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Streaming "The Whole Love"


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The pain in some of the earlier records, though, is expressed in such a sublime way that the songs affect you on a very deep level. But I have all the depth I need with this one (TWL)!

 

Yeah, totally. I don't know all the lyrics yet, but from what I've absorbed there is definitely a pretty deep look into the human experience. There are some sublime, poetic dealings with the idea of suffering. "Born Alone" has a pretty: I been through a shit storm and here's what I've figured out so far.... thing. I think "One Sunday Morning" digs deeper than anyone of us has figured out yet. Something about death and consolation (or lack thereof) in spite of religious skepticism. "Rising Red Lung" is just as big of a bitter-sweet existential sigh as many of my favorite tracks on AGIB.

 

I think some people are too busy reading the mini-bio on Tweedy and not listening to the lyrics. There's something about when popular interpretations of things are disconnected from their actual reality, but it's too late for me to crack that nut tonight.

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Most of the songs from the albums up to AGIB were as good if not better when performed by Tweedy solo than they were with the full band arrangement. This hasn't been the case anymore since SBS, and I suspect it won't be the case with most tunes on TWL. Does it mean that the songs per se are less good or is it proof that the band has improved a lot ?

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Most of the songs from the albums up to AGIB were as good if not better when performed by Tweedy solo than they were with the full band arrangement. This hasn't been the case anymore since SBS, and I suspect it won't be the case with most tunes on TWL. Does it mean that the songs per se are less good or is it proof that the band has improved a lot ?

Well I suspect we'll have to wait and see. In my mind these songs will sound great solo.

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I agree too. There's so much joy & love & redemption & triumph going on in this album. What a tonic for our troubled times! Pain doesn't make greatness.

 

What I've really loved about this record so far is the sheer joy in the music. Good vibes, uplifting melodies and great uptempo tracks. I feel like I'm hearing some tracks by The Beatles that have been locked away.

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Black Moon reminds me of a slowed down Muzzle of Bees...which happens to be my all-time favorite Wilco track.

 

Me too. Hope my ex-girlfriends never get together and compare mixtapes cause that song went on all of them.

 

Some thoughts on this 10-day-old record.

Imagine my surprise when listening to Art of Almost for the first time, in the slower part of Nels solo before he goes to Defcon 9 or 10 whatever the highest Defcon is, I was relaxing at the pleasant rhythm and began humming Lindsay Buckingham's Holiday Road of all things (I heard traces of it in there) and then the hammer dropped. Holy shit is Nels' face going to look awesome when he plays that live, poor guy may burst a blood vessel.

 

Two years ago I jokingly derided the production of You Never Know "what did they crank the eighties Jeff Lynne knob up to ten?" Well I'm quite happy that they brought the Jeff Lynne knob back, kicked it to seventies Jeff Lynne and put those ELO-y distorted vocals on Sunloathe. That one could fit on a George Harrison album, it could fit on a mid-period ELO album, and it could fit on Summerteeth. Like that one a lot. I do love the Electric Light Orchestra (to show them the proper respect) if you can make it through Mr Blue Sky without singing along at the top of your lungs, you are a cooler person than I, my friend.

 

Black Moon is also the name of a mid-seventies Louie Malle film, but I don't know if there is a connection (Moon is one of the few Malle films I haven't seen), paging Beltman to thread...

 

Capitol City and One Sunday Morning have the most plays on my iPod. Whole Love and the Pet Sounds boxset are my most listened to records of Aug/September.

 

--Mike

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Capitol City is the only song from the new album that I skip - I just have this image of Jeff in a straw hat and a red & white striped vest twirling a bamboo cane. ugh.

 

 

But.. I also accept that other folks around here love that song.

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Capitol City is the only song from the new album that I skip - I just have this image of Jeff in a straw hat and a red & white striped vest twirling a bamboo cane. ugh.

 

 

But.. I also accept that other folks around here love that song.

 

It doesn't seem like it should work, but it does. It is by far not my favorite from the new album, but it deserves my attention.

