Jesusetc84

Positive: Wilco (The Album)

Negative: Having to wait for the EP/ first single to hear "Dark Neon"

Jesusetc84.......this is more true than almost anything I've read on this board in the last 10 days. You hit the nail on the head. And I also never got the "experimental" tag. Friends would come to me around the YHF time and say crap like "what is with all those noises". I would think what about the 90% of the album that is just songs. It has always been a song oriented band with the exception of maybe half dozen songs.

It's not that I want to downplay Wilco as a band who's expirements are frequently rewarding. But they're more experimental in the sense that The Beatles experimented; their experiments are all in the service of the melody and the lyric.

What's interesting to me is people talking about the highs and lows on this album. No song on this album makes my top 10 Wilco songs, but I love every single one. I truly believe this is the most consistent Wilco record, even if it's not the most overtly brilliant, profoundly artistic or sonically daring. I'm not saying the bottom songs on other Wilco albums are BAD but to me there's a somewhat gulf between my favorite song and least favorite song on most Wilco albums. On W(TA), I can't even choose a worst song. The song everyone is calling the worst, "My Country Has Disappeared", actually might be my favorite on the record.

So far the reaction to WTA hasn't been that different from Sky Blue Sky, Kicking Television or even the stuff I have read in the archives around the release of A Ghost is Born, and I'm sure with Yankee and Summerteeth people had similar reactions, but those pre-date my time at VC. Some people love it, some people hate it, some people think it's okay, welcome to the internet.

 

--Mike

Wilco maybe the only band that rock critics are nicer too than their own fans.

I think writing this album off for not being experimental enough is sort of distorting what Wilco has always really been; They're not Trout Mask Replica era Beefheart. They're a pop band. Even at their weirdest, they've been a pop band. There's probably 10 minutes of noise to 40 minutes of pure pop on YHF.

It's funny to me, because when I hear say, Being There, I hear all of the things you all are complaining about for W(TA). To me there's no song on W(TA) that's as cheesy as "What's The World Got in Store?". Everything you all have complained about with this album, that it's not inventive enough, that it's canon-worshipping, can all be hurled at at least 3 or 4 other Wilco albums that you would never say a bad thing about; how is anything on W(TA) more dad rock than "Hummingbird" or "I'm The Man Who Loves You"?

The truth is, Wilco has always been a band that loved pop classics as much as they loved underground music. I don't hear this as being out of synch with their old albums; they've always knowingly pointed to their influences, whether it was Johnny Cash on "Forget The Flowers", Summer of 67 Beatles on "She's a Jar", or Neil Young on "At Least That's What You Said". This is a band that has always valued songcraft over expirementation. The fact that the two elements coexisted for a few albums doesn't suddenly make them Black Dice.

I don't know what some of you were expecting, but this record is exactly what I was hoping for. I'm just glad this is more Beatlesesque pop instead of Sky Blue Sky's brand of mid-70s california soft rock.

Worst song on the album for me. I agree with the person who said it sounds like an SBS outtake. Also agree with the person who said it sounds like a weak version of the "Comment" song from KT.

 

It's just boring to me- no melody, no hooks, nothing musically interesting about it- to me.

How does it have no melody? I've had that melody stuck in my head since they debuted it live.

I'm not seeing this whole "inconsistency" argument. I think this might be the most solid front to back record Wilco's made. I'm not saying it's the highest reaching or most artistically inspired, but past records that might reach higher highs like AGIB and Being There, also have lower lows. There's nothing on here that I hate.

Summerteeth was my first Wilco album. It probably felt the most in line with what I was listening to at the time I bought it. Wilco (The Album) reminds me of a Summerteeth by a man and band who have accepted their lot in life. This to me is Tweedy looking back on Summerteeth a little more positively than he has in the past and remembering it as a great pop record instead of a marathon of pills, panic attacks, and mellotron. It takes me back to being 19, cracking open Summerteeth and being blown away by this new force in my life. That was the last time I felt an instant connection to a Wilco album; every other Wilco album has been a grower. So it was just a really pleasant surprise to have a record that instantly connected with me again.

I wouldn't say Wilco (The Album) is better than any Wilco album before it; in terms of feeling and high concept art, it's probably lower than their material from 96-04; but in terms of great melodies, it can go song for song with any Wilco album.

