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i'm puzzled as to where the nels hate is coming from. my initial reaction was that there wasn't enough nels guitar freakouts on this album. there's no chunks of noise like at the end of handshake drugs or the beginning of wishful thinking. there's no real craziness. after the last two albums and nels addition i was expecting something really out there. i would've welcomed some noisy craziness anywhere. i was expecting the stuff on YHF and AGIB multiplied.

 

I had the same expectations/hope. Also, sometimes I wish he would change his tone up a little more.

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The songs are disproportionaly downtempo, and never get me excited.

 

Hey here's a thought....

 

These songs aren't supposed to "get you excited". It isn't that kind of album. Get it people?

 

I've never read so many reviews talking about what an album ISN'T instead of what it is. If you don't like it fine, but don't write crap about how quiet and mellow it is, as if that is some sort of negative against it. Sorry Wilco isn't making the "cool alternative" music you want them to....

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I'm really liking "What Light." It's got a real ethereal vibe to it and the pedal steel or whatever it is in the background really pushes it along.

 

I'm still not really hearing what others are with "On&On"- still seems like an under-nourished duck or something.

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ok i just want to voice my opinion here.

 

to be honest, im really dissapointed with it. all the things that i love wilco for, their experimentalism, progressiveness, and unique sound, all seem to be gone in Sky. I guess you have to respect an artist's desire to try new sounds, but Sky sounded incredibly boring in comparison to the soundscapes that wilco are capable of creating. say what you will about leroy and bennett, but right now i really want them back.

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My introduction to Wilco was fairly unique. The first album I heard was AM and the second was AGIB. After listening to Ghost, my first impression was: this is the same band? I have long since purchased the remaining albums, and have seen the band in London, Ontario, and Tweedy solo in New Orleans. Tweedy, in my opinion, is one of the greatest songwriters of any generation. Some fans hate it when their favorite band changes their "sound" but that was and is one thing that is so appealing to me about Wilco. Each album appeals to me at different times in different ways depending upon my mood and a host of other factors.

 

Having said that, John said a few months ago in an interview with Billboard that the new album would be antithetic to fans' expectations of what it would sound like, and boy was he right. I was expecting something different from Ghost, but I wasn't expecting a curveball like this. My initial reaction, I think, was one of disappointment, but I think now after having listented a few times that really the band took me out of my element based upon my own expectations of how the new album would sound. Now, having thrown my expectations out the window, I'm finally able to LISTEN with an open mind and I have to say it's growing on me. And growers are always my favorite albums.

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I've never read so many reviews talking about what an album ISN'T instead of what it is. If you don't like it fine, but don't write crap about how quiet and mellow it is, as if that is some sort of negative against it. Sorry Wilco isn't making the "cool alternative" music you want them to....

 

Which is totally ironic because when AGIB leaked the gripe then was it was too noisy. Then a few months later people were falling all over themselves praising it. Honestly the record doesn't need to be a certain style for me to like it, either I like what I hear or I don't. Frankly I'm glad it didn't end up being Wilco's Metal Machine Music. Besides I think people are forgetting where Wilco came from, they are a roots band at heart not freakin' Glenn Branca.

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There are parts of the record I really like: when the strings come in in Either Way; the guitar work in Impossible Germany; the verse chord progession in Please Be Patient With Me. But the songs themselves, imo, are lacking. Wilco has always done a fantastic job at taking mundane progessions and making them fascinating; here the songs are just okay. I don't care that it's not uptempo, nor does the lack of poetic, elusive lyrics, but on first listen I just find it ignorable, which is a great dissapointment to say the least.

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Guest Speed Racer
Hey here's a thought....

 

These songs aren't supposed to "get you excited". It isn't that kind of album. Get it people?

 

I've never read so many reviews talking about what an album ISN'T instead of what it is. If you don't like it fine, but don't write crap about how quiet and mellow it is, as if that is some sort of negative against it. Sorry Wilco isn't making the "cool alternative" music you want them to....

 

But if it ISN'T something that gets you excited, are you supposed to write about how it IS something that bores you? Seriously...People here are voicing their opinions. OMG! They're voicing their opinions after only two/three listens. So are you, fucktard (not directed at imsjry, but the general critical audience). If we assume that we've all listened to it an equal amount of times, can't we assume that we are all standing on equal critical ground...? It's asinine to think otherwise.

 

Those who don't like it hear mayonnaise, let's say. I will NOT eat a sandwich with mayonnaise on it, 8 times out of 10, because I don't usually like it. Some people put about an inch of mayonnaise on everything they eat. Doesn't mean mayonnaise is horrible or awesome, it just means that some love it and some don't.

 

Seriously, can't we all get a grip?

 

Again, not a diatribe against imsjry, just a critque of a party-line.

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did Glenn lose his bass drum? did he lose all his gadgets? while his work here is totally skillful, it's so uninteresting for Kotche, and so edgeless. sigh. I miss those weird things from Pot Kettle Black.

 

Yeah that's one of the things I miss from YHF and AGIB, Glenn's stuff is pretty straight forward throughout and he's barely on Patient With Me (I do here vibes towards the end). I'd have liked to here a little more of him in the mix as well.

