Official reviews of The Whole Love

[rhino4evr]

the pitchfork review is another slap in the face to one of indie rocks best bands. I realize the idea of Pitchfork is to talk about hot up and coming acts, but when they give total mass market garbage like Watch The Throne high marks, and call the Whole Love "their most inconsistent record" you know something is very wrong. They seem to pick favorites over there, and it really comes across in their review scores.

 

In the end it won't matter what Pitchfork or anyone else says about this record, the fans are the ones to decide if it's a classic or not. Judging by the response on this board, I think we know the answer to that question already.

[rhino4evr]

it really reads like a 7.9 review, the editor must have gotten wind of it and knocked it down a point.

[lamradio]

I just don't know how they gave WTA a higher score.... It got a 7.4... Really?

[roadhse ma]

More of Whole Love review than Central Park NYT 12 hrs ago see below

 

By JON PARELES

Published: September 25, 2011

 

 

In the rain at Central Park SummerStage on Friday night, Wilcostarted its set by implying that it wasn’t going anywhere soon. No snappy opening ditty for this concert; instead, Wilco played the two extended songs that end and start “The Whole Love,” its new album.

 

 

“This is how I tell it/ O’ but it’s long,” Jeff Tweedy sang to begin “One Sunday Morning,” a prodigal-son tale that has a Grateful Dead lilt, a folky instrumental refrain and jam-band tendrils of overlapping piano and guitar. The song repeatedly dissolved into a psychedelic haze and re-emerged, always stubborn about its leisurely pace. Then came a bristling electronic excursion: the cryptic love song“Art of Almost,” which blipped and buzzed with synthesizers over a motoric ostinato, building to a frenetic squall of guitars.

It was Wilco staking out some extremes, and they weren’t the only ones the band visited in a 24-song set that included two-thirds of the new album, which is being released on Tuesday. There were Motown stomps, latter-day garage-rock, quietly finger-picked ballads and howling feedback finales. They reflected “The Whole Love,” an album that reinvigorates Wilco after two unnecessarily restrained ones, “Sky Blue Sky” in 2007 and “Wilco (the Album)” in 2009. Even in the three- and four-minute songs that fill most of “The Whole Love” (dBpm/Anti-), Wilco makes room for the obsessive and the otherworldly.

Wilco has reconnected with its self-reinvention a decade ago, when it was struggling to make and release the album “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” On that album Wilco opened up its music, letting noise, dissonance and other disruptions transmogrify what had been solid, straightforward roots-rock. Feedback, distortion, avalanches of percussion and stray sound effects might appear in a song at any moment; the reassurance of familiar sounds and structures was joyfully undermined. The band played half of “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” on Friday as well, including a near-apocalyptic crescendo in “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.”

By the time “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” appeared in 2002, Mr. Tweedy had ousted his longtime songwriting collaborator, Jay Bennett, from Wilco and replaced the drummer. Since 2004 only Mr. Tweedy and John Stirratt on bass remain from Wilco’s initial lineup. With Nels Cline on lead guitar, Mikael Jorgensen and Patrick Sansone on keyboards and other instruments, and Glenn Kotche on drums, Wilco has become a live band that can go from down-home to hallucinatory — or back — in an instant.

That’s what it did in “Born Alone,” from the new album, in which Mr. Tweedy observes, “Sadness is my luxury.” Most of the song was forthright folk-rock, yet after a few verses the key shifted with descending chords, steady strumming turned to frantic tremolo, the lead guitar hook danced skyward, and the drumbeat swelled into rumbles and crashes: a glimpse of chaos within.

It was a measured glimpse and integral to the song. Wilco never applied noise indiscriminately. In songs from the 1990s like “Misunderstood,” guitars and keyboards were stalwart as ever, as the current band dug into the old dynamics. Then and now Mr. Tweedy puts melody first, while his lyrics flicker between the oblique and the candid. On “The Whole Love” he grapples with self-doubt and self-acceptance, and finds a refuge in love. The structures Mr. Tweedy learned from 1960s rock, pop and soul keep his songs sturdy and clear. But the 21st-century Wilco has more than roots and reassurance: it knows that at some truthful moments, things can get unhinged.

