Official reviews of The Whole Love

[junkiesmile]

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesnt the lyric "you wont set the kids on fire" mean the younger generation isn't going to be fired up by his music and Jeffs thinks they might?

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

Spin 8 / 10

http://www.spin.com/...whole-love-dbpm

 

And that photo is doing the rounds

 

Worst

Review

Ever

 

Even the blogholes are better than that.

[rhino4evr]

Any review that doesn't mention One Sunday Morning in the text is an automatic failure. How can you not mention the most iconic song on the record? Fail

[Autumnteeth]

Can't wait for the vinyl version. Upgraded the turntable in anticipation. Read an interview on here somewhere that the vinyl version of One Sunday Morning runs two minutes longer. And there is a bonus song. Plus I have a feeling that some of the real layered songs, Art of Almost, Black Rain, Open Mind, Red Rising Lung, Whole Love, and One Sunday Morning will reveal sounds that I have yet to experience.

[worldrecordplayer]

Any review that doesn't mention One Sunday Morning in the text is an automatic failure. How can you not mention the most iconic song on the record? Fail

Agree.

[Magnetized]

Can't wait for the vinyl version. Upgraded the turntable in anticipation. Read an interview on here somewhere that the vinyl version of One Sunday Morning runs two minutes longer. And there is a bonus song. Plus I have a feeling that some of the real layered songs, Art of Almost, Black Rain, Open Mind, Red Rising Lung, Whole Love, and One Sunday Morning will reveal sounds that I have yet to experience.

I haven't had a turntable for 30 years, but I've been thinking about getting one (as well as a new . . receiver and speakers) for a while now. Finally went out and did it last night. The anticipation of listening to this on vinyl is what finally pushed me over the edge. I just upgraded my pre-order to get the vinyl.

 

And now, of course, I'll have something new to obsess about--haunting used record stores, regretting that boatload of LPs I practically gave away years ago. . . Ah well, can't live in the past.

[Albert Tatlock]

Sydney Morning Herald

4.5 / 5

 

http://www.smh.com.a...0915-1ka65.html

 

 

Review: Wilco

Bernard Zuel

 

September 17, 2011

 

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Good god, this has been a stellar year for music. P.J. Harvey, Kanye West and Jay-Z, James Blake, Holly Throsby, Radiohead, Abbe May, Gurrumul, Fred Smith, the Unthanks, Ron Peno, Jamie Hutchings and Gillian Welch have made important - maybe even great - albums.

 

You can now add Wilco's eighth album to that list. Right at the very top, alongside Harvey.

 

It is no surprise The Whole Love is more than good, because they have been on a roll for some time and as a friend put it recently, 2009's Wilco (The Album) is the gift that just keeps giving. But this is the sound of a songwriter, Jeff Tweedy, and a band in complete control of their many and varied abilities.

 

If Wilco want to assay country rock or electronic pulse, if they feel like making a pop song one minute and a ballad the next, if they want to laugh at themselves then flip it to focus on weak points, well, they can. Hell, if they want to open the album with a drawled melody adorning a drone built on fuzzy electronics that cranks up to a Neu!-esque motorik beat then explodes, six minutes in, into a fabulous guitar wig-out for another minute, you can't complain.

 

And if they want to close the album with a 12-minute wonder that begins with acoustic guitar and almost reluctantly sung words chronicling a complex discussion on faith and hope, wanders through a verdant valley of mood and beauty as piano intervenes and leaves again through a slyly humorous country bass line that takes the listener beyond the horizon, well, dammit, be grateful.

 

As you can tell from the guitar in the opening song, Art of Almost, Wilco have addressed the only complaint I had about the last album: the relative diminution of the often spectacular work of guitarist Nels Cline. He and Tweedy spar and play marvellously, regularly, spiking up Born Alone like early '70s Eno and jumping on the seriously swinging glam of I Might as comfortably as they delicately work through the rootsy Whole Love. But then their playing is matched by John Stirratt, Glenn Kotche, Patrick Sansone and Mikael Jorgensen on the late Beatles-esque splendour of Sunloathe and Dawned on Me, the atmospheric warmth of Rising Red Lung and the eased-on-down of Black Moon and Open Mind. Then, as if to show off how good they are, adroitly manoeuvring through the double act late in the album of the speakeasy cabaret Capitol City (what Paul McCartney might call a song your mother would know) and the organ-pumped, jumping bit of new wave, Standing O, which should come with its own skinny black tie.

