A New Greater Wimpy, A No Smarter Bang: my guess is there are translation issues at work here but I found this more or less incomprehensible. Its basic thesis as far as I can get it is that 2000 is a Classic Year because of bands like Smog and Lambchop and folks like Cat Power marrying old and new forms and de-ironising the appropriation of said ‘old forms’. It seemed to me, though, the problem with alt.country was always its horrid seriousness, its determination to not co-opt the ironic registers of indie rock, which also led it to miss the laffs in a lot of the country music it so revered.