[TLF18]

http://www.anydecentmusic.com/review/3643/Wilco-The-Whole-Love.aspx The UK's answer to Metacritic

 

that's a cool site.

they actually sometimes pick up and link to my reviews on their blog-reviews page:

 

http://www.anydecentmusic.com/blogreview/3643/Wilco-The-Whole-Love.aspx

[Maggie]

the pitchfork review is another slap in the face to one of indie rocks best bands. I realize the idea of Pitchfork is to talk about hot up and coming acts, but when they give total mass market garbage like Watch The Throne high marks, and call the Whole Love "their most inconsistent record" you know something is very wrong. They seem to pick favorites over there, and it really comes across in their review scores.

 

 

I'm not a Pitchfork fan by any means, but I wanted to point this out:

 

So the weird, winsome Whole Love is certainly Wilco's least consistent LP in a while, but inconsistency has its own rewards.

 

I read that as a compliment. Maybe somewhat backhanded, but not a slap in the face.

 

With regard to the scoring, I seem to recall that Pitchfork's ratings are based on more than just the review that we read on the website. So the writer may have thought the record was an 8, but Pitchfork gave it a 6.9. Doesn't make sense to me, but I guess it's their website.

 

Anyway, I thought the review was mostly fair. I don't think The Whole Love is 9 or 10. I'd give it an 8 myself (I agree with others that the decimal points are pretentious).

[D. Boon]

I don't want to nitpick, but let me pick a particular nit that's become a pet peeve of mine: Just about every review of a Wilco album, always and anywhere, has to describe a transition from some form of whimsy Americana to experimental rock that occurred with the stop-start release of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

 

That drives me nuts. Have these people never heard Summerteeth, even once?

 

And while we're picking nits, can someone please write a review of this 2011 album without feeling the need to rehash the story of an album from a decade ago? kthx.

[LouieB]

Decimal points are stupid. What is this the Dewey Decimal System? (Good name for a band though...if your name is Dewey.)

 

LouieB

[bleedorange]

 

I'm not a Pitchfork fan by any means, but I wanted to point this out:

 

So the weird, winsome Whole Love is certainly Wilco's least consistent LP in a while, but inconsistency has its own rewards.

 

I read that as a compliment. Maybe somewhat backhanded, but not a slap in the face.

 

With regard to the scoring, I seem to recall that Pitchfork's ratings are based on more than just the review that we read on the website. So the writer may have thought the record was an 8, but Pitchfork gave it a 6.9. Doesn't make sense to me, but I guess it's their website.

 

Anyway, I thought the review was mostly fair. I don't think The Whole Love is 9 or 10. I'd give it an 8 myself (I agree with others that the decimal points are pretentious).

 

Yeah, I think I remember Solace telling us that the rating is actually a consensus-type rating of everyone there. That's why the reviews can sometimes seem incongruous.

 

I think the score might be a little low, but the actual review was pretty fair. I actually think that once you spend a little more time with this one the lyrical themes throughout the album won't seem as inconsistent.

[choo-choo-charlie]

I don't harbor as much disregard for W(TA) as some others here -- but to me The Whole Love is, um, a wholly better record than its predecessor. I don't see how it could be outranked by it.

[Al.Ducts]

I was a little sore about the score before I realized Pitchfork only has 35 points set aside for a band's career. It seems only 6.9 were left by the time The Whole Love rolled around.

[choo-choo-charlie]

Either way -- critical reception to me at this point is just for reading pleasure (or displeasure). There's nothing that can be said by any critic that will alter my actual enjoyment of this record.

[Shakespeare In The Alley]

Pitchfork scores are always pointless. Read the review itself and it's obvious the reviewer was very impressed. The 6.9 just means this won't be on their album of the year lists.

[jakobnicholas]

Pitchfork gets its jollies by being unpredictable and contrary.

 

A 6.9 rating for "The Whole Love" is unfair. Musically, it's an 8+ album EASILY. Having listened to it many times, it just SOUNDS like a great record. It SOUNDS beautiful and fresh and poppy and rockin'. It's got great pacing. I'm very impressed by it.

 

The reviewer might make a decent point about Jeff's lyrics being random one moment and heartfelt the next. I haven't yet "felt" as many lyrics on "The Whole Love" as on Wilco's best records, and I wish I did, but it's not preventing me from liking to listen to it. I STILL have no idea what Michael Stipe is mumbling on "Murmur" but don't care. I DO know what Lennon is saying on "I Am The Walrus", and it's very bizarre and un-relatable, but I'm not bothered by that either.

[jlb1705]

Full disclosure... I've been a regular Pitchfork reader for the better part of a decade and their reviews are often a factor in my music purchases.

