boo jim boo

my guess on final 3: 3. Via Chicago 2. Misunderstood 1. IATTBYH

I feel like ELT serves that purpose as the straight-ahead rocker. What if they had put Student Loan Stereo on the album, would that have helped?

pretty accurate review by the washington post: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postrock/2009/07/wilco_live_last_night.html#more

I never do these, but...why not? 1. Summerteeth - Then again, some aren't. The masterpiece in my mind. Always in Love, to me, is their best song ever. 2. YHF - Similarly 'masterpiece-ish' but just in an area i don't love as much as harmonies-soaked ST. 3. BT - Just the potential and excitement oozing around this makes it a joy to listen to. THIS is the most 'fun' Wilco ever had, in my mind, on album. Had to go to a double album and was willing to take a cut in roylaties cuz they thought so highly of it? And I agree. 4. AGIB - Love the 'plastic ono band' reference earlier in this thread.

You know, that is a great show and really points out one of the best things that Jay brought to the band. On a couple of songs (can't remember which) after they're done playing, Jeff says, "That's the first time Jay's played this on piano" or banjo or whatever Jay happened to pick up. And you know what? It sounded great. Every song, it was a living breathing thing and each time they played it Jay would do SOMEthing different, and amazingly most of the time it really sounded great. And he made it seem so easy, which was really incredible. You saw it a couple times in IATTBYH where he'd be

OK, that's fair. Maybe what I should have said is songs of the same type as he did 10 years ago. good vs. bad is obviously an opinion but I think it's fair to say that the songs he writes now are definitely different from those he wrote a decade back.

I would say they lost their 'edge' somewhere in between the point where Jeff was a struggling musician in a tense band environment with a drug problem and mental illness and lots to prove, and the point where he was a wildly successful family man in a stable band with his emotions under control. I mean, he grew up, and he's in a much healthier place in his life now, which is of course GREAT for him and I couldn't be happier for him. But yes, it does mean that his songwriting loses a bit of edge in terms of where he's coming from. It's just the way it is. I'll always love everything from

I would say lines like "I dreamed about killing you again last night and it felt alright to me" and "she begs me not to hit her" are pretty edgy. Whether it was because of tension or migraines or whatever, the Tweedy that wrote those lines was definitely coming from a different (and more interesting, in my opinion) place that the one who wrote a whole song listing house chores.

Hey, it's cool. You're obviously entitled to your opinions, I'm just trying to stick up for a guy who gets the short end of the stick on a lot of the posts here. I don't expect people to necessarily agree with my opinions, just wanna have a reasonable discussion about it. Agreed that the latest incarnation of Wilco is 'blistering' live - it's just the same blistering live show that they've been playing the last few years.

Nope. I'm not Jay. Thanks Mike for sticking up for me. I've been lurking on these boards for maybe 6 years or so, chiming in every once in awhile. I'm just tired of all the Jay-bashing. I mean, he was the 2nd-most important member of the band that was far and away my favorite from 98 till about 02. I think it's a real shame how he gets treated around here and, hey, slow time at work so I figured I'd stick up for him. No man crush. Went and saw him play once back in 04 and it wasn't very good. He's just not a front man. Doesn't have the voice for it. The formula that worked was Jeff

Handshake Drugs AND Spiders were written before Nels or Pat were in the band. Yes, it's true, the band is technically better than they were in the last 90's/early 00's. And this incarnation of Wilco has been playing together for something like 5 years with only one batch of new songs, so they will be better at performing those songs a specific way and going through the intricacies of those songs. When Jay was in the band, they were at their most prolific (5 albums including the mermaid aves from 1996-2002). They were constantly evolving. They were constantly pushing themselves, trying ne

ok - so maybe i should have said "unquestionably in my mind." but really, i remember going to the show at 930 club in september 2001 and just being crushed. my favorite band was struggling tremendously. the venue was half-full and they just weren't having any fun at all. they had no idea what to do with these songs because jay was so integral to them and Jeff was - at the time - just not at all a lead guitar player. It was the most depressing show of theirs I had ever seen.

I think the piling on Jay that goes on around here is a little silly. Here's a better question: What would have happened with Wilco if he had never JOINED the band? It can be argued that he was the architect of the 3 albums that showed the most growth in the band: Being There, Summerteeth, and YHF. Yes his relationship with Jeff fell apart put for 6/7 years before that he was unbelievably important. He helped transform Wilco from an alt-country also-ran (sorry, but AM really wasn't very good) to a diverse, experimental band. Jay played a huge part in that. I would argue that if Jay nev

100% absolutely agree. so much of SBS seems like Jeff wrote about 40% of a song and then just let the band take it from there. So many lyrics are throwaway (e.g. ALL of Hate it Here or Walken). In the past when working with Jay, it seemed like even though Jay had a lot of input, Jeff really was involved from beginning to end and was really emotionally invested in each track. I just don't get that with SBS. Really, my favorite tweedy songs of the past few years are probably Hey Chicken/The Ruling Class. He really has a vision for them and you can tell he works hard at them. I don't get

If anyone wants to have the same conversation they've had on this board 10,000 times, but on a different website, you might wanna check this out - Washington Post does a ranking of wilco albums on their rock blog: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/postrock/20...aking_wilc.html