With one of the best voices in early alt-country, a sandy murmur burdened with enough heartbreak for ten men, Phillips was making some of the genre's best tunes before it knew it existed. An enduring influence himself, the artist has now recorded "nineteeneighties," a tender ode to his own mentors.
Grant-Lee Phillips is one of the most gifted songwriters of his generation, having written and recorded critically lauded albums as both a solo artist during this decade and with his band Grant Lee Buffalo throughout the 1990s. On his new album, 'nineteeneighties,' Grant-Lee pays tribute to the songwriters and artists who had a significant influence on his own work. Of those formative years, Grant-Lee says, "For every hokey hair band, there was once an alternative, parallel universe, existing just below the conservative, pastel surface. It was the same unstoppable energy that would come to erupt in the form of Nirvana in the early 90s. 'nineteeneighties' is a nod to some of the songs and some of the people that made a lasting impact on my own songwriting and musicianship."
'nineteeneighties' is a creative tribute to what was truly "alternative" during the formative 1980s and exhumes an age whose underground music has long outlasted the more popular songs of its airwaves. "This album is my personal mix tape, just as it's reeled around in my head for decades," states Grant-Lee.