Published Wilco (the album) articles and reviews

[MattZ]

I had a lot issues with the constant drug references, the belaboured attacking of Tweedy for daring to go into rehab, and for being a father, which apparently is about the worst thing you can be in rock music, even though you really don't hear that much about Kim Gordon being a mom rocker or Thurston Moore being a dad rocker.

 

I don't have a problem with attacking the music for being boring; it seems pretty damn obnoxious though to attack him for leading a relatively healthy, drug and drama-free lifestyle these days.

 

No, you are right. I wasn't clear. My post was really more of an indictment of how lame most reviews are that I read. The drug references, the rehab, the attacks for being a father, etc. in this particular review were all frustrating and lame. But I liked that the guy took a real stand even if I disagree with it.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Then by his logic he should absolutely LOVE Wilco. What gives?

 

Part of the privilege of being a hipster douchebag is that your stereotypes don't apply to yourself. I'm sure this guy looks at all the other hipster douchebags in Brooklyn and complains about how it was so much better in 2004, before all these hipster douchebags moved in.

[Dude]

Tweedy is boring for caring about subtlety and nuance and melody and songcraft? And the whole bit about how he needs to be an out of control drug addict, crappy father figure, who is out of control is tiresome. I never have owned an Iggy Pop or Sex Pistols album and I only slightly give two craps for VU, so this guys rehashed Lester Bangs bit is largley irrelevant to me and my view of music.

 

Yeah, agreed 100%. At least Bangs was funny.

 

No, you are right. I wasn't clear. My post was really more of an indictment of how lame most reviews are that I read. The drug references, the rehab, the attacks for being a father, etc. in this particular review were all frustrating and lame. But I liked that the guy took a real stand even if I disagree with it.

 

Yeah, I agree that a lot of reviews that are praising the album are pretty lame, too. I just think dad rock jokes and rehab jokes in a Wilco album review are stale -- he's in dire need of some original material.

[hottuna]

I'd rather read that review by Mike Powell than the average review that (1) falls over itself to mention the ashes of Uncle Tupelo and Jay Farrar, (2) inevitably gives the album 3.5 or 4 stars out of 5 to avoid taking any sort of real stance on the album, and (3) reads as if it were drafted to protect the author 5 yrs down the road just in case time treats the album well (or poorly).

 

In other words, Powell's critique was amusing and entertaining. I don't care what he says mostly because I don't care what he thinks. At least it was different.

Couldn't agree more. At least it was some fresh perspective on things. So many of these reviews are carbon copies of each other almost from start to finish. How bout some effort

[Guest Speed Racer]

Couldn't agree more. At least it was some fresh perspective on things. So many of these reviews are carbon copies of each other almost from start to finish. How bout some effort

 

But that's the thing - it was antonymically cliched, if that makes sense. He went where every other reviewer goes, and just said the opposite. Tastelessly. He didn't take a stand so much as oppose everything else. Yes, that's one way of taking a stand, but it's not a very creative or original point of view. Worse, it sounded like most of his other reviews, so it's not terribly ground-breaking in that regard either. I guess that means he has a clear 'voice' in his writing, but it's definitely a high-pitched, whiny voice.

[hottuna]

But that's the thing - it was antonymically cliched, if that makes sense. He went where every other reviewer goes, and just said the opposite. Tastelessly. He didn't take a stand so much as oppose everything else. Yes, that's one way of taking a stand, but it's not a very creative or original point of view. Worse, it sounded like most of his other reviews, so it's not terribly ground-breaking in that regard either. I guess that means he has a clear 'voice' in his writing, but it's definitely a high-pitched, whiny voice.

 

I see your point but it was refreshingly new for me nonetheless. Not too mention we don't actually know if this is truly the way he feels about WTA and Wilco in general. Maybe he is not trying to go against the grain?

[mpolak21]

But that's the thing - it was antonymically cliched, if that makes sense. He went where every other reviewer goes, and just said the opposite. Tastelessly. He didn't take a stand so much as oppose everything else. Yes, that's one way of taking a stand, but it's not a very creative or original point of view. Worse, it sounded like most of his other reviews, so it's not terribly ground-breaking in that regard either. I guess that means he has a clear 'voice' in his writing, but it's definitely a high-pitched, whiny voice.