 

I think their review of The Whole Love was fair, and generally positive. The prose wasn't as self-indulgent as many Pitchfork reveiews typically are. I agree with the others who said it read like a review for an album that got a higher score.

 

I began reading Pitchfork in the first place because unlike other outlets that aligned with my tastes, they utilized the whole scale when rating an album. That has changed over the last few years, and they post a lot of chickenshit ratings that end in ".9" - as if they are afraid to commit to the next whole number. This is especially true for a lot of good music that gets rated at 7.9, since 8.0 or higher generally gets their "Best New Music" designation.

[bleedorange]

Full disclosure... I've been a regular Pitchfork reader for the better part of a decade and their reviews are often a factor in my music purchases.

 

I think their review of The Whole Love was fair, and generally positive. The prose wasn't as self-indulgent as many Pitchfork reveiews typically are. I agree with the others who said it read like a review for an album that got a higher score.

 

I began reading Pitchfork in the first place because unlike other outlets that aligned with my tastes, they utilized the whole scale when rating an album. That has changed over the last few years, and they post a lot of chickenshit ratings that end in ".9" - as if they are afraid to commit to the next whole number. This is especially true for a lot of good music that gets rated at 7.9, since 8.0 or higher generally gets their "Best New Music" designation.

 

I still religiously read their reviews and pay very little attention to the ratings each album receives. If the review sounds like something that may interest me, I'll check it out on Spotify and form an opinion.

 

There's no reason to get all upset about any reviews, especially one that reads fairly positive about an album. Not everyone is going to think this is a masterpiece (and rightfully so, at this point).

[Theremin]

Doesn't matter how it sounds, P4K scores just reflect how cool a band is nowadays. Wilco have been in the dad-zone for quite some time now, thus a final score around 7.0 is the best they can hope for. For anyone who pays 5 seconds of attention it's all as predictable as Rolling Stone giving 5 stars to latter day U2 and Springsteen albums.

 

Review itself ain't that bad btw, not sure why exactly this is their "least consistent album" in a while though. Reviewer seems to deduct this out of thin air, or he seems to be confusing conherence with consistency anyway.

[WishfulThinking13]

I just felt like the review read like an 8.0 at least (Even better than some records rated that high) The only somewhat critical comment was the back and forth nature of Jeff's narration, but this is something that he has always been praised for. I think Pitchfork gives high ratings to bands that are very up and coming and "hip" and/or they give bands reviews because they feel like it boosts the current trend in music. Wilco could make a perfect record and they would slap a mediocre number on there.

[bleedorange]

This PopMatters review absolutely nails it, I think.

[auctioneer69]

This PopMatters review absolutely nails it, I think.

 

 

Totally agree.

 

 

 

Wilco: The Whole Love

By Matthew Fiander 26 September 2011

 

 

If you Google “American Radiohead”, you’re going to get a lot of results involving Wilco. Plenty are in reference to a Chuck Klosterman article, but most just mention it as a way to praise the band. But no one seems to be able to illuminate exactly what that means. As a matter of explaining Wilco’s approach to music, or its sound, it explains very little. In fact, comparing them with Radiohead says a good deal more about how our view of these bands has narrowed over time. In some ways, the comparisons are uncanny. Both have debut albums that are largely forgotten, and those who stand by them are considered contrarian. Both have their game-changing “classic”—OK Computer and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, respectively—that have left us struggling to define the bands ever since.

 

Our definition often relies on increasingly unreasonable expectations. We expect their ability to innovate to be exponential.A Ghost Is Born just had Yankee Hotel Foxtrot‘s success to build on/overcome, but Sky Blue Sky had to shoulder the weight of both albums, and so on. With this in mind, we’re quick to define each album as what it’s not—i.e., not Yankee Hotel Foxtrot—and pigeonhole it under some other title. A Ghost is Born was the guitar-solo record. Sky Blue Sky was mellow soft rock. Wilco (the album) was some sort of summation of their sound.

 

This is all reductive and arbitrary, and built too heavily on first impressions. Most of the dismissal of Sky Blue Sky as a tame record—ignoring, for now, the pretensions inherent in terms like “dad-rock”—centers on the languid opener “Either Way” and the uniform production sheen, and ignores the record’s twists and turns. Wilco (the album) seems like a light affair because it starts with the jokey “Wilco (the song)”. In fact, evenYankee Hotel Foxtrot‘s untouchable reputation as dissonant and disconnected is set heavily (though not entirely) in its opener “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”.

