GLHawk

I think the double neck guitar comes out on Dawned On Me

Ah, OK, that's probably what I was thinking of.

I was disappointed with the crowd staying seated for much of the first quarter of the show, even on some fairly uptempo songs. Sitting at any point during a rock show seems bizarre to me. Didn't seem to bother the band, though -- I guess it's par for the course with Sunday night shows, when presumably less alcohol is being consumed.

As has been noted, the setlist was fairly predictable, except for Nick Lowe's fine cameo in the encore and the fact that they played all 12 minutes of One Sunday Morning. (The crowd stayed seated for that one, but seemed to warm to it as it went on -- how could they not?)

Fortunately, the other predictable thing was that Wilco was predictably awesome. It's so hard to compare their shows because they just kill it every time I see them. Standouts to me were probably "Born Alone" (I think that was the one with Nels playing the double-neck -- I could be wrong on that), "Box Full of Letters," and "Monday." And I enjoyed Jeff's shout-out to those "Communists" at NPR.

My favorite band of all time. Maybe it's time for Wilco to move to #1.

Lots of Wilco connections. Peter Buck produced the third Tupelo album. The first time I saw Wilco was opening for R.E.M. in '99. And I have an R.E.M. fanclub release featuring Tweedy and co. playing live along w/ R.E.M. on "It's the End of the World as We Know It." Maybe they can cover that one on this tour.

 

I made a comment about The Late Greats being barely tolerable and I'm certainly not a troll. Wilco's music covers a lot of ground and everywhere that they venture isn't always for me. That's all. Can we still be friends?

Truce. It's just that I know the songs better than I know you. So when somebody on the Internet says, without qualification, that one of my favorite songs is crap, it raises the hackles a bit. I've gotten used to people abusing WTA, even though I like that album a lot, but seeing someone rip on "The Late Greats" makes my head explode.

Anyway, this new album is astonishingly good. I think "Sunloathe," "Dawned on Me," and "Born Alone" are sort of getting shortchanged here -- which I guess is understandable since there are so many standouts.

I thought of Yo La Tengo while listening as well.

I think it's more of a "classic rock" record than Yo La Tengo would do. But it does remind me of Yo La in the sense that it has a very leisurely pace and spacey ambience, as well as some beautifully atonal guitar work -- and the obligatory 14-minute song.

In addition to jumping on the bandwagon of praise for this album, I would also like to say that the people talking smack about "You and I" and especially "The Late Greats"... actually, I have nothing to say to those people. They are dead to me.

Just kidding, we're all friends here, I hope. I just don't understand how people considering themselves Wilco fans would come on a Wilco fansite and say that certain Wilco songs are "shite" or unlistenable. You're entitled to your opinion but when you express it in such an extreme fashion it just sounds like trolling even if that's not the intent.

I also can't believe there isn't more love for "Deeper Down." What a breathtaking song that is -- great contributions there from Pat and Nels plus great lyrics and singing from Jeff. I mean, is this a Wilco fansite or not? I'm seeing more snark than love for the band here.

Granted, on some level I do understand the current apathy for the previous album. It obviously wasn't their best, it's a couple of years old, and we're all breathless with anticipation that the new one will put the previous couple to shame. Maybe that will be the case, but I refuse to throw WTA under the bus.

Here we go again. Every time I come back to this site the majority of the posters are ripping WTA. The band has set the bar so high that it's not enough to make a merely "good" album of catchy pop tunes -- and that's what it is, no more or less. Of course it wasn't an era-defining masterpiece like YHT -- no one hits a home run every time out. But it compares favorably to AM and SBS, I think.

I get particularly sick of people looking down their noses at "You and I" and WTS, as if just anybody could write a sweet, breezy pop tune like that. I love Tweedy for his ability to write in all genres and moods, and I absolutely love those songs.

Also, while I'm playing the apologist, I'm not on board with the R.E.M.-hate either. "Uberlin," "It Happened Today," and "That Someone is You" are f*ing great songs; I hope we haven't heard the last of them now that their contract is up.

It ruins the song, as recorded, because it could have been a great recording/arrangement. Instead, I hear "dunda dunny-dunny, dunda dunny-dunny..." and I know that I'm going to soon hear "bum bum bum bum," the sonic equivalent of Pat taking a dump on my knee.

 

This, sentice is short: needs editor maybe litte?

