Published Wilco (the album) articles and reviews

[Preferred B]

Things will get crazy(er) around here if every new review or article gets a new thread. On the other hand, sticking them in long discussion threads means that people who don't bother going into those threads anymore wouldn't see them.

 

So, just as someone started for the Ashes DVD, here's a thread where these things can go. There will be a lot of them coming up, I'm sure.

 

Timeout Chicago Summer Music Preview:

 

 

http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/music/...wilco-the-album

[tommyjacobs]

 

http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/music/...wilco-the-album

Thanks for putting this in a new thread. Wouldn't have seen it otherwise.

 

(And hiss to the mods who moved it as I was reading it...)

[Sir Stewart]

Blecch-o! (the parody)

[Moss]

 

What (me worry?)

[Dude]

I think Jeff's head in that pic has its own weather system.

[Plumplechook]

A poorly written review in The Boston Phoenix:

 

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Music/83579-W...ilco-The-Album/

[Guest Hollinger.]

Because I am a nerd that wanted the picture for my desktop without the bizarre gardening tools, I improvised a bit:

 

[SGL]

A poorly written review in The Boston Phoenix:

 

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Music/83579-W...ilco-The-Album/

 

"There's only one extended solo-heavy song here, "Bull Black Nova," and they get it out of the way early on."

 

Are they complaining about Bull Black Nova?? That's one of the highlights of the record... in my opinion atleast.

[LouieB]

It took me a minute to figure out that was Glenn on the end......

 

It seems to me that they send review copies out WAY too early. I have yet to even hear this album and it is now completely disected, inspected, rejected, corrected...etc etc and it is doesn't even get released for over a month. Crazy.

 

LouieB

[Sparky speaks]

The Quietus......

 

http://thequietus.com/articles/01677-wilco...ck-album-review

[cryptique]

Because I am a nerd that wanted the picture for my desktop without the bizarre gardening tools, I improvised a bit:

 

Glenn really should be giving the thumbs-up Fonzie-style.

[Guest Hollinger.]

I need to put a drumstick in his hand or something, it looks awkward.

[Sir Stewart]

I need to put a drumstick in his hand or something, it looks awkward.

 

It looks like he's doing the slow jerk.

[W(TF)]

The Quietus......

 

http://thequietus.com/articles/01677-wilco...ck-album-review

 

I enjoyed that.

[hilliard]

http://undercover.com.au/News-Story.aspx?id=8369

[cryptique]

http://undercover.com.au/News-Story.aspx?id=8369

Shall we review the reviews? I found this one to be disjointed and shallow.

[Wailin]

The Quietus......

 

http://thequietus.com/articles/01677-wilco...ck-album-review

 

 

This is perfect, especially the last bit:

 

"Only time will tell how Wilco will reveal itself . What's clearly evident is that seamless and effortless leaps between genre and style mask the fact that the wealth of variety and diversion in this one album puts the vast majority of their contemporaries in the shade. Sure, there's a recognisable motif that connects everything here, but it's not a 'sonic' or genre-based theme. Instead the thread is that of a band seemingly increasing in confidence to produce something hugely rich, deeply luxurious and ultimately enormously generous."

[Guest Speed Racer]

Nels always gets the ho, doesn't he?

[choo-choo-charlie]

Shall we review the reviews? I found this one to be disjointed and shallow.

 

i too found this shallow. shallow and pedantic, indeed. hmmm...yes indeed.

 

name the show!

[you ever seen a ghost?]

Family Guy.

 

-justin

[choo-choo-charlie]

Family Guy.

 

-justin

 

well done, sir. well done.

[cryptique]

Short review in the Detroit Free Press, written by a local Ann Arbor radio DJ.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

Wilco's leaked album has fine start, familiar finish

 

_{By Martin Bandyke}

[cryptique]

Not a review, but Entertainment Weekly lists the album among their "20 CDs We Can't Wait to Hear."

 

WILCO

Wilco (the album)

Release date: June 30

 

When it comes to titles, Jeff Tweedy is in a utilitarian mood: Wilco (the album) opens with "Wilco (the song)." More accurate? Calling the set A Wilco Album With the Mellowness of 'Sky Blue Sky' and the Experimentation of 'A Ghost Is Born.'

[Plumplechook]

Review by Jim DeRogatis in today's online edition of the Chicago Sun Times - he gives it 3.5 stars (out of 4 I believe):

 

http://blogs.suntimes.com/derogatis/2009/05/wilco_wilco_the_album_nonesuch.html

 

As a record-collecting geek and ardent student of rock history, Chicagoan Jeff Tweedy knows the best bands often provide a narrative arc with a dramatic twist or surprising turn upon the release of each new album.

The story behind Wilco's first album "A.M." (1995) was Tweedy establishing his own identity separate from Jay Farrar, his partner in Uncle Tupelo, the earlier group that laid the foundations of alternative country.

"Being There" (1996) found the singer and songwriter pushing the boundaries of alt-country toward old-school guitar rock, while "Summerteeth" (1999) showed him abandoning the genre for gorgeous orchestral pop unimaginable without the contributions of then-bandmate Jay Bennett. (See sidebar.)

Wilco's masterpiece, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (2002), was about the unraveling of the Bennett/Tweedy collaboration, as well as a shift toward more fractured experimental sounds reflecting a world in chaos--the perfect soundtrack after 9/11.

"A Ghost is Born" (2004) pushed the envelope on the art-rock and reflected Tweedy's battle to kick prescription drugs. And the group's last release, "Sky Blue Sky" (2007), was a quiet sigh of contentment after all that turbulence.

