In the early ‘90s, a remedy for the polished sheen of Nashville’s country radio appeared, sneering and with a twang just a touch grittier than—but nonetheless nodding to—the genre’s hillbilly music roots. It’s commonly accepted that Uncle Tupelo’s No Depression, by turns earthy and barn-burning, was the dawn of alt-country. It helped birth a sound that borrowed from the cowpunk of prior decades but explored country’s folk traditionalism. As the name suggests, alt-country embraces the outsiders—Lucinda Williams’ haunted poetry, Neko Case’s lonesome howl, and Steve Earle’s lived-in tunes are all lodestars of the sound.