I understand how you might not like a certain musical flourish on a song, but to let that spoil the whole thing is silly. If I rejected all music that had touches of overly florid or tacky-sounding instrumentation, I'd have to stop listening to a lot of Ray Charles' albums, and maybe most of Frank Sinatra's recordings, for example. Not to say Solitaire is an all-time classic or anything, but that organ fill constitutes like 0.5 percent of the elements that make up the song.

As for editing, you said Tweedy needed an editor because "less is more," so that's what I was responding to.

To me, the album is just full of little missteps that keep the songs from being what they could be. With the snarky exception of One Wing, which could have been a song that didn't exist, but a series of missteps like writing and recording, kept that from being so.

 

The actual exceptions for me are Deeper Down and I'll Fight, both of which are probably decent songs, but just aren't the type of songs that I like.

 

Some of the missteps are in the writing: I think Tweedy could have used a better editor, whether it was himself or a bandmate. Like how Poor Places had about twice as many lyrics in its initial inception; Jeff has always shined when less is more. Other missteps are in the instrumentation, like that terrible organ fill in Solitaire that makes me want to snap the necks of defenseless kittens.

OK, so in other words, NOT the musical equivalent of Showgirls. Just mediocre, could have been good if not for "little missteps" and some songs are probably good but aren't your type. That seems like a more reasonable position, although I still disagree.

Organ fill? How can a 5-second part ruin a whole song? That's just nonsensical to me. Either a song is good or it isn't. I like Solitaire, but I guess if I'd paid more attention to the organ fill instead of incidentals like melody and lyrics it would make me want to strangle kittens. (?)

The point about Tweedy needing "an editor" also makes no sense, given that WTA is about as concise an album as Wilco has had since AM. Bull Black Nova is the only song of any length on there, and that's, what, 5 minutes?

Also, "One Wing" is awesome.

1. I do not agree with this statement.

 

2. Calling it the best song on WTA is like calling Elizabeth Berkley the best actress in "Showgirls."

Seriously, do you WTA-haters really think the album is this bad? Like, a Showgirls-type fiasco?

I mean, I really like the album, but I can understand some of the criticism. It's a little safe and unadventurous, and it certainly doesn't match the brilliance of their classics. Do you really believe that it's not merely a lesser Wilco effort but actually an epically BAD album deserving of this level of snark? Because if you really do believe your own hyperbole here, then I think there's no point even having a conversation on the subject with you. It'd be like Al Franken trying to debate Rush Limbaugh.

Deeper Down is f*ing great. I'll go to the mat for that one.

No, I'm just unclear about what he does, that he apparently got better at, that in some way benefits Wilco's sound.

 

Ooooh! Was it the Polaroids?

Pat Sansone co-wrote "Deeper Down," which is probably the best song on WTA. If there is a problem with present-day Wilco -- and I don't really think there is -- Pat is not it. Keep digging.

I'm a big fan of WTA and continue to be baffled by all the hate it receives. However, they do need to take a different tack on the new album to keep things fresh -- whether that means more tempo, more anger, more edge, more experimentation, more O'Rourke, more RAWK -- whatever. No need for them to be apologetic about WTA at all, but they shouldn't do another one just like it.

From an Oct. 14 feature on The Onion AV Club-Chicago, where the interviewer asks Tweedy to respond to various Web comments:

Post: "What exactly does Wilco stand for, besides good MOR dad rock? Do they represent a band winding down and becoming less adventurous? It’s very hard to see how whatever they are could be threatening in any fashion."

Tweedy: Well, the goal of all art is to be threatening in some fashion. [Laughs.] Obviously we’ve threatened this guy’s view of whatever it is he’s supposed to allow himself to like. If that’s not threatening, I don’t know what is, because he’s obviously being challenged. People really think narrowly when it comes to those types of challenges, and the idea that something has to be aggressive or avant grade, or atonal, even, to be a challenge. I’ve found it to be the exact opposite. We literally put 15 minutes of noise on a record that did not raise an eyebrow, but if you make a pop song with Feist on it, people are going to cry like the sky’s falling. It’s really going to hurt somebody. Our goal is to make some shit that we fucking like to play and feel good about, with the knowledge that that doesn’t hurt anybody. You’re basically doing something that you love to do, and you’re not really hurting anybody.

http://www.avclub.com/chicago/articles/what-wilcos-jeff-tweedy-thinks-about-what-you-thin

I like your Walken experience as an example. For a lot of people though, combined with certain genres they like, "sounds like" is too much like "is," and even Wilco can't overcome their tastes. "Leave Me" sounds far too much like JC Penney for me to ever like it, period.