Given almost everyone who remembers the alternative explosion is old enough to have kids, shouldn't we call the 70s rock radio sound "grandpa rock"?

yeah, i'd disagree that the last two, possibly three wilco albums are anywhere near the level of amazing that the beatles achieved. especially the last two.

No shit. No one was saying that they were. The Beatles are obviously unassailable.

The Analogy works really; Sgt Pepper and YHF are both sonic creations, some of the finest studio work of their respective eras, and hugely innovative.

Wilco the Album and Abbey Road, while not pushing their respective bands into new directions, are both winningly melodic and consistent.

The Strangers had some really great music in it. Tweedy, Gillian Welch, Joanna Newsom, Richard Buckner, Merle Haggard...

Yeah man. Phenomenal soundtrack.

The Joanna scene was so creepy.

This isn't out and about, but I was watching some slasher flick, and this guy put on a 7" single, and inexplicably my ears were filled with the Tweedy solo demo version of "At My Window Sad and Lonely".

Thank you for putting out a great album.

1) Jesus, Etc

2) She's a Jar

3) Wishful Thinking

I do! First off, I love the songs lyrics and secondly I just love how Jeff sings it. There's something about his vocals that I find hauntingly beautiful. Loved it ever since the live version! I'm happy you love it too! I can't wait to hear it on tour this summer!

It's a great melody, great chord progression, great lyric, great performance. I don't know what's not to love.

Man, I really, really love

I like the album, but it's not their best...but that was to be expected. It's solid album and I like it much better than SBS. I need to spend more time soaking it in. I felt like I never did that with SBS.

Anyone who went into this thinking they were going to top Foxtrot is a little out of touch. That being said, I think this album stands up next to A Ghost is Born and Being There, and maybe even Summerteeth.

I wanted to read this whole thread before throwing in my two cents but it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I love the album. There's not a song on here that annoys me and they're all working their spidery tendrils up into my brain.

This maybe heresy, but it's the ONLY Wilco album where there isn't a single song I'm kind of meh about. There's probably nothing that blows me away as much as "Misunderstood", but there's nothing as groan worthy as "Was I In Your Dreams?". It's a really solid album.

I love the albums (all of them). All I meant is there aren't that many Wilco studio tracks that are "definitive" for me, i.e. where a great live version didn't better it. Tie this to my comment on BBN, an interesting song that I think will be a lot more interesting in concert.

 

I'm so misunderstood...

Ooooooooooooh yeah.

A.M., most of Being There, AGIB, and SBS all sound better to me live. If the current lineup rerecorded A.M., I'd probably listen to it like 5 times as much.

Summerteeth and YHF I think I tend more towards the studio versions, but still love the live versions.

I disagree...the amount of Wilco in each album is this:

A.M.

Being There

Summerteeth

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

A Ghost is Born

Sky Blue Sky

Wilco (The Album)

which means W(TA) has very little Wilco.

hmmm...And that's one of my favorites, so far. I

This post makes NO sense to me.

 

"Too eclectic."

Bull Black Nova and You and I "cannot be reconciled" musically?

 

WTF!

 

 

Do you write for Pitchfork?

Yeah...this is a band that's been putting noisey break down songs next to sweet ballads for 10 years now. It's a little silly for it to suddenly bother you.

I'm not worried about it. Wilco haven't created that many studio masterpieces, but they've taken tons of great songs and made them live classics. I expect that for BBN.

WHATTTT!?!!?!?!?!

To me Wilco is great live, but I mean come on. 99% of the reason I love Wilco is that their records blow me away. I really don't care about live shows that much. My favorite band is The Beatles who were mediocre live. One of my top 5 artists is David Bowie, who sucked live.

Wilco's studio work is amazing. Even if they were a terrible live band, it wouldn't ruin the records for me.

Well I mean we need someone to compact the trash right?

I love "Bull Black Nova". It's sort of like Wilco's "Death Valley 69".

This thread baffles me. This album to is a Phoenix; the rebirth of Wilco. I had thought Wilco was pretty much washed up after SBS. This proved me oh so wrong. This album ranks with the best stuff they did with Jay for me.