Cub Country High Uinta High

I’ve been struggling lately with the time-honored, snobbed-out question of favorite music vs best music. It started with my sister arguing that there’s no such thing as taste, or maybe that there’s no such thing as bad taste? She was wrong, and I proved it, but it started the ball rolling on that same discussion. What’s the difference between favorite and best? It’s easy to accept or understand that some of the best music is not among your favorites, but it’s tricky to know that some of your favorite music is simply not the best. Spinning on repeat, the question – Why am I so apologetic about love, love, (love!) loving Cub Country’s first album?

High Uinta High is near-perfect alt-country. Released as a Jets To Brazil side project for Jadetree in early 2002, it helped bolster the sea-change of my taste in music. Yoshimi came out that year, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Tom Waits’ Alice and Blood Money came out that year, the Holopaw (another debut that nobody bought but me) and Ugly Casanova records came out that year, and I made personal peace with liking music that was clean, sweet, even earnest. My friends covered this song, strummed along during their college radio shows. “Could Be The Moon” (mp3) is a nerdy, strummy, confessional song. It’s a three-minute acoustic equivalent of winking back at your soon-to-be-somebody. It was also a moment where I had to put up or shut up. “You like country music now. You do. You are no longer cool in whatever punk rock way you thought you were cool. Up is down, country is rock, you are 20 years old and the pedal steel is your new favorite thing. Donate your Docs, quietly.” That was me.

“High Uinta High” (mp3) should come attached to the inside cover of every issue of No Depression, it should be available in every format and required car-listening for everyone with even a passing interest in alt-country. It’s not arresting like The Great Songs are arresting, but it…something. It’s hard to place. Like the best songs on Summerteeth it shimmers and whipsers and sighs and is sweet without being sugary, cute without being stupid. The Jayhawks should drive a whole tour to this record, The Shins should be so lucky to record a couple songs this good.

Buy it.