I'm with you on "Leave Me." There's not enough "content" there for me to overlook the relative musical blandness. It's possible that I'm missing something.

Now, I've said this earlier in the thread, but that's not fair at all. If the song has that "soft-rock feel" and they don't like that feel, then they don't like the song, content be damned. There are lots of country songs with good lyrics that I can't listen to because they have that "TNN-feel". And that's where it stops for me. And that's okay.

I understand where you're coming from. We all have our genre shorthand for music we don't like, because there aren't enough hours in the day for all the music out there. I also reflexively turn the dial when I hear something with that "TNN feel." But a great songwriter like Tweedy transcends genre; if you like Wilco, I don't understand why you would reject a Wilco song merely because some surface element of it reminds you of some other song you don't like.

When I first heard "Walken," I thought, "Is this a cover? I hate this Southern rock crap." Fortunately, because it was Wilco, I gave it a chance. Turns out, I guess I don't hate Southern rock so much after all.

Have you read my posts? I love the song.

 

I still think aspiring to be dentist's office music is a lousy goal for a band - for Metallica, Arcade Fire, Wilco, Jay-Z, Feist or Bread.

 

As for "genre-snobbery," I just don't like a lot of soft rock. I listen to it and I think, "I don't emotionally connect to this," or "Man, that keyboard grates." I also think that about certain rock, pop and indie songs, but I find that a higher proporption of soft rock songs elicit that response in me. Thus, I have concluded that, like overcooked tomatoes, WonderBread and limp bacon, soft rock, generally speaking (and with exceptions - shock!) does not whet my appetite. Is that alright?

 

Of course, applying your standards to my tastes is not snobbish at all, correct?

Sorry to flame you there. I thought the soft rock comment was part of the "You and I" pile-on; didn't realize the discussion had shifted to Bread. I'm not really familiar with Bread.

My sense is that the haters are dismissing "You and I" without giving it a chance because it has that soft-rock feel, and ignoring the content.

I'm not saying that "everyone has to like everything." I'm saying that as Wilco fans it doesn't make much sense for us to be close-minded about genres -- they obviously are not. I would never have thought we'd hear Wilco songs influenced by Can or Neu, but we did; for the next album I'm betting on Norwegian death metal.

Anyone anywhere whose artistic aspirations include reaching an audience with implements in its mouth deserve all the ridicule they can bear, 10x.

 

I hate on bands like Bread because they sound like music + horse tranquilizer. Utterly sedate and boring.

 

I love pop, and I love love songs. That does not mean I like soft rock.

I'm glad Wilco does not share the genre snobbery of many of its fans.

If every Wilco song sounded like this, yes, I would get bored fairly quickly. But there's nothing inherently wrong with "soft rock." A good song is a good song.

And this one is good. It's not a saccharine "silly love song," it's an intelligent, adult lyric about maintaining a relationship while accepting that you can never definitively "know" that person.

"You and I" is a lot more intelligent than the knee-jerk attacks on it have been.

I would like to state again for the record that "You and I" is not a good song. It is a great song.

Those who think it's easy to write a love song that doesn't suck should try it sometime. The fact that Tweedy can follow "Bull Black Nova" with something like this only cements my admiration for him as a songwriter.

It certainly could have been a radio hit, but probably in a different era. Not enough sex, violence or auto-tune for today's radio audience. Plus as we have seen, even a lot of Wilco's own core audience has a knee-jerk hatred for it.

I would argue that part of Hate It Here's message is the simplicity in the lyrics. The speaker is clearly afraid of what will happen when he runs out of household chores to do and simply has to sit and think about the fact that he's alone. It's a literal song about literal things - the pain of silence. I've always been a bit bothered that the music doesn't match up to the lyrics. For another take on the song, download the 2003-05-16 solo show at Martyr's, featuring "You're Really Gone," the predecessor to "Hate it Here." I think it captures the pain-in-silence a bit better.

 

I would argue the same thing for Walken - it's a simple song about simply loving someone and thinking about them. And it's got a good bounce - I always get that song in my head when I'm walking somewhere in a good mood.

Both of those really are a lot of fun live.