 

This is in a sense Wilco's White Album but with the brilliant consistency of Revolver. Yes, it's that good.

[choo-choo-charlie]

Very good review, other than a slightly predictable, well-worn phrase: "Neu!-esque motorik beat."

[ih8music]

Reading that review one wonders what it takes to get a 5/5 from that guy!

[Ghost of Electricity]

this is way off base. he didn't even use the phrase "ashes of..." once. Not a single mention of rehab or migraines. "The American Radiohead" doesn't make an appearance either. obviously dude has not done his homework.

[choo-choo-charlie]

A "slyly humorous country bass line" makes me think of the background music in some old ad for Super 8 Motel.

[Albert Tatlock]

Another Aussie review, and a mixed one in this case -The Vine

 

http://www.thevine.com.au/music/album-reviews/wilco-'the-whole-love'20110917.aspx

 

 

[Autumnteeth]

Another Aussie review, and a mixed one in this case -The Vine

 

http://www.thevine.com.au/music/album-reviews/wilco-'the-whole-love'20110917.aspx

 

I don't think I have ever read a review that missed the point as badly as this guy did.

[bleedorange]

 

I don't think I have ever read a review that missed the point as badly as this guy did.

 

What point did he miss? Seemed like a fair review to me.

[Albert Tatlock]

Eagle Tribune - not a review but some words from Nels regarding making of the new one.

"breadbasket" - nice.

 

http://www.eagletribune.com/lifestyle/x2127773155/Wilco-lands-in-Boston-with-Whole-Love-tour

 

September 18, 2011

Wilco lands in Boston with 'Whole Love' tour

By Alan Sculley

Correspondent

 

During Wilco's seven-studio-albums deep career, singer/guitarist Jeff Tweedy has been viewed as the musical brains behind the critically acclaimed band. But in talking to Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, it is immediately apparent that while Tweedy is the band leader and songwriter, other voices are being heard and honored in the recording studio.

When the new Wilco CD, "The Whole Love," hits shelves Sept. 27, fans will find that multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone, in particular, had a big hand in helping make the record what it is.

"Well, Pat has a lot of ideas generally. I mean, he's very vocal," Cline said in a phone interview in advance of a Sept. 20 show in Boston.

"I think he was just so full of ideas, and I don't know, there was certainly not a spoken alliance that emerged with Jeff and Pat on this record," he said. "I think it was an organic one. But the next thing I knew, Jeff was kind of sitting back and letting Pat try anything and everything."

In the end, Sansone's contributions to "The Whole Love" were significant enough that he was given co-production credit, along with Tweedy and Tom Schick. This is the first time a band member other than Tweedy has been recognized as such on a Wilco CD, though the band as a whole has gotten production credit on several other recordings.

Tweedy formed Wilco in 1994 after the split of Uncle Tupelo, the influential country-inflected rock band that he co-fronted with Jay Farrar (now of Son Volt).

From the start Wilco was viewed as Tweedy's group. And a series of personnel changes that occurred prior to 2004 left Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt as the only remaining band members, further reinforcing the notion that Tweedy was running the whole Wilco show.

Cline, Sansone, drummer Glenn Kotche and keyboardist Mike Jorgensen complete a lineup that has been in place ever since 2004. Cline said a collaborative atmosphere in the studio has existed on all three CDs this lineup has recorded - 2007's "Sky Blue Sky," 2009's "Wilco (The Album)" and now "The Whole Love."

"There was a lot of freedom for sure and a lot of experimentation and a lot of ideas just put out there," Cline said of "The Whole Love" sessions. "We were able to see what made the cut without getting to precious about it."

As a result, some songs, such as "Art Of Almost" and "Sunloathe," underwent considerable transformations. But a couple of other songs — "Black Moon" and "One Sunday Morning (song for Jane Smiley's boyfriend)" — much of original demo recording was used on the finished track.

