TheMaker

Right on. Thanks for this.

Everything is a masterpiece. That's how it works now. Also, everybody is brilliant. Welcome to 2007, where superlatives are tossed around with such frequency that they've become virtually meaningless. I still think your comparison is right on the money. Not only are MT and West sonic retreads, but the level of songcraft on both pale in comparison to what directly preceded each release. When the songs aren't about bullshit, they're just tired and uninspired.

"Spiders" was actually played before YHF was released. I remember seeing them in Toronto a couple days prior to the big day and thinking I'd have the drop on all the new songs, and then they went and opened with a great song I'd never heard before. That great song, of course, went on to become AGIB's black eye.

I'm pretty sure everybody here will end up buying it. Hell, I know I bought the Wilco Book and I'm pretty sure I've never even cracked the cover. I'm not ranking anything dead last just yet, but I've heard almost all of the SBS songs live, and the production seems consistent enough based on these three tracks that I think it's safe to say we aren't in for any surprises. My favourite Wilco records are BT and YHF, and the you-are-here production, coupled with a good number of the best songs Tweedy has ever written, has a lot to do with my admiration. When I listen to AGIB and SBS, I still feel

I couldn't agree more. They took one of the best new songs of the bunch, slowed it right down, and hushed the living hell out of it. And I'm not trying to be mean, but Jeff's wobbly, anemic vocal basically kills whatever momentum it might otherwise have had. I've cut the Tweedster a lot of slack in the past for whispering in the studio on songs he practically screams live, but I've seldom been more disappointed in a studio take than I am with Walken. I'm pretty astonished that such a lively concert staple ended up sounding so flat and dull on record. As to the production, uh, I'm pretty sure

I calls 'em like I sees 'em! Maybe there's some life in the nine SBS tracks we haven't heard yet. And maybe the prairie-flat production won't completely suck it out of them. Cough.

Seriously, take beadman's advice. HINT HINT. "When I press down on your foot and say 'Hello, Mr. Thompson,' you smile and nod..."

Great record. The first side is airtight, and side two has its share of gems, too (notably "Methamphetamine" and "L-Train"). It's one hell of a lot better than what we've heard of the new Wilco, anyway, which isn't a side of the fence I ever thought I'd see myself on.

Wow, Walken sounds quiet. Not to be the voice of dissent, but I'm more worried than ever based on these samples...

I'm going to wait until the vernal equinox to listen to it. I plan on being naked and covered from head to toe in lard when the Moment of Glory arrives at last. As the music plays, I will remain perfectly still, with eyes tight shut. I'm glad to see some gentle mocking going on as far as the wait-for-it crowd is concerned. I just don't get that mentality. Me? I'm going to listen to it as soon as I'm aware that it's become available. Then I'll buy it at the mall once it's available in stores. Imagine that.

You can get an amen from me, brother Artifice. I dig both of Regine's songs on Funeral quite a bit. "In the Backseat" isn't the most exciting song on the disc, but the lyrics, especially the allegory central to the song, are beautiful. And "Haiti" is probably my favourite song on the record.

Geez. Easy, guys. Remember the forum rules. Not only that, there are all kinds of watermarking technologies out there these days that make upping a press copy of any album a risky proposition anymore. These things always leak in short order after they're distributed, though, so I'm sure everybody who wants to hear it before the official release will have it in a week, tops.

You could've knocked me over with a feather after I finished listening to The Search earlier today. It's such a great little record, with a beautiful flow and nearly every song sounding like a highlight. I thought I liked Okemah well enough, but this blows it away. I'm so glad to see Jay finally reaching past the alt-country ghetto and trying something familiar but just a little bit different. There's a real southern-pop feel to some of these songs that reminds me a little of R.E.M. in the early '90s. Lots of variety, too, with piano, memphis horns, backwards guitars, and so forth. Already m

Oui, oui. I'm still amazed by the backlash surrounding this release, and the reviews have barely even started coming yet. To my mind, NB is so much better than Funeral that it borders on ludicrous. It's focused like a friggin' laser beam, and it's so attuned to the concerns of the current crop of 20somethings in the world that I think it'll retroactively be looked upon as a major milestone in '00s rock. I know I said as much in the NB thread, but nothing else I've heard this decade even comes close to expressing the anxiety of our directionless, overwhelmingly consumerist, post-90s societ

The best band around today by far (sorry, Wilcos), but a so-so performance. Then again, it's SNL, so how it could be anything else? I'll never understand why getting to play this crapfest of a show is seen as the holy grail of TV for a lot of bands.

If I opened a present and What Light was inside, I'd take it back to the store immediately. Hopefully Santa Tweedy's got some other goodies in his "bag" that don't amount to a lump of pladitudinous coal.

I had a hell of a time tracking down Fay's two-records-on-a-single-CD four years ago. At that time, torrents hadn't yet become de rigeur among internet-savvy music fans, and I couldn't find any tracks by the old bean on any P2P sites. Amazon? Nuttin'. CD Now? Nuttin'. I finally ended tracking it down on some amateurish-looking OOP website located in the UK. I can't remember what I ended up paying in pounds, but it worked out to around 35 bucks Cdn. after shipping. That is all.

Wow. You guys. It's fucking execrable. I know that ain't objective, but... maybe it is?

Amen. I don't think this thread is about running down music by other artists, just taking a look at how certain bands with a particular appeal can be seen as quite different from Wilco. On another music forum I frequent, enjoying anything that predates the '80s is seen as a surprise.

Oy! For the record, I just find it weird that Wilco fans are also Crowded House fans. The band themselves aren't particularly weird at all, at least not that I've ever noticed. And by cultish, I just meant that compared to Crowded House's somewhat higher profile in countries where the queen graces the money, they seem to be regarded in some circles as a sort of a buried treasure in the US. They're very AOR/ubiquitous even here in Canada. No offense to anybody who really likes the band, but I think they're about as fun as a bland sandwich.

Crowded House. I know they're kind of cultish in the States, but it's still fucking weird.

Truth! Testify! Heh. This is the one part of the editorial I disagreed with. Oh Mercy is, on my more generous days, one of my top five favourite Dylan records. Modern Times is just average Dylan, nothing more, nothing less. The collective music press really embarrassed itself by lavishing no end of praise on it. "Workingman's Blues #2," "When the Deal Goes Down" and "Nettie Moore" are all great Dylan tunes, but the rest is pretty thin. I enjoy listening to "Spirit on the Water" and the egregiousy overpraised "Ain't Talkin'," but there's absolutely nothing there lyrically. As a whole, the re

That was a stellar editorial. I found myself nodding so frequently that I nearly rattled my head right off my shoulders. Thanks for sharing!

Love the new one, don't really care for any of the earlier ones. Haven't heard Lifter Puller.

Are you a Dylan fan? Think Knocked Out Loaded or Down in the Groove. Seriously. That bad. Nobody's infallible. Time Out of Mind? With due respect to the opinion voiced above, Ouch. What an insult to one of the best records of the '90s. Like KOL and DitG, West represents the absolute nadir for one of America's finest songwriters. It's no resurgence, I'll say that.