Music Friday: Old 97's

I'm taking a break from listening to nothing but Wilco (thanks to Hidden Track, where I DL'ed all five Riviera shows) to check out the brand-new Old 97's song, "Dance With Me":

Click here to play

After four years without any new studio stuff, I was very excited to hear something new from Rhett and the boys, and while I won't say it was worth the wait (it's only one song, after all), it's pretty good. It's got a great tango beat and the 97's Texas bar-band vibe. After the disappointing 'Drag It Up' I'm happy to hear they're going back to what they did so well on 'Fight Songs' and 'Satellite Rides.'

Of course things haven't been totally quiet on the 97's front -- 2005's 'Alive & Wired' was a nice treat, especially for those of us who live in a place where we're unlikely to get a chance to see these guys live, and Rhett's 2006 solo album 'The Believer' had some great stuff, including reworkings of "Singular Girl" and "Question." But none of it is quite the same as a full-blown, full-band studio album.

Old 97's make up 1/3 of the triumvirate of great Americana bands in my mind, alongside Wilco and Whiskeytown, and 1996-97 was their golden age. The Old 97s released 'Wreck Your Life' in the spring of '96, and Wilco's epic 'Being There' came out that fall. The next summer saw the 97's 'Too Far To Care' and Whiskeytown's 'Stranger's Almanac.' Since then all three bands have moved away from the sound of those albums: Wilco toward more experimental stuff, the 97's toward poppier sounds, and once Whiskeytown broke up we were subjected to whatever Ryan Adams happened to decide to record and release.

Other than a brief moment in the spring of 2004 ('A Ghost Is Born,' 'Drag It Up,' and 'Love Is Hell') we haven't seen that sort of synchronicity again, but now with Wilco touring behind 'Sky Blue Sky,' the 97's releasing 'Blame It On Gravity' and hitting the road, and new albums from Adams, both with and without the Cardinals (plus persistent rumors of a Whiskeytown reunion), it's looking like 2008 is going to be a good year.