In the end, the 12 songs that made the cut for "The Whole Love" make up one of Wilco's more eclectic efforts. The record has gentle, largely acoustic tracks like "Black Moon" and the 12-minute "One Sunday Morning (song for Jane Smiley's boyfriend)." There are also several compact poppy rockers ("I Might," "Dawned On Me" and "Standing O") that feature immediately enticing hooks. A couple of other catchy songs stretch out a bit more with instrumental segments ("Born Alone" and "Art Of Almost").

Cline is very pleased with the finished CD.

"This record has some pretty strong bold rock with big choruses," he said. "It's not super heavy, but I think it still packs a punch. I think that's what I like about the sort of pop-rock songs on this record is that as poppy as they might be, they still have some crunch and a couple of good blows to the breadbasket."

[stooka]

I hope all the Pat haters read that interview.

[heyhey]

a review of The Real Love!

 

http://planetill.com/2011/09/album-review-wilco-the-real-love/

[Mr. Heartbreak]

a review of The Real Love!

 

http://planetill.com...-the-real-love/

Hilarious. I'm thinking maybe that reviewer writes/speaks English as a second language...?

[Shakespeare In The Alley]

But then how did he get a prestigious job writing for Planet Ill?

[uncool2pillow]

prestigious

?

[Magnetized]

?

 

I assume "prestigious" was said with extreme sarcasm. That was the most amateurish, regurgitated piece of crap I've ever read.

[Autumnteeth]

 

What point did he miss? Seemed like a fair review to me.

 

I should have been more clear as to what I was referencing. The point is that this isnt YHF, it The Whole Love,and holding one album to the standard of another isn't right. If they wanted to remake YHF I believe they could. The line "The Whole Love isn't a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot freakout or mad gasp of creative freedom" completely misses the point of the album. It wasn't intended to be a YHF freakout. It is what it is. If critics, or fans for that matter, want to hold an artist or artists to their ideal past work it isn't a review, it is a comparative analysis. That is the point I believed the reviewer missed.

[Autumnteeth]

I am not one of the lucky with an advanced copy. I am working on what I remember from the streaming. I read this in the review. Is this from Black Moon "I was always right about the morning, OK I am an old shoe"

[Shakespeare In The Alley]

 

I should have been more clear as to what I was referencing. The point is that this isnt YHF, it The Whole Love,and holding one album to the standard of another isn't right. If they wanted to remake YHF I believe they could. The line "The Whole Love isn't a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot freakout or mad gasp of creative freedom" completely misses the point of the album. It wasn't intended to be a YHF freakout. It is what it is. If critics, or fans for that matter, want to hold an artist or artists to their ideal past work it isn't a review, it is a comparative analysis. That is the point I believed the reviewer missed.

Totally disagree here. I think the most logical comparison for a new Wilco album is past Wilco albums. That doesn't mean holding it to those past albums' standards, or that the comparisons will even have enough merit to begin with, but why wouldn't you compare TWL to what's come before it? Makes more sense than comparing it to non-Wilco material.

[Autumnteeth]

Totally disagree here. I think the most logical comparison for a new Wilco album is past Wilco albums. That doesn't mean holding it to those past albums' standards, or that the comparisons will even have enough merit to begin with, but why wouldn't you compare TWL to what's come before it? Makes more sense than comparing it to non-Wilco material.

 

I just don't see it. They are ten yearls older, and "they" is subjective in that it is a new lineup, O'Rourke is out of the picture, and the album reflects where they are now, not where they were then. I can easily compare a lot of classic rock bands, say an ACDC, album by album, because they never change. I could never take a Wilco album from today and compare it to one from the past. I once heard a guy say that the Flaming Lips Yoshimi.. sucks because they didn't carry forward the sound they had on Soft Bulletin, that Yoshimi was too "techno". I still think if Wilco wanted to make a "YHF freakout" album they could. They chose not to, they are past that. And instead of holding them to the same standard as in the past, I hold them to a higher one because they have been together long enough to express exactly what they want, how they want, and I think they did. If Whole Love was a YHF update I would have canceled my deluxe cd and vinyl order as I would be embarrased to stroll around with the tote bag. I am going to wear it loud and proud. Until my wife decides it is too much and "accidentally" throws it away like my white Chuck Taylor All Star high tops.