIC is not a GENRE VIDEOS and MORE\\n\\nThis week is all about country music, so I thought I\\u2019d discuss one of my top ten favorite bands of all time: Violent Femmes. Yes, that\\u2019s right. The Femmes. And country music. They link. Seriously. Read on, and then go listen to the three albums I\\u2019m featuring this week, and it\\u2019ll hit you like a pickup truck on fire.\\n\\nThose of you who know anything about the Femmes probably only know the big party hits from their debut 1983 self-titled album, like \\u201cBlister in the Sun\\u201d or \\u201cAdd It Up\\u201d. That album was a blast of acoustic punk that launched the Femmes as one more post-punk band rewriting the rules of the genre. And if that\\u2019s how you know them, then there are at least three things you probably don\\u2019t know:\\n\\n1. Their highest charting single was \\u201cAmerican Music\\u201d from 1991\\u2019s Why Do Birds Sing? (Which also had an awesome cover of Culture Club\\u2019s \\u201cDo You Really Want to Hurt Me?\\u201d)\\n\\n2. They are still around, and in fact released their latest album just last year, which sounds a fuckload like their early stuff.\\n\\n3. They went through a country music phase. For realz.\\n\\nTheir 2nd, 3rd& 4th albums were predominantly country. You could call it alt country (before the term existed), southern gothic, freak folk, country rock or folk punk. Point is, it ain\\u2019t just acoustic punk. Listen to almost anything from Hallowed Ground, The Blind Leading the Naked, or 3, and you\\u2019re going to hear country music. \\u201cCountry Death Song\\u201d, \\u201cJesus Walking on the Water\\u201d. \\u201cOld Mother Reagan\\u201d, \\u201cBreakin\\u2019 Hearts\\u201d, \\u201cCold Canyon\\u201d. \\u201cFat\\u201d, \\u201cLies\\u201d. Straight-up country twang, y\\u2019all. Not that that\\u2019s all they did, then or ever. But the fact that they went there in their own special way \\u2013 that fucking rocks.\\n\\nThe Femmes have sunk so deep into my subconscious that it\\u2019s hard to pinpoint how they\\u2019ve influenced me. There\\u2019s a chance that \\u2013 like with the Beatles or Prince \\u2013 their influence is somewhere in every song I\\u2019ve ever written. Throwing in a rogue lyric here & there to keep things honest & fresh. A vocal delivery that runs the range from whispery to strident to plaintive to balls out abrasive, but always with emotion. Unafraid to get negative but still keep it popping. \\xa0There are so many songs I can use as an example, but DUH I have to go with the one that was named after possibly my favorite Femmes song (from Hallowed Ground):\\n\\nREC - \\u201cNever Tell\\u201d (from the album Distance To Empty)\\n\\nListen to the Femmes\\u2019 \\u201cNever Tell\\u201d too and see if you can find any parallels. What songs of the Femmes do you know and/or love? Does this make you want to go deeper into their catalogue? Do you prefer straight-up country music? Or do you hate it all? Discuss dammit!\\n\\n\\n--- \\n\\nThis episode is sponsored by \\n\\xb7 Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app\\n\\nSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/musicisnotagenre/support\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'