random painted highway

Via Chicago. Musically a limp noodle (no, live pyrotechnics don't alleviate it), and if SBS sometimes ventures into the extreme of content banalities, this song ventures into the extreme of cheer-the-fuck-up.

According to Rob Mitchum:

Apparently, SBS is weak because the titles are simplistic?

A Ghost is born is bad because it doesn't remind him of Chicago enough.

owns 'Walken'

...or wish you were here for that matter, and i think many of the more hardcore floyd fans would argue that WYWH was floyd's best work (post-barrett), not dark side.

"Dark Side" is semi-underrated purely because it's overrated. It's got such a populist reception for those unfamiliar with Floyd, it being the stoner's dream album, the wizard of oz coinciding, and so forth. But all the baggage aside, I think the album is a wonderful cosmic moment, of everything in the past coming together in perfect harmony. What was especially good was that the songwriting credits almost entirely split evenly.

As albums, I think Meddle and WYWH are overrated; some kind of lagging mid-sections. But as songs, "Echoes" and "Shine On" probably do as much as some of their entire albums.

booo

gilmore was a great guitar player but no love for syd?

Plenty of love for Barrett. I don't think any band will ever pull off anything like "Astronomy Domine" ever again in the history of rock n' roll. His contributions made Pink Floyd's diverse discography even more awesome; it's so cool that one band could have not one, but two visionary guitarists and songwriters.

But if Barrett remained the lead man, I don't think "Meddle" or "Dark Side" could have ever happened.

Oh my god. "Innocent Bones"... it's like self-perpetuating motion.

Effing David Gilmour replacing Syd Barrett!

"Bright eyes, he ain't gonna do that"

~tweedy after the kingpin screamfest

His response to "Duke sucks!" at the 03/05/06 chapel hill show

"Oh, we can handle anything, we were in New Jersey last night, so I think we can handle William and Mary. If you think you can give New Jersey a run for its money, then I'm frightened."

I can't believe no one has mentioned Echoes by Pink Floyd yet. It is incredible, probably their best song.

I... "echo" your sentiments.

Their best song, and a harmonious synergy of everything that made floyd great

Nice to see "rain song" get its kudos throughout the thread too

Just for input, I thought the "Is That The Thanks I Get" version from Conan was awesome! pure pop bliss, with all those soulful "fruity piano" flourishes by Mikael

For example, "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" sounds very smilar to the german art-rock band Neu's "Hallo Gallo" off of their self-titled debut album.

Ah, yes, Hallo Gallo. I'm in love with that song even moreso than Kidsmoke since I've heard it.

For those who haven't heard it, it's pretty much a ten minute treatment of the first three minutes of Kidsmoke.

What I don't get is why his Wilco cast-offs - the Golden Smog, the Loose Fur, even that Spongebob song are all better than these new Wilco songs. What is it specifically about the Wilco-izing process that's making songs suck? Maybe it's just time for solo Jeff Tweedy or full time Loose Fur.

Tough luck; it won't happen. Tweedy has said numerous times that this incarnation is the best he's ever felt the band to be, and he loves the collaborative, creative process going on. Whether or not the fans like it, I don't think much will change. Maybe while this unit's still warming up, there will be a few clunkers, and there have indeed been, but I think "Impossible Germany" and "Walken" are eons above what Wilco has done before, so I think they're capable enough.

Oh well, the good thing about the backlash is that "A ghost is born" suddenly became so much more popular all of a sudden, as everyone's clamoring for the artsy fartsy days.

On a side note, I love "Is that the thanks I get" as well; especially the Conan version. I first I thought it was weak and bland and so forth upon initial listens. Then there's the piano flourishes, and once the second verse begins, it's sweeter than candy to me.

Walken. It's probably the most fun song they've written since the AM days. Impossible Germany is the shit too, but I think Walken is so much more universal.

My money is on Glenn. I swear, I would do just about anything to play with a drummer like that. The flavor and groove he adds to the songs are simply phenomenal. And I don't think his technical abilities are showcased enough - like playing the xylophone with one hand while playing the rest of the drum kit with the other.

While Glenn's bells work is always great, I think makes Glenn truly amazing is his more subtle, textural work, of shapeshifting completely to the song. "Handshake Drugs", and "Laminated Cats" are both two examples; the drum work is light, and minimal, but they make the songs all the more special, and they'd be entirely different songs without it. It's like Greg Kot put it; being content to just play a shaker part if it's what makes the song work.

you must be joking. jay bennett is responsible for bringing the keyboards into Wilco's sound, as well as co-writing many of their greatest songs. not to mention the role he played as multi-instrumentalist and producer. i am really sick of people bashing jay. someone hear once said that when anybody bashes jay, all's you have to do is mention that he co-wrote a large portion of Jesus, Etc. i bet that'll shut you all up.

producer, as in adding about forty keyboard parts to the mix?

make no mistake, i'm not bashing jay; his work with summerteeth was great. however, i don't think he was some sort of martyr or anything. he was great for his time, but i think glenn and jim o'rourke were the ones who helped make YHF the leap forward to next step of Wilco's greatness.

I dunno, I'll have to say LP # 6.

oh my god, I wish Wilco would come near Seattle now; because upon hearing the bootlegs, I *want to experience* this song live.

old Forget The Flowers w/ Jay on guitar = good

new Forget The Flowers w/ Nels on lap steel = not so good

old Caino Queen with long gitar solo = good

new Casino Queen (well, once a year) = not as good

old Someday Soon = good

new Someday Soon = nonexistent

I guess a few old relics from the "no depression" era sounding a little rusty is the price to pay for the new ensemble playing the hell out of YHF, aGiB, and LP #6 tracks.

yes. this record seems like the most collaborative one yet, reportedly the whole band is coming up with the music and the lyrics are more spontaneous where before they were written, jeff would figure out a song, and wilco would play around with it.

I think this alone is a sign of hope for a good album. Whether or not one likes the album, something done with full collaboration and equality between all members with a good line of communication will likely produce better results than, say, Tweedy and Bennett fighting about the segway into Heavy Metal Drummer.

Yeah, I don't see the amazing musically rich songs, with a few exceptions they've been pretty lackluster or even boring. Maybe it's just the quiet -> loud not so quiet thing wearing thin. I don't want to have to listen to 3 minutes of bland to get to the 1 minute of interesting, especially when it's not all that interesting. That's what makes some of the new songs disappointing to me, trite lyrics combined with mediocre music. The music thing I tend to blame more on the band, the lyrics thing is on Jeff.

 

I want to drink the kool-aid and believe again but most of the songs they've played live leave me kind of cold and if these are the best they've got then I'm probably not going to like the new record all that much.

I thought much of YHF and aGiB was a musically cold fish.

Gah! I'm transferring to a school in Olympia two weeks before they play at the Black Cat!

Am I the only one who prefers the studio version of Kidsmoke to the live version? I mean, the live ones are full of scattered brilliant moments, but I've never heard a live one that has the amazing dynamics, and tension / release of the studio version.

Handshake Drugs; not that I didn't like it, but thought it was weird, pale, oblique, and so fourth, and didn't know "exactly what it wanted to be". The live version helped me appreciate it more, and now, I think the studio version is one of Wilco's most detailed, subtle outings.

It's hard not to give it to "Imposible Germany", but I'd have to go with "Walken". It's a pre-Summerteeth song that's probably 10 times better than most pre-Summerteeth songs, methinks.