Next Wilco Album

[Guest Speed Racer]

If Pat left the band we wouldn't have to worry about that, would we?

[Synthesizer Patel]

i'll fight is the only song i actually liked off the album. not only that, it's one of my favourite wilco songs. actually, what i'd say is make a whole album where the drum and bass are the focal point, or at least the strong foundation for the arrangement. it doesn't mean they have to change their style that much, or jeff tweedy has to change his writing style. my favourite album of all time is bob dylan's john wesley harding, and if you listen to that the drum and bass are fantastic - if you can nail that then you don't need to add that much on top of it for the songs to work.

 

so, to sumarise my two posts. make the drums and bass better, and do some interesting vocal arrangements. simple!

 

here's some folk music with cool drum and bass - it's not hard to do!

 

[Guest Speed Racer]

What is an "interesting vocal arrangement"? You've said this before, and used Summerteeth as a touchstone, if I recall. I really can't see anything on Summerteeth they didn't do here except, of course, Jay's Cookie Monster "oooh"ing.

[Synthesizer Patel]

no, i've never said summerteeth. i don't think wilco have ever done it. i just mean something more than: "here's the lead vocal" and "here are the ooo's and ah's for the chorus" - think of it how they use guitars, they have 2 people or sometimes 3 playing the guitar part, but they are actually playing 3 parts that make a whole, rather than one being the lead and the other 2 just supporting it. i don't want them to sound like the beach boys, but listen to how they use their voices - whilst 1 might be singing the main lead, it doesn't mean the other voices are just singing conventional backing - they are singing intersting parts that are essential to the song. you could remove the backing vocals out of most of wilco's songs and it wouldn't really effect the overall sound or feel. i don't really think that much of the mavis staples album, but there's another example of how vocals can be arranged - "wonderful saviour" stands out by a long way, for me on that album because the vocal arrangement is good, not brilliant, it could be better - but that sort of thing is a start. actually, forget that - cos you're going to say writing call and response songs won't work for wilco. just think of something interesting and then tranfer that thought to vocal arrangements, and voala you're on the same wavelength!

[Guest Speed Racer]

Again - what is an interesting vocal part? I can't think of a single song that would be ruined if the backing vocals were removed.

 

Last time we talked I brought up Sonny Feeling as an interesting vocal arrangement. Like any trick, if you use it too much it would take away from its novelty (*pat*COUGH*sansone*).

 

ETA: Wilco's done call and response. You can only do that on songs it works for, and I can't think of a single song on W(TA) or SBS that it would work for.

[Synthesizer Patel]

sonny feeling really isn't very interesting at all.

 

listen to this. ignore whether or not you like it. all i want you to hear is how vocals can be arranged other than the standard method wilco employ.

 

i'm only mentioning this because it's out this year, and shows what i mean. i could pick songs from any era and any style of music that use interesting vocal arrangement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiLqAu4s-_s

[Guest Speed Racer]

I'm at work so that'll have to wait. Want to paint me a picture with your words in the meanwhile?

[Synthesizer Patel]

nope. i don't know why you don't know what i'm talking about. i should have probably found something better to demostrate what i mean, because although that song does explain it, i imagine that you'll not like it, and therefore miss the point.

 

listen to The Beatles Getting Better. that essentially is a call and response song a lot of the time, but it's still a rock/pop song. just the fact that paul is singing Getting Better and the backing is singing "It can't get no worse" is a simple way of how the backing vocals can actually be essential to the song, never mind the sound they produce and interest they produce during the rest of the song. that's a very simple vocal arrangement by some other people's standards and yet it's still on another level than anything wilco have ever done.

 

i just think that focusing on something like that can drastically alter their sound without actually having to change musical styles, rather than go all avant garde and weird - that's not what i mean by doing something interesting, anyway.

[Guest Speed Racer]

You hold up a song like "Getting Better," and Wilco have done stuff like that. "Candyfloss," "Someday Soon," "Sonny Feeling" (which you don't like, so you can't see that? I "imagine" that's why you think I won't catch the "interesting" vocal arrangement in the song you posted). And you continue to use derivitives of the word "interest," which is altogether not descriptive. My work is interesting, but it does not add to a vocal arrangement.

 

Wilco have never, ever been avant garde. Ever. Everything they have written and recorded is singer-songwriter style with pretty straightforward arrangements. Even their "weird" stuff is really not that far outside anything we've heard before. Feedback in front of lyrics and guitar does not equal "avant garde."

[Sir Stewart]

 

Not saying it's a terrible album, in fact the songs are all amazing - amazing album - but the zeitgeist production completely ruined the product.

 

Are you sure you're not confusing the titles Born To Run and Born In The USA?

[cryptique]

Are you sure you're not confusing the titles Born To Run and Born In The USA?

That's what I was thinking. BITUSA sounds much more dated to me than BTR. In fact, I think the production on Born To Run stands up pretty well today.