 

--Mike

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But if it ISN'T something that gets you excited, are you supposed to write about how it IS something that bores you? Seriously...People here are voicing their opinions. OMG! They're voicing their opinions after only two/three listens. So are you, fucktard (not directed at imsjry, but the general critical audience). If we assume that we've all listened to it an equal amount of times, can't we assume that we are all standing on equal critical ground...? It's asinine to think otherwise.

 

Those who don't like it hear mayonnaise, let's say. I will NOT eat a sandwich with mayonnaise on it, 8 times out of 10, because I don't usually like it. Some people put about an inch of mayonnaise on everything they eat. Doesn't mean mayonnaise is horrible or awesome, it just means that some love it and some don't.

 

Seriously, can't we all get a grip?

 

Again, not a diatribe against imsjry, just a critque of a party-line.

 

ur wrong! you CAN argue about music! and get somewhere! its what happens every time! :lol

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Guest Speed Racer

Ha! I'm actually pleasantly surprised by the album (one of the 2/10 times I'll eat it), but I'm just hanging in there for all of the haters; I understand completely what's unlikeable about the album, and it kills me that the same 'you don't get it after 3 listens' people have only listened to it three times.

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But if it ISN'T something that gets you excited, are you supposed to write about how it IS something that bores you? Seriously...People here are voicing their opinions. OMG! They're voicing their opinions after only two/three listens. So are you, fucktard (not directed at imsjry, but the general critical audience). If we assume that we've all listened to it an equal amount of times, can't we assume that we are all standing on equal critical ground...? It's asinine to think otherwise.

 

Those who don't like it hear mayonnaise, let's say. I will NOT eat a sandwich with mayonnaise on it, 8 times out of 10, because I don't usually like it. Some people put about an inch of mayonnaise on everything they eat. Doesn't mean mayonnaise is horrible or awesome, it just means that some love it and some don't.

 

Seriously, can't we all get a grip?

 

Again, not a diatribe against imsjry, just a critque of a party-line.

 

As usual I agree with everything Speed Racer says :cheers

 

--Mike

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Which is totally ironic because when AGIB leaked the gripe then was it was too noisy. Then a few months later people were falling all over themselves praising it. Honestly the record doesn't need to be a certain style for me to like it, either I like what I hear or I don't. Frankly I'm glad it didn't end up being Wilco's Metal Machine Music. Besides I think people are forgetting where Wilco came from, they are a roots band at heart not freakin' Glenn Branca.

 

Very well said. It's like most of these reviews are from people that got into Wilco starting with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or something. Some guy actually wrote something about "what happened to the cool alternative Wilco I love". WTF is that crap?? I guess I never realized that type of fan-base existed for them.

 

This album sounds exactly like the kind of music I think Wilco should be making. It seems like such a natural progression. I can't believe true fans of theirs don't think that as well. Maybe I'm just too old or something....

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This album sounds exactly like the kind of music I think Wilco should be making. It seems like such a natural progression. I can't believe true fans of theirs don't think that as well. Maybe I'm just too old or something....

 

I agree, it's like people forgot that YHF had songs like Jesus, Etc. Kamera and Reservations on it or that AGIB had Hummingbird, Wishful Thinking, Theologians or The Late Greats. Much of SBS is quite a bit heavier than those songs, it's just this time the cacophony is more understated and sly. IMO SBS fits in perfectly with all of their post Being There stuff. I don't think it's as mellow as people are making it out to be either. What's more surly than tossing a few jazzy sounding solos amongst Tweedy's overdriven guitar stabs. I was listening to SBS in my truck today and when those solos come in at loud volume it's pretty jarring.

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Guest Speed Racer
I agree, it's like people forgot that YHF had songs like Jesus, Etc. Kamera and Reservations on it or that AGIB had Hummingbird, Wishful Thinking, Theologians or The Late Greats. Much of SBS is quite a bit heavier than those songs, it's just this time the cacophony is more understated and sly. IMO SBS fits in perfectly with all of their post Being There stuff. I don't think it's as mellow as people are making it out to be either. What's more surly than tossing a few jazzy sounding solos amongst Tweedy's overdriven guitar stabs. I was listening to SBS in my truck today and when those solos come in at loud volume it's pretty jarring.

 

Loud though they may be, it's still Windham Hill voluminously on top of a Reprise record. With 'Sky Blue Sky' in particular, I'd be listening to an awesome song when a superflulous (and loud) 'smooth' guitar solo would be slapped on top like butter. I'll probably grow to like them, but right now it seems like AGIB with a bunch of cholesteral on top. Unnecessary, and waaaayy too smooth.

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I think in time this could prove to be my second favorite Wilco album. YHF is in my top 5 of all time, so I highly doubt they'll ever release anything that'll topple that for me.

 

Anyway, I think this is definitely the most "album-y" album they've released next to YHF. I find myself listening to individual tracks from Being There, Summerteeth, and A Ghost is Born rather than the whole of those albums. I can't see that happening with Sky Blue Sky, just as it never does with YHF. Everything flows so easily and fits together so well, there's not a single track you'd want to skip.

 

Also, I can hear bits and pieces of everything they've done up to this point in here somewhere. Like I said before it fits together like YHF, those little organ fills have me thinking of Summerteeth, "Walken" rocks like Being There, and there's a very mellow Ghost vibe floating throughout the whole thing.

 

I really love this.

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