 

This view of the records, though, makes them seem far more sonically unified than they are. If Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is disconnected and fractured, that’s because most of what Wilco does deals in these breaks. Even the straight alt-country of A.M. is broken by the darkness of “Dash 7”. The far-flung yet consistently great Being There—which you could argue as their defining record over YHF—is a constant clash of the sweet and the cracked. Wilco is exciting because the band seeks to redefine our expectations for it with each record. And their new album, The Whole Love, continues that cycle to often brilliant effect.

 

The reason it’s constricting to pin Wilco down with definitions is because they are at their best when they pull the rug out from under themselves (and, by extension, us). Opener “Art of Almost” is as jarring as “Misunderstood” or “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”, but it sounds like no Wilco song you’ve ever heard. It’s a clean break, a move to establish a wholly new landscape for this record, and it works. Orchestral flourishes at the start could recall their lush sound on Summerteeth if they weren’t so shadowy and alien. The song blips and squawks behind the bleary-eyed plea of Tweedy’s voice. But if it feels lost, it finds its footing in the fits and freak-outs of guitar that come in crashing squalls at the end. It’s a distinct shift from other dissonant tunes in the Wilco catalog. This doesn’t devolve; it comes together, searching for its shards and knitting them together into one sharp entity. If The Whole Lovemarks a change in perspective, it’s in this. Tweedy acknowledges the lonesome feeling that’s followed him around his entire musical career, but here he often debunks it. The excellent “Born Alone”, for example, may rest on the line “I was born to die alone,” but the triumphant roll of guitars that follows it belies that sentiment. This is the sound of unification, not isolation.

 

So if his lyrics feel occasionally nonsensical—what is a “low blow slo mo” or a “rising red lung glisten[ing] under the sun”?—Tweedy is still very much making representational art here. The feelings the words evoke are backed perfectly by these dark arrangements. “I Might” seems charged with bright energy, but a brittle acoustic and the distorted rumble of bass grind against the sunburst organs, so it’s no wonder Tweedy warns with a grin, “You won’t set the kids on fire, but I might.” “Sunloathe” starts with harmless, dreamy guitar chords, but the rhythm section drags it down into a perfect exhaustion of as Tweedy admits, “I don’t want to lose this fight, I don’t want to end this fight, goodbye.” It’s a subtle moment of clarity for Tweedy, highlighting that moment where we fight just to keep the fight going, because it’s a passionate (if destructive) connection, but the way the song cuts off reminds us of the folly in that play.

 

The songs in the middle of the record are compact tunes, but the arrangements make them feel much larger. The dusty “Open Mind” seems to have little to do with the Bobby Charles-stomp of “Capitol City”, or the crunching rock of “Standing O”, yet the three run together well late in the record. They all have layers drifting loosely around them, a light bed of strings or a cool keyboard that blurs their edges. So while these songs at first seem like separate islands, you realize there are sandbars between them, slight connections to keep things propelling forward. Song for song, the album plays to the band members’ strengths in subtle ways so that you have to really hear the details to appreciate the whole they become. Nels Cline doesn’t shred on the guitar; instead, he uses his knack for texture and atmosphere so that just one note resonates for nearly an entire verse. His work doesn’t call attention to itself here, but it’s some of his best recorded work for the band to date. The ever inventive Glenn Kotche takes a similar path to equally great effect. In the end, though, this record may be bass player John Stirratt’s show. His lines are high in the mix, and offer a playful rise and fall in the gaps and gouges of these songs. While Tweedy keens over the fray, Stirratt digs into it and adds a striking depth to the album.

 

All the band’s strengths come together in the 12-minute closer, “One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend)”. Despite being a somber tune built around a finger-picked acoustic, it’s still a distant kin to “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” since it is similarly built on insistent repetition—in this way, it also recalls Neil Young’s “Ambulance Blues”. But it’s also an utterly unique song, both in this album and it Wilco’s discography. It’s doesn’t build to fitful squalls, doesn’t crumble into static. It sets its course and travels it, rising and falling between hushed melancholy and faint hope. “This is how I’ll tell it,” Tweedy softly sings at the start. “Oh, but it’s long.” In one way it’s an apology, but in another it’s an insistence on the importance of storytelling. Because the details here are hard to follow, there’s familial strife and spiritual disconnection, and the story circles back around to its start on “one Sunday morning”. But as you follow the song, you absolutely feel the story, both the heartache of its facts and the relief that comes in merely telling it out loud. This record can be dark, sometimes cutting and bleakly funny, other times bittersweet, but in the end it speaks of pain not to feed it, but to leave it behind.