I don't know . . . "Wilco will love you, baby"? That doesn't strike me as especially interesting or complex. I will grant you that some of the subject matter on W(TA) is more oblique. But that doesn't make it interesting.

 

"Impossible Germany, unlikely Japan"? "Side With the Seeds"? Hardly generic, I think.

In my comment I distinctly did not put W(TS) in the "interesting and complex" category, but some of those lines are very cool in a pop way: I love "the stare of your stereo" and "aural arms open wide" and "a sonic shoulder for you to cry-y-y on."

The two SBS songs you mention are not lyrically generic, but much of the album is, including the title track, Either Way, Hate It Here, Please Be Patient, Leave Me Like You Found Me, Walken and What Light. Some of those songs have a lot to recommend them musically, but the words are mostly just folk- and blues-rock cliches.

One Wing and Everlasting Everything almost get to the point where they start soaring into the stratosphere, and then they end abruptly. What's up with that?

 

And by the way, Impossible Germany is a friggin' remarkable song. One of my most cherished Wilco memories is the first time I heard them play it live. (Lollapalooza, 2006)

"One Wing" and "Everlasting" are perfect as is. Just because Nels Cline's in the band doesn't make it necessary to have 3-minute guitar freakouts a la "Impossible Germany." I much prefer the tighter structure of the W(TA) songs, but both approaches are valid; I like the fact that Wilco is unpredictable that way.

To me what hurts SBS by comparison are the lyrics, which mostly seem very generic to me. In W(TA) Jeff seems to have his mojo as a writer back; Deeper Down, Country Disappeared, I'll Fight and Sunny Feeling contain some of the most interesting and complex lyrics he's ever done. And some of the simpler songs, like W(TS) and You and I, are great pop lyrics as well.

If I may further digress into a Radiohead opinion...HTTT has some absolutely killer tracks. Then it has some non-killer tracks. If it had been trimmed down to a 10 or so track album...it would be a classic, in my opinion.

Sorry to keep digressing, but I absolutely agree with this. "2+2=5" and "There There" are two of my favorite Radiohead songs ever, but the album as a whole doesn't quite measure up.

I know this isn't supposed to be a Radiohead thread, but it's nice to see so many fans of both bands here.

In Rainbows is a better album than W(TA), but that's not much of a knock on W(TA). We're comparing top-tier Radiohead to 2nd-tier Wilco.

I'd take W(TA) over a number of Radiohead releases, for what it's worth, including Pablo Honey, Amnesiac and Hail To The Thief. And I don't dislike those records by any means.

I didn't want to dive into this hate-orgy of a thread, but after some thought I think this could be my second or third favorite Wilco record. There. I fucking said it.

Thank you for having the balls to say it.

For me at the moment it's #4. If I may coin a phrase, I find W(TA) to be a sort of aural arms-open-wide, sonic shoulder for me to cry-y-y-y on.

It's like seeing a movie by a favorite director, then spending the next week talking with somebody how you liked the movie but wished they did this or didn't do that.

 

Or watching a football game and screaming at the TV, "why the f*ck are you running on 3rd and 12....pass the ball you dipshits!".

 

To me, it's very similar to listening to an album. I so badly wanted One Wing to end in an orgasm-inducing musical jam. But it didn't.

I don't know why this song needed an instrumental exclamation point. It's perfect as is. What could be more "orgasmic" than the falsetto and soaring guitar at the end?

I like the conciseness of this record (BBN excepted) -- it's tighter than most Wilco albums, and while that's not an inherently superior approach compared to loose jamming, it's not worse either.

I wanted to love You Never Know, as it starts of so promising. Then I wonder why the f*ck Jeff has to repeat "I don't care anymore" 50 times.

Repetitive phrasing is one of the few criticisms of the album I agree with -- yet that's only a problem on 2 songs ("I'll Fight" being the other), and both of those songs have other redeeming qualities -- lyrics in particular. ("Sonny Feeling," which you eloquently describe as "shitty," has fascinating lyrics as well).

You and I is so damned sweet sounding, but I wish they would have added a little something more to the song. Listening to Jeff on Bull Black Nova is like the excitement of watching my team's return guy streaking down the side-line 80 yards for a touchdown. Go Jeff Go! Then listening to My Country Disappeared or Everlasting Everything is like sitting through the final 30 minutes of Dark Knight, when the Joker was off the screen and I was looking at my watch.

At least you're comparing it to The Dark Knight now instead of Transformers 2. (shudder)