[Guest Speed Racer]

That's what I was thinking. BITUSA sounds much more dated to me than BTR. In fact, I think the production on Born To Run stands up pretty well today.

 

Ha, no, I generally think of the song itself (BTR) when I think of the terrible production. The opening bars just reek of mid-70s production. BITUSA is no better. Poor guy really got shafted with producers.

[Sir Stewart]

Ha, no, I generally think of the song itself (BTR) when I think of the terrible production. The opening bars just reek of mid-70s production.

 

I'm starting to wonder if you have ears.

[Guest Speed Racer]

You've got to be kidding. I cannot be the only person in this world who hears the dated production. Again, I'm not saying it's a terrible album, but there's no question when you hear it that the production is straight from the 70s.

[cryptique]

Whatever it is you hear, I think it may be the arrangement more than the production. The production is pretty nondescript.

[Sir Stewart]

You've got to be kidding. I cannot be the only person in this world who hears the dated production. Again, I'm not saying it's a terrible album, but there's no question when you hear it that the production is straight from the 70s.

 

I guess, sure, you can tell it's from the 70s. But I have no problem with it. Sometimes dated production is a negative, not in the case of BTR though, for me.

[Guest Speed Racer]

Whatever it is you hear, I think it may be the arrangement more than the production. The production is pretty nondescript.

 

It's something in the guitar sound, mostly. That main riff. You might be right that it's the arrangement, but in that case it's a terrible arrangement start to finish for the album.

[mountain bed]

Califone has done a great job of scratching my YHF-AGIB itches.

 

--Mike

This.

 

I've probably listened to AMFAFS over WTA by a 10-1 margin.

[Synthesizer Patel]

You hold up a song like "Getting Better," and Wilco have done stuff like that. "Candyfloss," "Someday Soon," "Sonny Feeling" (which you don't like, so you can't see that? I "imagine" that's why you think I won't catch the "interesting" vocal arrangement in the song you posted). And you continue to use derivitives of the word "interest," which is altogether not descriptive. My work is interesting, but it does not add to a vocal arrangement.

 

Wilco have never, ever been avant garde. Ever. Everything they have written and recorded is singer-songwriter style with pretty straightforward arrangements. Even their "weird" stuff is really not that far outside anything we've heard before. Feedback in front of lyrics and guitar does not equal "avant garde."

 

i don't hold it up, i think i quite clearly said that Getting Better was a very simple form of what i concider to be an interesting vocal arrangement, and i mentioned it because you said wilco couldn't do call and response backing, which was in itself a reference to a song i said had interesting vocals, but which i didn't necessarily think wilco should do. i was just naming something that i was pretty sure you've actually heard. i can't really talk about something if you've got no frame of reference, and i'm getting the strong whiff that you don't on this matter, so it's probably best to not try.

 

you clearly aren't even reading what i write. if you go back and read it, then your whole last paragraph is just saying what i said. judging from that, i can assume you're never going to understand what i mean anyway.

 

as for Born To Run, the production is a 1970s version of the 1950s (edit 1960s - i meant, der!) Phil Spector Wall Of Sound. just that fact alone makes it not dated - because it already spans two decades in it's sound. unless it was outdated when it first came out. the album before it, The Wild, The Innocent etc... is the album that sounds like it's from the 1970s. people just use the word dated to mean something they listen to now and think "why did i like that crap?" BTR isn't a very good example of this, as people still love it.

[bjorn_skurj]

Kids today...

I am going to be 43 next month, just so you know.

[bjorn_skurj]

both SBS and the parenthetical really muffled Glen's drums in my opinion. I much prefer the live outtakes to the SBS studio cuts. I hope they bring back some clarity in the mix as far as Glen.

It's almost to the point where Wilco studio albums are like Grateful Dead studio albums - not bad in and of themselves, but pale in comparison to the live experience.

[Synthesizer Patel]

Whatever it is you hear, I think it may be the arrangement more than the production. The production is pretty nondescript.

 

when i talk about production i always include the arrangement in that term. i'm not entirely sure why people get confused when i do, cos it's happened before - not that you have, it's only that you've split the two up here, now. it's like building a car on the "production line" - the parts you use and the order you put them together are a part of that production, just as much as the paint-job you put on top.

[bjorn_skurj]

You've got to be kidding. I cannot be the only person in this world who hears the dated production. Again, I'm not saying it's a terrible album, but there's no question when you hear it that the production is straight from the 70s.

You say that like it's a bad thing, though, but I can assure you, the '70s ruled.

[Guest Speed Racer]

you said wilco couldn't do call and response backing,

 

ETA: Wilco's done call and response. You can only do that on songs it works for,

 

You hold up a song like "Getting Better," and Wilco have done stuff like that. "Candyfloss," "Someday Soon,"

 

you clearly aren't even reading what i write.

 

That was cute.

[Moss]

You say that like it's a bad thing, though, but I can assure you, the '70s ruled.

 

 

Yes. Nothing from the 70's sounds dated to me really. The 80's on the other hand...