 

Here's my problem. Mike Powell was assigned to review Wilco (The Album) where in his review of Wilco (The Album) did he ever actually review Wilco (The Album)? I read him making fun of white people (that's okay with me), complaining about Sky Blue Sky (I'll allow it), bitching about YHF and taking potshots at Jeff (eh, whatever) and then making that stupid fucking Wilson analogy. Buried in this nonesense is about three or four sentences that actually bother to talk about the actual album and I never got a real sense of what is point was, other than that he doesn't like Wilco.

 

--Mike

[jlb1705]

Here's my problem. Mike Powell was assigned to review Wilco (The Album) where in his review of Wilco (The Album) did he ever actually review Wilco (The Album)? I read him making fun of white people (that's okay with me), complaining about Sky Blue Sky (I'll allow it), bitching about YHF and taking potshots at Jeff (eh, whatever) and then making that stupid fucking Wilson analogy. Buried in this nonesense is about three or four sentences that actually bother to talk about the actual album and I never got a real sense of what is point was, other than that he doesn't like Wilco.

 

--Mike

 

This guy wrote the kind of review that everybody who hates Pitchfork thinks they always write.

[MattZ]

Mike Powell is a dick. I am just glad I didn't have to read a review that spent half the time talking about Uncle Tupelo's ashes, and the other half not taking a position. That was my only point.

[Guest Jules]

I found Powell's article amusing.

 

 

[Dude]

Mike Powell is a dick.

 

I found Powell's article amusing.

 

Guess what that makes you.

[Guest Jules]

Hey, I agree he's a dick. It was a funny read is all.

[Dude]

I know, I'm just messing around.

[mpolak21]

This guy wrote the kind of review that everybody who hates Pitchfork thinks they always write.

 

Mike Powell writes for pitchfork also.

 

--Mike

[Dash 7]

And now for something completely different ... http://www.jambands.com/CDReviews/content_2009_06_29.05.phtml

[tareth]

And now for something completely different ... http://www.jambands.com/CDReviews/content_2009_06_29.05.phtml

I think this my favorite review. Thanks for that.

[jlb1705]

Mike Powell writes for pitchfork also.

 

--Mike

 

Yes he does.

 

And as it turns out, he's in his own (shitty) band!

 

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/festival-come-arrow-come/

 

That's not even music for white people. That's music for coma patients.

 

"Wilco" is a five-letter word for the quiet slaughter of all that is elemental, passionate, and reverentially stupid about rock 'n' roll. Try finding a vein on a Wilco album. Oh, Wilco: middle-aged Midwesterners with stubble and suit jackets. Precise instrumentalists who make mushy, edgeless music. Two healthy guitarists who alternate featherlight solos with the sound of breeze and rustle. (The pussyfooters call this "atmospherics." Whatever it is, it's very tasteful.) Wilco: The Band That Rocks, Within Reason. Their peak party moments sound like a good time as described by someone who hasn't actually had one. "I'm trying to balance fun with crushing depression," frontman Jeff Tweedy once said onstage. "Always a challenge." In this band, that's a punch line. Is there anything dangerous about Jeff Tweedy? Is there anything dangerous about a pale father of two, comfortable in soft denim, mewling his way through a prescription-pill addiction with songs about how dishwashing just isn't the same without his wife around?

 

History calls their earliest records, A.M. and Being There, "alt-country"—"country" because such a guise can sometimes make its wearers look more grizzled and wiser than they are; "alt-" because they wanted to look grizzled and wiser without being mistaken for two-bits, social conservatives, and/or drunk drivers. (That's a slight to stereotypes, not country.) When Tweedy went to rehab, he managed to make it look polite.

 

I didn't initially bother listening to their last two albums, 2004's A Ghost Is Born and 2007's Sky Blue Sky, because the preceding one, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, was turgid and boring. Not awful—just turgid and boring. (It was also the kind of superficial great-leap-forward that inspires mind-numbing critical adulation: It won the Voice's Pazz & Jop Poll that year, received a Pitchfork 10.0, and became the new standard-bearer for American art-rock.) The boredom was something I'd come to expect: Wilco's main selling point, after their bittersweetness, was that they were basically a safe ride. But high art seemed like an unnecessary turn from what was already wholesome and dependable. I wasn't ready to hear what happened next.

