Don't know if it is worth making a thread for genre specific lists in the different areas, but I really enjoyed Crazed's surf list and the genre lists in popmatters, so I thought others might like to through together a best of the year for alt-country type stuff. I don't have a list together yet, but I think I'll make one soon.

Hmm.

Some contenders, although some are only nomimally 'alt-country/americana.' I've included stuff that's also more folky here. No order of preference:

1. Lucero: Rebels, Rogues, and Sworn Brothers
2. Bernard Fanning: Tea and Sympathy
3. Cracker: Greenland
4. Greg Graffin: Cold as the Clay
5. Band of Horses: Everything All The Time
6. Isobel Campbell/Mark Lanegan: Milkwhite Sheets/The Ballad of the broken Seas
7. Josh Rouse: Subtitulo
8. Rhett Miller: The Believer
9. Josh Ritter: The Animal Years

I'm gonna include folk music as well.

1. J. Tillman - Long May You Run
2. Eric Bachmann - To the Races
3. Travel By Sea - Shadows Rise
4. J. Tillman - Minor Works
5. Elephant Micah - Embarrassment of Riches / Tropical Depression EP (separate releases)
6. Richard Buckner - Meadow
7. Espers - Espers II
8. Ladyhawk - Ladyhawk
9. Memory Band - Apron Strings
10. William Elliott Whitmore - Song of the Blackbird

THat's about it as far as good ones. I thought about including Centro-matic's Fort Recovery (which would've been at #2), but I doubt it really belongs in an alt-country list, though it is somewhat influenced by it.

My list starts and ends with Todd Snider - The Devil You Know. Rollingstone listed it as #33 in their top 50 and Blender listed it as #14. I listed it as #2.

If you haven't heard it, Todd streams it at his mypage site. Check it out.

Only ones I can think of for now are :

* Magnolia Electric Co. - Fading Trails
* Jesse Sykes - Like, Love, Lust & The Open Halls Of The Soul

My. Dear. God.

No Neko Case???

Tossing in folk, and the country-soul of Solomon Burke, probably forgetting and/or not considering some albums in the alt-country type category that should & could be considered, here's my list:

1. Bert Jansch The Black Swan
2. Linda Ronstadt & Ann Savoy Adieu False Heart
3. Karling Abbeygate Karling Abbeygate
4. Sam Lowry Songs of My Enemy
5. Solomon Burke Nashville
6. Bruce Springsteen We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
7. Winter Flowers Winter Flowers
8. Old Crow Medicine Show Big Iron World
9. I See Hawks in LA California Country
10. Tres Chicas Bloom, Red & the Ordinary Girl