Published Wilco (the album) articles and reviews

[W(TF)]

I think he botched the Country Disappeared lyrics a bit too.

 

Shouldn't it be---

“So every evening we can watch from above/crush the cities like a bug/ fold our selves into each other’s guts/ turn our faces up to the sun.”

?

[monster]

WTA review from the SBS loving (and possibly dyslexic) Russell Baillie of the NZ Herald;

 

NZ Herald

 

And another from Radio NZ - the Wilco section is at the start of the podcast.

 

Radio NZ

 

Some nice observations (apart from the tenuous Crowded House comparisons at the end; I think the only thing the two bands have in common is that they can both pay homage to the Beatles yet still sound unmistakably like themselves).

 

Album also got a really nice 5 star review in NZ music monthly Real Groove (not available in online version yet)

 

So lots of favorable coverage for WTA down here - maybe record first week album sales from NZ as well for the boys (which will be about, um, 99 units....)

[newbornghost]

Here's a full interview from the Washington Post:

 

 

"Return to form" is one of the most overused phrases in rock criticism, and maybe not wholly applicable to "Wilco (the album)," but it is sort of striking that you can hear echoes of all of the prior iterations of the band here. I wonder if by self-titling the album you're acknowledging that quality it has of summing up your history. Is there something about this stage of Wilco that makes you feel comfortable not rejecting a song just because it reminds you of an earlier era of the band, as you might've in the past?

Well, yeah. This a really confident-sounding record to me. We're very confident and comfortable being Wilco, maybe moreso than ever before. I don't disagree with there being a summing up. Obviously, "return to form" is always kind of a backhanded compliment. [Laughs.] I expect I'll be seeing a fair amount of that for every record I make from here on out. You get to a certain point where you've made so many records that every one is gonna be a return to form for somebody, I suppose.

 

I think it is a summing up. Maybe it grows out of the experience we had doing the [Feb. 2008] residency shows in Chicago, where we played the entire Wilco catalogue in five nights. This lineup of the band has been around long enough to kind of lay claim and ownership to all of that material. Maybe "Sky Blue Sky" could have been a debut record for this version of the band if we weren't so skittish about how long our lineups last, you know? But after having that under our belt, and a live album [2005's "Kicking Television"], this feels like as good a time as any to put out a debut album. [Laughs.]

 

So, Jeff conceded that maybe this album is a 'summing up.' Got me to thinking about which songs on W(TA) triggered associations to which albums. Feel free to disagree/offer up your own:

 

Wilco (The Song) - Summerteeth

Deeper Down - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

One Wing - A Ghost Is Born

Bull Black Nova - A Ghost Is Born

You and I - hmmm...

You Never Know - A.M.

Country Disappeared - Sky Blue Sky

Solitaire - hmmm...

I'll Fight - Sky Ble Sky

Sonny Feeling - Being There

Everlasting Everything - Summerteeth

[Gobias Industries]

I think it reaches a lot deeper than just Wilco's catalog. Not just a summing up of Wilco's work, but of all the work that previous people had done that have influenced them greatly. I could see Richard Manuel do "Country Disappeared" with remarkable taste, the obvious George Harrison/Tom Petty read for "You Never Know," and perhaps even Lennon stepping up to do "Everlasting Everything"...it's very Lennon-ish in what it's trying to do.

[Sir Stewart]

Sonny Feeling - Being There

 

This one is so Summerteeth-esque, to me. It's got that nothingsever / always in love / elt energy.

[Guest Jules]

This guy doesn't seem to like the album.

 

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/music/index.ssf/2009/07/wilco_returns_with_sharper_wit.html

[Shakespeare In The Alley]

I didn't think Wilco was at a " place of critical mass at where they can seemingly do no wrong."

 

SBS was not exactly rapturously received, and WTA is getting a lot of good reviews, but it isn't being universally hailed as perfection.

[mahinty]

WTA review from the SBS loving (and possibly dyslexic) Russell Baillie of the NZ Herald;

 

NZ Herald

 

And another from Radio NZ - the Wilco section is at the start of the podcast.

 

Radio NZ

 

Some nice observations (apart from the tenuous Crowded House comparisons at the end; I think the only thing the two bands have in common is that they can both pay homage to the Beatles yet still sound unmistakably like themselves).

 

Album also got a really nice 5 star review in NZ music monthly Real Groove (not available in online version yet)

 

So lots of favorable coverage for WTA down here - maybe record first week album sales from NZ as well for the boys (which will be about, um, 99 units....)

 

Thanks for posting.

 

I really liked Nick's review on National Radio - he's a very articulate and knowledgeable guy. It was a good follow up to his excellent analysis of the AOAF DVD (which is unfortunately no longer available for download).

 

To the rest of you - there's only a few days left to grab the album review - definitely worth a listen.

[Preferred B]

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune, an interview with Jeff and more Q&A.

[rareair]

Thanks for posting.

 

I really liked Nick's review on National Radio - he's a very articulate and knowledgeable guy. It was a good follow up to his excellent analysis of the AOAF DVD (which is unfortunately no longer available for download).

 

To the rest of you - there's only a few days left to grab the album review - definitely worth a listen.

 

agreed. good stuff. iggy pop's new album was worth a listen as well.

[i'm only sleeping]

This guy from Dusted does seem to really hate WTA

 

 

“Wilco is a Great Band, if you like stuff that’s boring. And a lot of people seemingly do”

 

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/5120

 

However, his review of the last Akron/Family album, opening band for recent Wilco shows in Spain, reveals that his musical tastes and mine are in the antipodes. I used to enjoy this band...until I saw them live. One of the worst and most boring shows I've been in my (long) life.

[stvanderwoude]

Robert Christgau on WTA:

 

Wilco: 'Wilco (The Album)' (Nonesuch)

Grade: A MINUS

 

"Come on children, you're acting like children/Every generation thinks it's the end of the world," begins the candidly catchy centerpiece of these lost-and-found tradsters' best album. Not a sentiment likely to flatter up-and-going bloggerati who consider "boring" an objective descriptive. But having come through his drugs-and-romance travails as well as the departure if not death of most of his original sextet, Jeff Tweedy doesn't give a tweet. He's as proud as he always should have been of the reliable songcraft and affable singing presupposed by the lead "Wilco (the song)," which promises "dabblers in depression" that "Wilco will love you." There's more existential acceptance than existential despair in the embattled "I'll Fight" and the enlightened "Deeper Down." But that just makes the ones about apocalypse and murder seem earned -- "Bull Black Nova" is disturbing like nothing in their pomo phase ever was.

 

http://music.msn.com/music/consumerguide/?photoidx=10

[Dude]

Wilco: 'Wilco (The Album)' (Nonesuch)

Grade: A MINUS

 

What a goof. Here's his other ratings:

 

A.M. [sire/Reprise, 1995] ***

Being There [Reprise, 1996] B+

Summerteeth [Reprise, 1999] **

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot [Nonesuch, 2002] *

A Ghost Is Born [Nonesuch, 2004] B-

Sky Blue Sky [Nonesuch, 2007] B+

 

His review of Summerteeth and YHF:

 

Summerteeth [Reprise, 1999]

Old-fashioned tunecraft lacking not pedal steel, who cares, but the concreteness modern popcraft eschews ("Summer Teeth," "She's a Jar"). **

 

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot [Nonesuch, 2002]

purty music, but I yawn like a lawn when I hear him recite ("Jesus, Etc.," "I Am the Man Who Loves You") *

[Shakespeare In The Alley]

Christgau is, without a doubt, the music infuriatingly shitty music critic I've ever seen.