 

What happened, it turns out, was that Wilco's albums became less turgid and more boring. Sky Blue Sky was hyperbolically so: pale and gentle, the work of a shaky voice and steady hands. The band's sound sighed and expanded—"country" came to mean something as loose and permeable as it did to the Grateful Dead or the Byrds. For an unfortunate spell, Tweedy appeared more focused on his production budget than on what the band produced. They mellowed—the vibrant, candied sounds of 1999's Summerteeth were crushed and drained of pigment. (Most of this had to do with Tweedy being left to explore his own ass with his head after co-founder Jay Bennett—his muscular, earthy, and pop-friendly foil—was ushered out during the recording of Foxtrot. He later sued Tweedy, went to bed in late May 2009, and never woke up.)

 

But the changes to Wilco were mostly superficial. Apart from the addition of synthesizers and poetic verse, about half of Sky sounds a lot like half of Being There, which was recorded 11 years earlier. Tweedy remains eerily detached; the band, despite losing Bennett (among others) and gaining avant-garde mercenaries Nels Cline (on guitar) and Glenn Kotche (on drums), is restrained and careful. It's still rock music in name only.

 

Now here's Wilco (The Album), a title almost as disquietingly bland as the band. A tame, pleasant, weird little album. A friend (and bigger fan than I) thinks it's like the sigh after the 12th step in the program—or, "Whatever the one is where you apologize for everything." (That's the ninth.) Here, the band remembers what they do best and shakes off most of what they don't. Fewer solos than on Sky, nearly as much noise as on Foxtrot, and some of the belabored textures from Ghost, all in good measure. Tweedy sings about accepting limitations and the cruelty of high school kids. He sings about the ways relationships wane and dissolve. He trades some sweet licks with Cline. The band bucks a couple of times, hardest on "Bull Black Nova"—actually, it's the hardest they've bucked on record since before Foxtrot.

 

The 11th step: "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out." The key here is "God as we understood God." Wilco finally seem to have gripped, firmly, what they're good at: heavily supervised rock music with a little bit of grit, a few funny noises and production tricks, and enough bromides and nostalgia amid the poetry to make it hit, glancingly. God's will for Wilco? Maybe it's something like, "Give white people something to relax to." There is no way in this beautiful world for me to object to that.

 

I didn't understand what critics and friends meant when they said Wilco had "matured" because they sang about doing the dishes and mowing the lawn. Teenagers do the dishes and mow the lawn. But most teenagers aren't relaxed. They don't face their shortcomings. They could never see a relationship of ellipses and quiet misunderstandings as one worth having.

 

I also didn't understand what critics and friends meant when they would say things like, "Wilco are the American Radiohead." Wilco are not the American Radiohead. Wilco are maybe six weary Jackson Brownes. Or what sandblasted jeans would say if they could talk. Listening to Wilco is like finding a rainbow between gray and tan.I don't love them for it, but I do respect them, more and more: for sucking the sentimentality out of nostalgia, for managing to never write a single truly happy song, for never writing a truly sad one, either. For never being sarcastic. For being almost spooky-earnest.

 

There's an image I have of Jeff Tweedy I can't shake. In it, he's Wilson, Tim Allen's neighbor on Home Improvement. I remember nothing about the show but Wilson—this inscrutable, all-knowing presence just beyond the backyard fence; the neighbor whose face you never see. Wilson seemed to talk to the world through a film. Apparently, he was born in Chicago. Maybe it's a Midwestern thing. Jeff Tweedy sometimes wears a beard, but even when he doesn't, I feel like I never see his face.

 

After seeing the video of his band performing, I think he's compensating for something in that review.

[Dude]

Yes he does.

 

And as it turns out, he's in his own (shitty) band!

 

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/festival-come-arrow-come/

 

 

Seeing and hearing this, the image that comes to mind is a tiny glass house with a huge pile of stones.

[SMPT]

Here's another interview with Tweedy:

 

 

My link

[Dude]

Brief NY Times Magazine Q&A with Jeff

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/magazine/05fob-q4-t.html?ref=magazine

 

QUESTIONS FOR JEFF TWEEDY

Rock of Ages

 

By DEBORAH SOLOMON

Published: July 1, 2009

Some of us think of your music as mom-and-dad rock, probably because it appeals with equal magnetism to aging boomers and our teenage kids. Wilco is the only current band on which there is any consensus in my household.

