Robbie Fulks

One of the most distinctive talents in the alternative country movement, singer/songwriter Robbie Fulks' best-known songs are often bitingly funny, yet he also has a gift for writing incisive, thoughful material in the classic country and pop traditions. As time has passed, he's built on the irreverent old-school twang of 1996's Country Love Songs, moving toward the tougher roots rock sound of 1998's Let's Kill Saturday Night and the eclectic, ambitious pop of 2001's Couples in Trouble. With the spare, acoustic sound and stark storytelling of 2013's Gone Away Backward and 2016's Upland Stories, Fulks received some of the strongest reviews of his career, and he followed in that tradition with 2023's Bluegrass Vacation. 2025's Now Then was a literate, evocative exercise in mature semi-acoustic pop, with dashes of angular electricity and easy-going jazz.