Americana has lost what it was meant to be. Instead of being a genre that expresses the daily grind of a wide variety of people across America, Americana has lost itself in whiny, ultimately emotionless folk-inflected drab (I’m looking at you, Conor Oberst). With the exception of a few artists (Jeff Tweedy and Josh Ritter among them), songwriters have not been able to resuscitate this dying subgenre of rock. Thank goodness for Craig Finn and The Hold Steady, who, with Stay Positive, have performed some much-needed CPR on Americana.

Julie Doiron is no stranger to re-invention. She also knows a whole lot about how to take up a guitar and convey emotion through song. She does it so well, in fact, that this is virtually all she did to make people sit up and take notice on her second solo album, Loneliest In The Morning, in 1997. On July 22, Loneliest… is re-released, this time with three new tracks, on Jagjaguwar Records. There is no mystery as to why this album from the late nineties deserves a re-issue and a chance to be re-introduced to fresh ears. Undoubtedly, many new Julie Doiron fans will appreciate its simple elegance. Recorded in Memphis with a few other indie musicians (Dave Shouse of the Grifters, Howe Gelb of Giant Sand, Doug Easley and Davis McCain), it was released on Sub Pop records when Doiron was a mere 25 years old. By then, though, she had already been playing music semi-professionally for an astounding eight years.

Oneida are an experimental indie-rock band out of Brooklyn who’ve been around since ’97 but no one’s ever heard of them. Without premonition or bias, I sat down to immerse myself in their 3-track full-length, Preteen Weaponry, out on Jagjaguwar. And the honest-to-god emotional rollercoaster that ensued caught me way off-guard.

They made Rolling Stone’s "Hot List" of 2008. iTunes acknowledged them as part of “The Next Big Thing,” giving listeners the opportunity to purchase the self-titled album electronically long before it hit brick and mortar stores. The Killers’ manager picked them up after listening to just a few songs. Heck, Epic even signed them. To put it simply, Low Vs. Diamond is getting lots of attention before their album is even released (on July 22nd). However, in my opinion, this attention is more media-hype than anything else. In fact, Low Vs. Diamond’s “critically acclaimed album” seems to have brought critics to an all new low.

Sometimes an album is more the recording of a cataclysmic life event than an amalgamation of in-studio bursts of creativity. The much written-about, much discussed Bon Iver debut, For Emma, Forever Ago, is just that. Just as you’ve probably heard, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon holed himself up in a cabin in the remote wilderness of Northwestern Wisconsin and lived a simple existence, mostly for the purpose of creating an album to express his emotions over a recent break with his band. It’s also been said that there was a romantic break in the back story of how this album was created, but either way, Bon Iver’s first album is a stunner, the documentation of a life experience that makes you reel backwards with its blinding honesty and emotion-filled simplicity.

Is emo still happening? I feel like since I’ve grown up and out of the core angsty teen demographic, I can’t be sure. Did the sad ship sail once Death Cab became soundtrack staples on The O.C.? Or did the selling-out help raise emo awareness, opening up doors for new budding whiners? Seems to me that Motions, a little emotional-rock quintet out of Loveland, OH, may have just missed the boat. They’re young, so we can’t blame them. But if they had stepped out seven years ago (as third-graders?), when Something Corporate and Saves the Day blew out the headphones of countless troubled youths, they may have had something to go on. So while they probably won’t hit it huge with this particular musical incarnation, I will admit, for their sake, they’re not bad.

Anti-folk artist Kimya Dawson has been receiving quite a bit of attention lately. Her participation in the Juno soundtrack has catapulted Dawson to the national spotlight due to both her songs and Juno’s cinematic success. Dawson is a new mother and her album Alphabutt, to be released September 9th, exhibits Dawson’s commitment to being true to what seems most important to her, with or without success.

FACT:  Their hometown is Seattle, Washington.

FACT:  Their collective idol is Nick Drake.

FACT:  Their debut album is out August 5.

FACT:  Their story is a sad one.  A really, really sad one.