The big story on the group's seventh studio album--arriving in stores June 30th but already available as streaming audio at www.wilcoworld.net--is that there's really no story this time, which may account for the purposely generic title: "Wilco (The Album)."

Despite indie-rock bloggers who dismiss the group as "dad rock," the band has cemented a reputation as one of the most creative forces in rock today, with Tweedy evoking comparisons to greats such as Bob Dylan and Neil Young. It's become a vibrant commercial enterprise, too, selling out multiple nights at mid-sized theaters across the U.S. and in Europe, as well as peddling many songs to TV ads, as with the last album.

By all accounts, at age 41, Tweedy is happier and healthier than ever, comfortably living with his wife and two sons on the Northwest Side. And Wilco's current lineup of bassist John Stirratt, drummer Glenn Kotche, guitarist Nels Cline and multi-instrumentalists Pat Sansone and Mikael Jorgensen is not only its most virtuosic, but its steadiest, and the first to remain intact for two consecutive recordings.

"Wilco (The Album)" therefore is a summing-up of what the band is and everywhere it's been, and it fittingly opens with "Wilco (The Song)." Giddy and goofy, both rarities for this band, it's a heartfelt country-pop thank-you to the fans, as well as an idealistic statement about the healing power of music.

"Do you dabble in depression?" Tweedy sings. "Are you being attacked?/Oh, this is a fact that you need to know... Wilco will love you, baby!"

As if throwing open the windows on a sunny day, the band spent much less time bunkered down in its Chicago loft, traveling to Auckland, New Zealand, to record much of the disc at a studio owned by Neil Finn of Crowded House, and mixing in Valencia, Calif.--all with much less angst than usual. "There's a really relaxed quality to the way we work together now," Tweedy recently told SPIN.

This is evidenced by a set of mid-tempo, gently upbeat tunes proudly heralding their classic-rock influences and romantic sentiments. "You Never Know" lifts a hook from Sly Stone's "Everyday People" and pairs it with George Harrison's signature guitar; "One Wing" boasts some of the most gorgeous harmonies the group's recorded; "Country Disappeared" and "Solitaire" both nod to mid-period Big Star with their fragile but pretty melodies and melancholy lyrics; "You and I" is a sweet pop duet with Leslie Feist, and "Sunny Feeling" is the best Tom Petty song that Petty never wrote.

For fans of Wilco at its artiest and noisiest, the group offers "Bull Black Nova," an exquisitely creepy examination of the aftermath of a murder, with Tweedy's edgiest vocal performance and a guitar explosion worthy of Television. And for those who've been longing for a return to "Summerteeth," there's the disc-closing "Everlasting Everything," with big orchestral swells rife with tympani and tubular bells.

If the initial reaction is one of disappointment that Wilco has failed to surprise us, that's true enough: We've heard variations of all of this before, musically and lyrically. But the more you listen, the more you realize that almost all of these tracks--the annoying sing-song toss-off "I'll Fight" excepted--stand beside the best that the band has given us in each genre. And when a collection of songs is as solid as this one, who really needs the drama, anyway?

[mpolak21]

Here's the first negative review I've read about the record (Actually it's a track review of You and I, but it touches on the entire piece). He's pretty savage here, so feel free just to skip it, but if you like me are the type to peal back a scab too early, here's what Coke Machine Glow had to say.

 

You And I

---

 

Wilco f/ Feist :: "You and I"

From Wilco (The Album) (Nonesuch; 2009)

 

And so Jeff Tweedy’s chopping away at Wilco until it’s a tyrannical utopia of dad rock and feel-good summer festival wistfulness, until the last vestiges of all that once made Wilco seem exciting is absorbed into the nadir of neutered pap that “You and I” surely represents. One is left to regretfully conclude that the pre-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) kicking out of Jay Bennett, whatever personal comfort it afforded Tweedy and company, robbed Wilco of a formula it was only then perfecting. Tweedy’s folk fragility seemed to shudder against the storm of Bennett’s pretentious, egotistical temporalities. Since then Tweedy’s surrounded himself with the kind of musicians—Koche, Cline, and occasionally O’Rourke—you’d think would generate efforts still more avant, or at least as aware, as those for which Wilco is rightfully revered.

 

But somehow post-YHF Wilco has become less and less the sum of its parts. Every member’s talents and personalities have been bleached into faceless devotion to Tweedy’s traditionalist underpinnings. Even A Ghost is Born (2004) lost contrast to volume, interplay to hysterics. Now, all is Tweedy—turn him up to 11, turn him down to 2, it’s not a conversation anymore. Which is not in itself terribly problematic until the man responsible for the succinct, perfect heartbreak of having become the American aquarium drinker who assassins down the avenue begins to write such meaningless placeholder lyrics and toss-off poetry as “You and I.” To quote it would simply be to confirm what one already assumes about a song called “You and I.” Even the nothing-if-not-charismatic Feist is sucked mercilessly into this solipsistic void of self-indulgent easy listening. Tweedy just sounds so comfortable. This is the Tweedy that plays guitar to his kid on the tour bus to cheer him up after the claw game rips off his dollar.

 

Chet mentioned that this was Wilco’s Red Album, and he’s right: this is Tweedy at his most narcissistic and self-legitimizing, exiled to a world of revisionist AM radio nostalgia. A band that once seemed to burst with ideas—even the CD that came stuck to The Wilco Book had electric, bracing material on it, even if most of it was left without the pending polish of Wilco (The Album)—now seems content to tread out rote traditionalism. It may seem unfair and facile to constantly compare a band’s output to their best album, but this isn’t just sub-Yankee. This should be sub-Wilco.

 

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