Brian F.

This reviewer sells Wilco (The Album) and The Whole Love really short, not to mention Cruel Country. Does anyone else have trouble reading reviews of music that they've never heard? I have difficulty formulating an idea of what something sounds like from a written description without actually hearing it. It makes me think of that line, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

Did you get an email notification? Did you preorder from Wilcoworld? I was trying to remember whether previous Wilcoworld album orders just showed up unannounced or whether they were preceded by a shipping notice.

There is a good possibility, if my preorder from Wilcoworld doesn't arrive by September 29, that I will need to go out and buy a copy of the album to be able to listen to it in anticipation of the run of shows that starts five days later, so it wouldn't necessarily be a problem that this Amoeba thing would require me to buy a second copy of the album (actually a third since I bought the CD and LP) except for the fact that they apparently won't give it to you until the day of the signing. Meanwhile, if the two copies I ordered from Wilco arrive on time, I'm apparently not allowed to bring them

I recognize the similarity the original poster identifies. Olivia Rodrigo is really talented, although this song, with the speak-singing and the Avril Lavigne chant choruses-- I'm not really sure what to think of it. One thing that's refreshing about her is that she is very much a rock-oriented artist. There aren't many pop stars today that would fit right in on '90s alternative-rock radio, but Rodrigo would.

The lyrics definitely seem like they're from the "ransom note" method Jeff described in his second book.

I wasn't nitpicking! I really thought I was missing something.

Am I missing something? I see a review of a performance that mentions the new album, but I don't see a review of the album.

"Crawling is screw faster lash I blow it with kisses..." I'd elaborate, but it's pretty self-explanatory.

It's Wilco's only number one song! (It hit No. 1 on Billboard's Triple-A chart, which means it was a big fish in a very small pond.)

Thank you. I knew this sounded familiar but couldn't place it. I was worried they had plagiarized somebody.

I was just having some fun trying to imagine a jaunty, Sesame Street-style version of "Soldier Child." (For some reason, the sound of "Outta Mind (Outta Sight)" always makes me think of the theme song from Sesame Street.)

Maybe "Soldier Child" and "Child Soldier" will end up like "Outtasite (Outta Mind)" and "Outta Mind (Outta Sight)."

The comparison to Star Wars and the description of "A Bowl and a Pudding" have me thinking that song might be this album's "You Satellite." I don't really want another "You Satellite," but I'll keep an open mind. (Or an "Open Mind," anyway.)

This is greatly appreciated. Since I am not on Instagram, I have not seen many episodes of the Tweedy Show. (By the time they showed up on YouTube, the backlog was overwhelming.) This one-stop shop for versions of the new tracks will come in very handy. Thanks!

It just goes to show how subjective it all is. 5hake1tOff is not a fan of Wilco (The Album) or The Whole Love, but I'm a huge fan of the former and Tatlock is a big fan of the latter. (And I've never felt let down by a Pearl Jam or U2 album, but obviously I'm in the minority on that. There are clunker songs, for me, but not clunker albums by those artists.) Ironically, Wilco, as much as I love them, might be an exception to my strongly held theory that listeners' tendency to lose interest as an artist's career progresses is more about the listeners than it is about the artists. Whe

Hear, hear re: Western Stars. I've really enjoyed almost all of Bruce's 21st-century output, but that album is a real standout. Did you see the film he did featuring a live performance of the full album in a barn on his property in New Jersey? It was outstanding. I hope I didn't come across as flaming anyone. I'm just trying to lay out a long-gestating theory as to why a lot of people have a tendency to give new music short shrift: that it often has less to do with the quality of the music and more to do with the diminishing time people have to devote to it as they get older (altho

This is something that kind of fascinates me-- how even an artist's biggest fans can often have decreasing interest in the artist's music as they move deeper into their career-- and you hit on something in your last sentence that I think is really significant. Namely, that your time for music is limited. This has come up a lot in the context of Pearl Jam (the only band I've seen more than Wilco), where many of the dues-paying members of their fan club seem to have very little interest in anything the band has done since 1998 (basically, everything after their first five albums), but it's very

I hear this with respect to Schmilco and Ode to Joy, but I don"t feel like it describes most of Cruel Country.

It kind of sounds like he's using one on "Unlikely Japan," but maybe it's just tape manipulation.

Wilco: Now with Saxophone! (Per the credits.)

If you want to stream it, why do you need a download? I thought that the way streaming worked was that you can listen to it on demand. If you bought the CD, you'd have the physical release and you could also rip the individual tracks to listen to on your phone or wherever, no? Incidentally, we live in a strange world where I'm old-fashioned because I favor the late 20th-century technology of the CD over the late 19th-century technology of the LP.

Can't you just buy it elsewhere? Order it from the band or via a different retailer? I usually order the CD directly from the band, but they have been a little unreliable when it comes to shipping it so that you receive it by release day. With tickets to see several shows starting five days after release date, it's really important that this arrives on time so I will have had a chance to listen to it before the shows.

I was told by someone today that she produced the whole album.

No, it's up on the west coast. That's where I am. If a page is active on YouTube, it's active everywhere. I wasn't meaning to sound pedantic. I was just trying to let people who might not have realized it know that they don't have to wait until midnight to see it if they're not on the east coast.

Individual tracks are listed for $1.29 on Amazon, but only "Evicted" is actually available for purchase now. Other tracks say "not yet available." I didn't check them all, but I assume it's the same set of tracks as leaked out before.