Album Titles - Overall Direction

[u2roolz]

I find it odd that people are surprised that Wilco named an album Star Wars after they had a song called Far, Far Away.

[Heart full of holes]

So, what do you think would have been good album titles?  Too early to speculate on Schmilco, but how about the other releases?

[jff]

Yesterday... and Today should have been simply called Yesterday and Today plain and simple because the ellipses are there to push a new product for Capitol in a bad way.

 

 

That is what it's called.  Look at the album cover.  There are no ellipses.

[jff]

So, what do you think would have been good album titles?  Too early to speculate on Schmilco, but how about the other releases?

 

That's like asking us to rewrite their lyrics.  It's not our business to do that (except for when we used to turn their lyrics into courtroom humor as a joke when Jay Bennett sued the band).

 

I prefer album titles that have some relevance to the band and what they are up to at the time an album is created and/or released.  Or a name that is connected in some way to the songs on the album.  Maybe in time Schmilco will prove to meet that criteria, but Star Wars doesn't and neither does Wilco (The Album).  A name like that implies you're getting a distillation of what Wilco is all about. A definitive statement.  That is definitely not what we got with that album. 

[DiamondClaw]

So, what do you think would have been good album titles?  Too early to speculate on Schmilco, but how about the other releases?

I always thought "Dark Neon" would have been a cool album title (and probably would have made for some cool art). I also think that album would have been better if that track was included — I never did understand how it "didn't fit" when the rest of the songs on WTA were very different from one another to begin with.

 

For Star Wars, no idea. Pickled Ginger, Alien Ache, Knitting the Divide, Flame Creator are each cool nuggets of imagery.

[jbray]

That is what it's called.  Look at the album cover.  There are no ellipses.

True facts. No defense your honor, except I have no idea where my mind got the ellipses from. 

[jbray]

That's like asking us to rewrite their lyrics.  It's not our business to do that (except for when we used to turn their lyrics into courtroom humor as a joke when Jay Bennett sued the band).

 

I prefer album titles that have some relevance to the band and what they are up to at the time an album is created and/or released.  Or a name that is connected in some way to the songs on the album.  Maybe in time Schmilco will prove to meet that criteria, but Star Wars doesn't and neither does Wilco (The Album).  A name like that implies you're getting a distillation of what Wilco is all about. A definitive statement.  That is definitely not what we got with that album. 

I get where you're coming from on a self-titled album, but that seems to be a half truth. The White Album is an amazing album, but it's not The Beatles' definitive statement. There are three Led Zeppelins, more Weezers, Fleetwood Mac is no Rumors, The Clash is a great debut but isn't London Calling. There are plenty of examples that favor your view as well, but it is not the rule. It could be that a self-titled album lends itself more to the idea that the artist or band isn't quite sure how to sum up the album and that is either a good thing or a bad.

[jff]

True facts. No defense your honor, except I have no idea where my mind got the ellipses from. 

 

I may have been the one to introduce them.  I'm currently reading a book about Revolver, and that's how they refer to it.  Actually, they refer to it as "Yesterday"...and Today.

[jff]

I get where you're coming from on a self-titled album, but that seems to be a half truth. The White Album is an amazing album, but it's not The Beatles' definitive statement. There are three Led Zeppelins, more Weezers, Fleetwood Mac is no Rumors, The Clash is a great debut but isn't London Calling. There are plenty of examples that favor your view as well, but it is not the rule. It could be that a self-titled album lends itself more to the idea that the artist or band isn't quite sure how to sum up the album and that is either a good thing or a bad.

 

I don't consider any of their albums to be self titled. To me, a self titled album would have just been called Wilco. Wilco (The Album) implies"If you can only have one Wilco album, this is the one to get!"

[Atticus]

 

Wilco (The Album) had a theme and that was retreading the "Wilco" sound which it did to a fault.

 

Would you mind explaining what this means?

[Blackberry Rust]

 

 

Being There = Named after a mostly forgotten movie. That works.

 

 

Mostly forgotten sure, but an excellent film nontheless and probably Hal Ashby's finest work. Peter Sellars is brilliant in it as well.

 

Probably in my top 10 films.

[Blackberry Rust]

I think the name Wilco Schmilco is a much smarter album title then you guys are giving it credit for.

 

I agree with this. I think there's a lot more to this than simply a tossed off title. For me, Wilco's titles (for their intrinsic worth and occassion non-sequitur names) really do address or frame what each record is about. With maybe one exception which is completely lost on me.

 

A.M. - Obvious radio connotations, a starting point, low fidelity, country-rock, etc.

Being There - The relaities of touring and being on the road and away from loved ones. Themes of being present/disconnected kick in hard.

Summerteeth - I think from this point on the aformentioned themes become a mainstay for the next two records. But I see the title specifically as a homage to 1960's psychedelia, whimsy and surrealist imagery.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Themes of being present but mostly disconnected kick in real hard. That's where I see the reference to the callsign being most relevant.

A Ghost Is Born - Oh boy...alienation, exestential crisis and mortality in spades. Kafka and Camus come to mind.

Sky Blue Sky - Getting out alive and happy to still be here, rays of optimism whilst making an effort to fix up the mess.  

Wilco (The Album) - Now that's fixed, what the hell do we do now? Ah, fuck it - let's coast a little. Bash away on the themes of the previous record with limited success.

