JoeMc (Curator)

OK, first things first: She's not really Canadian.

She was born in Virginia and grew up in Tacoma. But she went to school in Vancouver, and that's where she got involved with Canadian cuddlecore band Cub (remember Betti-Cola?), and started making her own music. Not long afterwards, she hooked up with those New Pornographers dudes, and before you know it, indie superstardom.

But Canadians love her. CBC Radio calls her an "honourary Canadian," and that's where the track below is from, courtesy of new Free Music Archive curators CBC Radio 3.

But here's something I didn't know that I just found out: Her latest album actually debuted at #3 on Billboard's Hot 100 when it came out last March. So I guess Americans love her a lot, too.

It's not too hard to understand why. My old codger is showing a little here, but let's face it, we're far, far from the days when technically accomplished female voices ruled the music scene. Back in the 40s and 50s, even your most generic big-band songbird or soppy pop queen had pipes. Those women could sing. And I don't mean in the histrionic manner of a Mariah or whatever other one-named sensation soundtracks your visits to the supermarket; I mean, they could really sing--loud, clear, in-tune, and with feeling.

Neko Case can do all that. But she can also do what those songbirds couldn't, which is express herself through pen as well as voice. She can write pretty interesting little songs, like this one, the title track to that #3 Billboard best seller I mentioned earlier, Middle Cyclone.

This kind of stuff is what tastemakers usually refer to as "alt-country," I guess because it has acoustic instruments on it and the words are important. Probably also because the words don't have to be quite as forthright as they are in "real" country, like Case's words in this song, which are just elliptical enough to jostle your expectations. I mean, I don't remember too many Lefty Frizzell songs with lines like "watching pennies in a boiling well in a dream that once becomes a foundry of mute and heavy bells." Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is matter of taste, but Case seems to pull it off fairly often.

She's also got the image down. You've got to admit, her album cover is one of the more memorable of last year, with her crouched on the hood of a Charger in a mini-dress, barefoot and brandishing a sword. I wouldn't say that the album sounds as go-for-the-throat as the image portends, but I think almost everyone agrees that it's the best of her five solo albums. She's always had a great voice, but like only a handful before her (hi, Loretta Lynn), she's managed to develop her own Voice through songwriting. She's even got her own idiosyncratic little obsessions, like the whole fox/tigers/wild animals thing, which add a little color to a genre more associated with the solemnities of Gillian Welch.

Speaking for myself, when I'm in the mood for some singer-songwritery countryish-type #3 hit music, I'll take Neko Case over Lucinda Williams any day of the year.

By the way, this CBC radio performance is part of a big hunk of radio performances now appearing on the FMA from other big Canadian stars like Sloan, the New Pornographers, Handsome Furs, and many others. Fish around and see what else you can find.