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Guest Speed Racer

I did not like it at first, but it is so out of context with the rest of the album that it makes me think of the speaker holed up in a hotel room on tour, feeling really removed and so out of context with the rest of the city, his family, and so on. A "chin-up" tune where the person clearly isn't feeling cheery enough to sound sincere. I like it now.

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I did not like it at first, but it is so out of context with the rest of the album that it makes me think of the speaker holed up in a hotel room on tour, feeling really removed and so out of context with the rest of the city, his family, and so on. A "chin-up" tune where the person clearly isn't feeling cheery enough to sound sincere. I like it now.

 

Musically, it reminds me of Tried and True.

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Musically, it reminds me of Tried and True.

 

Sir Stewart, if I might quote him here, noted that it sounds as if Pieholden Suite and the Disc 2 Outtasite had a funny looking kid.

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Sir Stewart, if I might quote him here, noted that it sounds as if Pieholden Suite and the Disc 2 Outtasite had a funny looking kid.

 

I think I also mentioned Pieholden suite in an earlier post.

 

I would say Great minds think alike, but SS thinks I'm a moron.

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Having TWL for some days on my ZEN X-Fi2 these are my words (original or not and for starters: sorry for my English).

1. AoA: original beginning, beautiful, strange guitar-solo which doesn’t seems to fit (ALTWYS does it better), great ending.

2. IM: even better than Wilco (The Song)…

3. S.: Beatlesque, nice soundscape, but not my favorite.

4. DOM: secretly one of my favorite, (what a) superb (!) middle eight, but again this strange guitar-solo/distortion/16th-32th notes or whatever. Luckely the whistling brings the song back into focus.

5. BM, a little bit like 3. Like the sound of the high and low strings of whatever that may be.

6. BA: like a perfect popsong, hope to hear this song live! Top 3.

7 . OM: of the slower song on the album my favorite. “Well-balanced”.

8. First ‘Honey Pie’, later ‘Being For The Benefit …” and somewhere in between “What a day for a daydream”. Wilco goes postmodern, it doesn’t get better, but again, not my favorite of the album and maybe the one I am going to skip. But not yet.

9. SO. I also hear “Like A Wheel”, would be a great encore!

10. Like 3, like 5, but these slower songs keep surprising, little twists and turns. Surrounded by great production.

11. TWL: Top 3 of the album. Such a subtile change of key at 2:44 which give the song again a great momentum. Like "Theologians" an instant classic.

12. OSM: Simple, beautiful, touching, haunting and I haven't even started yet. One of Wilco’s greatest tunes. A structure like “More Like The Moon”?

IMHO (at this moment) better than W(TA), on par with SBS (which I like a lot). (They will never make an YHF or AGIB again …)

DOM, BA and OSM are my favorites. It will be harder and harder for Wilco to pick like 25 songs for a great set.

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Black Moon is also the name of a mid-seventies Louie Malle film, but I don't know if there is a connection (Moon is one of the few Malle films I haven't seen), paging Beltman to thread...

I haven't seen it, either! (I'm a mild Malle fan.)

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Capitol City is the only song from the new album that I skip - I just have this image of Jeff in a straw hat and a red & white striped vest twirling a bamboo cane. ugh.

 

 

But.. I also accept that other folks around here love that song.

The song makes me picture an old-timey baseball game. Hot dog vendors with waxed moustaches are involved...

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Capitol City is the only one that I'm not diggin'. Everything else I've either liked immediately or has grown on me. Not that one though. I'm trying but...as much as I love Wilco, that's just an awful song. It sounds to me like it could be part of a soundtrack for a Dudley Moore film or something. Ack. It's bad.

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It's quite possible that I'm crazy, but I hear Sheryl Crow in "Born Alone" -- every time. Not sure which song (must be one of the radio songs - edit: did a little research "Every Day is a Winding Road"), but something about the melody of the verse. I also hear Toto every time I hear the opening to Modest Mouse's "Float On" so it's probably just me.

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