 

So while some had started talking like the story of Wilco has been written, like its best days are behind it, The Whole Love proves the band is still moving forward, still changing, even if it’s not in the lofty ways we expect it to. This isn’t a return to form, nor is it an out-and-out reinvention. It’s just the new Wilco album, and like all new Wilco albums, it doesn’t sound much like what came before it. This is what makes them one of the most fascinating bands working, and The Whole Love is a new, vital shard in their splintered discography."

[jakobnicholas]

This PopMatters review absolutely nails it, I think.

Good write-up, but similar raing as Pitchfork (7 out of 10).Music's subjective, but I've decided a rating less than 8 out of 10 for "The Whole Love" is wrong. Case closed.

[Albert Tatlock]

The Daily Star - ooh err missus

 

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/music/view/212462/Wilco-The-Whole-Love-Album-Review/

 

WILCO: THE WHOLE LOVE - ALBUM REVIEW

 

26th September 2011

 

By Jim Hiscox

 

 

IN the week that REM split, the country-rockers are in a good place to take over as musos’ favourite veteran Americans.

 

 

Even after 20 years, they’re trying new tricks – check out moody trance opener Art Of Almost.

 

 

But it’s the rousing, emotional widescreen balladry they do best, and it’s rarely been better than here. It’s the perfect record to start investigating what their whole lotta love is all about.

[Albert Tatlock]

http://www.clashmusi...-the-whole-love

 

 

Wilco - The Whole Love

An excellent return

 

Album Posted by ClashMusic Mon, 26/09/2011

 

 

 

 

dBpm / ANTI

 

Having mellowed in recent years, this eighth studio outing represents something of a rebirth. Inhabiting a world somewhere between the emphatic organ-chug of prime Costello and the more delicate moments of ‘The White Album’, classic hooks and sing-song choruses are prominent, with two exceptions. Album opener ‘Art Of Almost’ emerges from a squall of static into something urgent and convulsing, whilst the twelve-minute ‘One Sunday Morning’ is a lolling, meditative conclusion unlike anything the band has previously recorded. The ten tracks which lie between are effortless and nimble and Jeff Tweedy seems to be a lyricist no longer at war with himself. An excellent return.

 

9/10

 

Words by GARETH JAMES

 

CBS

 

http://m.cbsnews.com...&videofeed=null

 

 

Wilco's "The Whole Love" is wholly enjoyable

 

(CBS/AP) Better than "Wilco (The Album"), the band's new record starts off with a blast. A sonic blast.

With a burst of distortion, Wilco delivers a sign of what is to come over the 12 songs on "The Whole Love" that span the spectrum from plaintive ballad to all-out rockers.

 

Diverse and yet cohesive, "The Whole Love" has more in common with 2002's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" than the band's previous two releases, especially 2009's inconsistent "Wilco (The Album)."

 

You can almost feel the band stretching out in the studio, breaking out the Mellotron, multiple guitars, strings and keyboards, meshing them perfectly with songwriter and lead vocalist Jeff Tweedy's lyrics.

 

"Sunloathe" employs Beach Boys-esque harmonies, "Capitol City" sounds like a jaunty 1930s-era vaudeville shuffle, while "Standing O" may be a little half-baked, but it still washes easily over the listener. The record closes with "One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)," an epic 12-minute heartfelt meditation that's Tweedy at his best.

 

CHECK THIS TRACK OUT: "Born Alone" joins the canon of absolutely chilling Wilco songs obfuscated by a rollicking backing that gets under your skin and stays there. This is not typical pop song fare, as Tweedy declares "sadness is my luxury." And it closes with this stunner: "Loneliness postponed/Mine eyes deceiving glory/I was born to die alone."

[Albert Tatlock]

Saw a piece on JT in The Times this morning. It was the communal office copy and I was going to bring it home to scan, but left without it! I don't have a subscription to The Times online. Because I thought I was going to get it later I only quickly looked over it. There may have been a separate review of the Whole Love but I did not look for it at the time.

 

Things I learnt:-

 

1) JT has an exercise bike in his hotel room these days.

2) Wilco are going to be involved in O'Bama's re-election in some shape or form.

3) I am rather forgetful.

4) errr, that's it.

[bleedorange]

Other than that one blog from No Depression, has there even been one negative review of this album?