That seems to happen quite a bit with this band, which is flattering. I’m not a big believer in the predestined hatred of generations.

 

Although “Wilco (The Album)” was released on Tuesday, you streamed the songs free online in May after they surfaced illegally on the Internet.

As a musician, I don’t want to expend any energy whatsoever preventing people from hearing our music. I think that’s antithetical to the idea of making it. Yes, we streamed it. Basically we set it up so people who felt guilty about stealing our music could donate some money to our favorite charity.

 

Your Chicago-based band strikes me as fundamentally Midwestern in spirit, with its earnest artistry and catchy, country-inflected sound. Do you see yourself as Midwestern?

It never meant anything to me until I traveled to the coasts and realized there are people there who don’t have any idea that anybody lives in between.

 

“Bull Black Nova,” the darkest song on your new album, is a kind of musical panic attack.

It sounds like a phone off the hook.

 

Why is the band called Wilco, which puts me in mind of an insurance company?

It means “will comply” in radio signaling and struck me as an ironic name for a rock band, which is historically responsible for not complying.

 

As a musician who has talked openly about his history of migraines and clinical depression, what can you tell us about your childhood in Belleville, Ill.?

I learned how to play solitaire when I was a little kid, and it always struck me that my mom would teach me how to play as opposed to telling me to go call somebody and get out of the house and hang out with my friends. I was very comfortable with being alone. I also think that my mother maybe just didn’t want me to be too far away.

 

You went to college in Belleville.

I went for three years, and I don’t think I have enough credits to claim myself as a first-semester freshman.

 

Did you consider a future in anything besides music?

I worked in a record store when I was growing up, and I could have seen myself doing that if I wasn’t able to make a living playing music. But, no, I really rolled the dice. I did not have a fallback position. I had one egg in my basket.

 

Your former band mate Jay Bennett died in May of an accidental overdose, just a few weeks after suing you for royalties he claimed he was owed. Do you think his claim has merit?

Jay sued me for breaching a contract we never had and for failing to pay royalties on a movie I did not produce and for which I have no financial responsibility. Jay has been paid his fair share of royalties on the songs he co-wrote — not by me, but through his own publishing, which is the way it works. So, no, I don’t believe his claim has merit.

 

I hear your older son had a bar mitzvah this year. What did you think of the process, as a non-Jew with a Jewish wife?

I was just so proud of my son — he really nailed it. I sang “Forever Young,” by Bob Dylan, and everybody cried. We have a very liberal congregation, and there’s a lot of acoustic-guitar strumming.

 

Let’s talk about your fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama, an old acquaintance of yours. Does he have any taste in music?

We had a little run-in with him on the campaign trail at a fund-raiser because he had just given a list of his favorite iPod tracks to Rolling Stone, and Wilco wasn’t on it after all of the work we’d done for him. It was iPodgate, I guess.

 

How would you describe your singing voice, in general?

Somewhere between Gordon Lightfoot and a tea kettle. I would not get past the first round of “American Idol.”

 

INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED.

[Plumplechook]

Very positive review in DOA:

 

http://www.adequacy.net/2009/07/wilco-wilco-the-album/

 

Wilco - Wilco (The Album)

 

July 2, 2009 by Bryan Sanchez

 

The strength in Wilco’s music was always their successful ability to re-create themselves with every new album. There were the country stylings of A.M., the double album, role reversal of Being There, sharpening their pop leanings with Summerteeth, the experimentation on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the furthering of styles and diversity on A Ghost is Born and the live setting, laid-back feel of Sky Blue Sky. It’s hard to really pin-point a band’s catalog in such a way that it seems off-putting, however, Wilco has always been a band’s band, and one of the best ones, at that.

 

For many, including yours truly, Sky Blue Sky felt like a firm setback after following the sprawling, terrifically-arranged and presented, A Ghost is Born (appearance must be key when you win a Grammy for Best Packaging.) In favor of adopting a jam setting, the band, with newly added guitarist Nels Cline, set out to record in their loft where they could be free and spontaneous. Unfortunately, that album lacked the loose vibe they so tried to convey, and although it was a fine album on its own-I mean, it’s Wilco-it definitely wasn’t their best effort. And now, this brings us to Wilco (The Album), an album fittingly titled: it’s all we love about the band, packed into one awesome album of music.

