cokemachineglow talks about Impossible Germany

[tareth]

Most interesting bit of info that can be gained from this article is that it calls Impossible Germany their first single off Sky Blue Sky. Which brings to question: have they actually called What Light their first single? For some reason I remember reading it this way, but I can't find anything to back that up. It could be similar to what Voxtrot is doing with their new album--releasing an mp3 as a sample of the album, and saying that their first single is something completely different. But either way, I'm gonna say, I don't trust this article. You'll see why.

 

Wilco: “Impossible Germany"

> From Sky Blue Sky (Nonesuch; 2007)

 

Add Sky Blue Sky to whatever music program you use (okay, fine, iTunes) and you'll notice under “genre” it won't say indie, alt-country, noodlanding, conceptual migraines, Documentaries About the State of the Industry or Chicago, but “Classic Rock.” Maybe Wilco is one of those bands we trust to use this Titanic of a modifier, for whom we'll overlook that even an informed reading of classic rock music won't necessarily transform a band's music into instant classic rock. For whom we'll forget that “classic” status is something earned after years of retrospective contextualizing and consistent success.

 

This is Wilco, one of the few bands to scrape the underside of Radiohead's ceiling of automatic credibility. This is the Wilco who, while straining to balance ambiguous concepts and perhaps what is the beginning of a series of calculated return-to-forms, is given benefit of the doubt. "Impossible Germany," the first single from the band's forthcoming and my-dad's-soon-to-be-favorite album, is the Wilco equivalent of “There There”: a confident display of effortless melody and virtuosity that is still instantly recognizable as a revisitation of genres the band has already, supposedly, mastered.

 

On just his first studio album with Wilco, Nels Cline's guitar work is already one of the group's dominant features, for better or worse. “Impossible Germany” is still Tweedy by and large, whose fundamental and central guitar melody anchors and directs the song, but when Cline departs on another of his shuddering, traumatized takes on a classic rock solo, it's so idiosyncratically not Tweedy's that it feels a bit like an invasion. Where on A Ghost is Born (2004) tracks “At Least That's What You Said” and “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” Cline was given temporary center stage and the novelty of his controlled chaos became an effective contrast in such expansive, open

arrangements**, on “Impossible Germany” the whole exercise has the feeling of excess. The song is, at its root, another “classic” Wilco song; the extended, jogging guitar outro builds beautifully on such fragile opening threads. But Cline's guitar is a big personality in what is suddenly an overcrowded guitar presence.

 

I think Wilco's appeal has been the centrality of Tweedy's nervous, affable vulnerability, his everyman-with-an-acoustic accessibility and knack for poetic confession. Here he is relegated to cast member, oddly outshone and hard to find under the quaking musicianship of this decidedly un-Wilco-like version of the band I'd come to love. “Impossible Germany” might be a more democratic result, but it also reminds us of just how long Wilco has been Tweedy's show to run.

 

-Conrad Amenta

 

** Correction: Sorry CMG readers, we got this one wrong -- Nils Cline didn't actually join the group until Kicking Television in 2005, a year after A Ghost is Born's release. Rather, it was Tweedy himself, channeling his inner-Nils, playing guitar on "At Least That's What You Said" and "Spiders (Kidsmoke)." Our mistake.

 

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/songs/index.html (april 2nd track reviews)

[cryptique]

Rather than allowing his mistake to stand and correcting it at the bottom, he should have corrected it in the story text and then explained the correction at the bottom. Doing it the way he did, it just makes him look even more like the idiot that he probably is.

 

I find this review hilarious anyway. This album sounds to me more like a Jeff-centered show than any of their previous ones. Yes, it's the result of a more democratic process within the band, but it's Jeff's playing and singing that dominates throughout, in my opinion. I'm not sure what this guy was listening to.

[owl]

It doesn't help that the song kind of stinks. (For the record, I think that the rest of the album is great.)

 

Also, the whole Classic Rock thing bugs me too.

 

Also, the reviewer is still clearly an idiot.

[you ever seen a ghost?]

almost every "professional" music review sucks these days. this obviously doesn't fit into category of the good ones.

 

-justin

[Sir Stewart]

Impossible Germany* is a lot like War On War** for me, in that it has a vocal part that rubs me 100% the wrong way.

 

*"Impossible Germany/Unlikely Japan"

 

**"It's a war on war/It's a war on war/It's a war on war/It's a war on war/It's a war on war/It's a war on war/It's a war on war/There's a war on..."

[LouieB]

I like both songs...War on War and Impossible Germany.

 

In fact I think IG is the centerpiece of SBS.

 

Meanwhile we all know the What Light is the first single from the album......obviously.... its the one XRT and other stations are playing.

 

This review is incomprehensible!!!

 

LouieB

[bobbob1313]

"Impossible Germany" is one of my 12 favorite songs on Sky Blue Sky.

[So Long]

I think Impossible Germany fits very well in the album, but would not be a good single...

[SarahC]

"Impossible Germany" is one of my 12 favorite songs on Sky Blue Sky.

indeed.

[mountain bed]

"Impossible Germany" is one of my 12 favorite songs on Sky Blue Sky.

Perhaps there should be a thread where we rank the SBS songs in the order in which they appear on the record, yes?

[you ever seen a ghost?]

"Impossible Germany" is one of my 12 favorite songs on Sky Blue Sky.

 

 

Perhaps there should be a thread where we rank the SBS songs in the order in which they appear on the record, yes?

 

brilliant, the both of you.

 

-justin

[Heinekren]

Hey, I know the guy who wrote that review and he's achieved city-wide renown as a douche.

[jakobnicholas]

Hey, I know the guy who wrote that review and he's achieved city-wide renown as a douche.

 

 

Congrats to him....he's now on the road to making it nation-wide.

[WilcoFan]

In fact I think IG is the centerpiece of SBS.

LouieB

 

 

[tgores]

So...I understand that everyone here basically loves this album. But there are clearly people that do not as much. For a few of my friends and I SBS has just not really struck us in the way all the other albums have. I don't think it is bad by any means, but I am not totally disagreeing with what this gentleman said in his review. So he made a clerical error and corrected himself. Either way, the album didn't strike him, or at least the song didn't and there is nothing wrong with that. I don't really know that it makes him a douche to not like the newest stuff by Wilco.

 

Though I can't say I don't agree with you all about music critics and their bull-shittery. I think probably Pitchfork is king of this, but whatever...they have all fallen into just making obscure connections and using SAT vocab words that normal humans just don't use. Regardless, I think this gentleman warrants a slap on the wrist for being pretentious, but shouldn't really be forced to run the gauntlet of fanatics just because the song wasn't a cream dream.

[tareth]

It doesn't bother me in the least that he doesn't like Impossible Germany. I happen to love it, but whatever--we all listen to things differently. I just think the point he made about Nels Cline's influence on A Ghost is Born is hilarious.

[jimtweedy1977]

now I'm a Radiohead fan, but I wouldn't exactly say that they have automatic credibility, never mind that Wilco and Radiohead are two completely different bands who have different sound agendas. Besides, in my eyes, Hail To the Thief was a "safe" record, bland in some spots.

[unposed_question]

You certainly have to question the thought processes of someone who can't get something as basic as the lineup for AGIB correct.

 

I still maintain that IG will be the most enduring song off SBS, though I understand the complaints that have been registered against it. Any new album by definition is going to have its naysayers, either because it goes in a new direction or because it fails to cover new ground. For my taste, the album is alot more understated and straightforward than what I was "expecting" but no surprises here, I'm not in the band so I didn't have much input. As a fan, I'm still going to show my support for their work by purchasing the CD and attending a show if I can. God bless Wilco!