sfweekly.com | Neko Case Is God | 2003-05-21

See, other people have fallen for her voice as well.

sfweekly.com | Neko Case Is God | 2003-05-21: "Neko Case Is God
OK, maybe we're exaggerating, but her daredevil voice takes her work into addictive territory
BY HIYA SWANHUYSER
hiya.swanhuyser@sfweekly.com

Call Neko Case whatever you want; just go see her.

Let's get this out of the way: Rolling Stone says she's country. Salon.com says she's not. Most other reviewers say she's altcountry. Neko Case says, 'I don't want to have to kowtow to the fact that the name 'country' has been taken away from the kind of music it used to be and given to something shitty. I like to think that I play country music, not a different kind, but the actual kind. I'm not alternative at all.' The fact is, like Patsy, Hank, and Elvis before her, it just doesn't matter. She's too good. Anyone who wants to discuss it further needs to go die.

Blacklisted, Case's third solo effort, proves that she's a genius -- no other word will do. Through her first two albums -- the super-countrified The Virginian and the unclassifiable Furnace Room Lullaby -- a lot of people thought she was just a weird girl with a really good voice.

This release, without taking away either of those impressions, has knocked listeners upside the head, left them head over heels in love. It's a Johnny Cash-grade album, the work of an artist with a perfect vision and, of course, that voice: the booming, pitch-perfect, sweet-and-sour snarl that likes to drive too fast and spit gravel.

We first fell for it in the early '90s, when Case revamped Wanda Jackson's "Mean Mean Man" by cranking it up to double time with her punk band Maow.

Blacklisted, apparently not a reference to the time she got kicked out of the Grand Ole Opry for taking her shirt off..."