 

Creativity and sheer musicianship are on the prowl on this new triumph. Forget the fact that as a live band they are gelling and flowing better than ever, the music on Wilco (The Album) sounds effortlessly constructed. When you’re the kind of band that can still make startlingly gripping music without any air of pretention, then you have something to hold your head up high about. And for that, Wilco has every single right and motive in knowing that a cover with a camel, with six empty chairs (one for every member) and with that title and a song, “Wilco (The Song)”, to boast, well, it’s quite all right if you ask me.

 

On the topic of that song, it leads the album in pure vintage Wilco style. An absolute rocking joy to hear, it’s “Can’t Stand It” all over again-a throwback to the band’s sound ten years ago, when they released their best album to date, Summerteeth. And the glory lies in its lyrics, playful but downright serious; it’s an ode of support to any fan of Wilco, when asked “Someone twisting a knife in your back, are you being attacked?” Tweedy re-affirms, “Oh this is a fact, that you need to know…Wilco will love you baby.”

 

Diving deep into a floundering amount of stunning music, Wilco sound like any smart and resourceful band, except here, they are true masters of their craft. “Everlasting Everything” starts off with “A Day in the Life” piano and as those drums roll around the corner, if that’s not Ringo Starr inside the spirit of Glenn Kotche, then I don’t know what to think. The influences are stark and direct and they provide an operable amount of skill; just the mere fact that a band with such a reputation is still channeling The Beatles is utterly remarkable and very welcome. And much like Kraftwerk made an appearance on A Ghost is Born’s eclectic music, “Bull Black Nova” is yet another chiming, repetitive, blurry mess of greatness. Cline’s guitar rattles with feedback, Tweedy’s singing is emotional while maintaining a certain charm and the reverberating instrumental climax showcases the guitars battling in an elusively telling yet, compelling manner.

 

Ultimately amassing as some of the best work the band has ever done, Tweedy’s singing is once again, one of the many stars of the show. His enunciation on “I’ll Fight” is ridiculously catchy, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone not constrained to want to sing in such a rousing and affecting manner. And on his duet with Feist on “You and I,” his vocals are so supremely executed, it’s a back-handed compliment to Feist to note that she truly proves who the better vocalist is, if you get my point. And on the varying set of stops and starts on “Deeper Down,” Tweedy submerges himself in the water-heavy submarine of the music, adjusting his tone and timbre to match the music’s style at that specific time.

 

They’ve been a band for a solid decade and a half now and are continuing to gain new fans with every new release. When you are making music that is this powerful and blisteringly captivating, what can anyone really argue? Wilco (The Album) is just another wonderful and special reason to know that Wilco, as a band, are an astounding band for all to love-or at least as much as they say they love us.

[Frank]

Hey everyone, here's my review of the new album, for what it's worth:

 

http://www.examiner.com/x-427-Chicago-Rock-Music-Examiner~y2009m6d29-Review-Wilco--Wilco-The-Album

[Moss]

Hey everyone, here's my review of the new album, for what it's worth:

 

http://www.examiner....Wilco-The-Album

 

Well done, have to say I agree with it.

[uncool2pillow]

Your former band mate Jay Bennett died in May of an accidental overdose, just a few weeks after suing you for royalties he claimed he was owed. Do you think his claim has merit?

Jay sued me for breaching a contract we never had and for failing to pay royalties on a movie I did not produce and for which I have no financial responsibility. Jay has been paid his fair share of royalties on the songs he co-wrote — not by me, but through his own publishing, which is the way it works. So, no, I don’t believe his claim has merit.

Pretty blunt answer compared to his interview in Time which I'm sure was posted elsewhere.

 

One of the founding members of Wilco, Jay Bennett, recently passed away at the age of 45. What was his legacy to the band?

 

Jay was a really gifted musician, and we worked really well together for a period of time. It was a period where we were becoming much more expansive in our ability to take from a lot of different styles. Jay's [ability] to play different instruments facilitated a lot of that growth. He could grab hold of a lot of styles and be conversant with them.

 

It's a real hard thing to talk about, to be honest. It's been eight years since he's been in the band, and our situation was very tenuous and not very well connected. But it's a tragic end to a brilliant and gifted guy and musician. And that's really sad.

[Guest Jules]

completely different questions.