The Whole Love - The exception... This is the one that does my head in - I have literally no idea what this album represents. I fall into the slim camp who rate this as Wilco's weakest effort. I just find it lacking direction and purpose. Therefore, I see it's Whole-ness as a bit unintentionally ironic.

Star Wars - On the one hand, it's flippantly meta and nostalgia driven - cosmic, fuzzy and raucous. A title like that at the very least grabs one's attention.

Schmilco - "What's that? Oh, that's clever... I don't care if you don't like Wilco. I like Wilco. (...) What is Wilco? Maybe I'm tired of fronting Wilco."  

[Yaz Rock]

I find it odd that people are surprised that Wilco named an album Star Wars after they had a song called Far, Far Away.

And if you turn up the volume *really loud* just before EKG, you can hear this:

 

"It is a period of War on War. Bull Black Novas, striking from Hotel Arizona, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Kingpin.

 

During the battle, Laminated Cats managed to steal a Box Full of Letters to the Kingpin's ultimate weapon, the BLACK MOON, an armored Airline to Heaven with enough Hoodoo Voodoo to destroy an entire Capitol City.

 

Pursued by the Kingpin's sinister Spiders, Casino Queen races home aboard One Wing, custodian of the Secret of the Sea that can save her people and restore freedom to the Country Disappeared...."

[Beltmann]

And if you turn up the volume *really loud* just before EKG, you can hear this:

Love it!

[lost highway]

The Whole Love - The exception... This is the one that does my head in - I have literally no idea what this album represents. I fall into the slim camp who rate this as Wilco's weakest effort. I just find it lacking direction and purpose. Therefore, I see it's Whole-ness as a bit unintentionally ironic.

 

It's about acceptance- accepting who you are, being accepted by the person in your life.  Both Whole Love in the human relationship sense, and a full confession as Jeff pointed out.  Laying it all down on the table.  I feel like the quasi title track lays the theme out there, also Born Alone in kind of a depressing way, Dawned on Me in a romantic way are songs of acceptance.

 

I remember in the interviews for Sky Blue Sky Jeff said he had always wanted to put out a record with some lyrics that could express his life with his wife in the kinder terms she was deserving of.  I don't really know if that came out on that record, but in a way it does more so on TWL to me.

[Lotti]

I don't consider any of their albums to be self titled. To me, a self titled album would have just been called Wilco. Wilco (The Album) implies"If you can only have one Wilco album, this is the one to get!"

 

Friend,

This is obvious nod to the ABBA at time of full conversion of Mr Jeff Tweedy, no?

Welfare!

[shoesgetcold3]

Considering that three of the last four album titles have been (the album), Star Wars and Schmilco, is it becoming sorta hard to take the band seriously. I should note that I am a lifelong fan, dating back to UT. I've seen Wilco probably about 75x, I've been to two Solid Sounds and I've loved every record up until SW, which I thought was mediocre at best. I've heard the first few tracks on the new one and I'm left scratching my head. They sound, similar to SW, uninspired and going through the motions.

 

Again, I am about as big of a Wilco fan as there is, but......I'm just starting to wonder.....

I have very strong (negative) reactions to this album title, the direction of the music since WTA, and Jeff as a relevant song writer. I'm not bitter, my lack of interest is not an indictment on anyone who loves the album title or music, just something I feel.

 

You should not feel bad, everyone reaches their tipping point at different times and it is usually very personal. There does not have to be a definitive jump the shark moment. Sometimes irrelevance is bubbling for a long time and then one day you wake up read the word Schmilco, listen to the first two songs, remember you didn't care one bit about Star Wars and poof, a band you once loved, swore by, and were deeply associated with is just irrelevant. But my music tastes are ever evolving. I once loved U2, I can't listen to them at all. I once loved REM, but could care less what they are doing today. I once loved Radiohead but that was last decade.

[rhino4evr]

I think Whole Love felt like a "thank you" to their fans. It was the first album with the current line up that felt like a true collaborative record, where everyone seemed to have some influence on the recording. The album was also a ranther lengthy, yet precise record. I always took it as return to form record, where Jeff refocused on production techniques and songwriting.

 

It's a "return to form" record, the album felt like a huge hug to me.

[jbray]

Would you mind explaining what this means?

Sure. This will be off topic though. To be clear, I do like W(tA) and this will make it seem like I hate it but I am roughly overstating for effect. This album has successes and having lyrical themes or musical similarities in no way makes a song bad, just sterile when applied liberally. This is entirely objective, but it seemed that for the first time Jeff and co. paused and reflected on what had worked in the past and tried to incorporate that into the record  instead of branching off into some kind of new territory or style of writing/producing. It was like, "What does it mean to be a Wilco album?" And to me that was: Communication with a band and the fans (Wilco the song - Lonely 1 with a musical dose of Misunderstood/Monday), noises and a non-traditional drum beat Deeper Down - Radio Cure now with all the Nels Cline guitar noodles), spousal abuse/killing (Bull Black Nova - Via Chicago on top of Spiders/Kidsmoke), You and I, the not as good Jesus, Etc with a wasted opportunity in Feist, the traveling wilburys play Late Greats (You Never Know), a cut from Mermaid Avenue (I'll Fight), pop Summerteeth retread buried in Being There (Sonny Feeling), and On & On & On lite. 

 

I left out One Wing, Country Disappeared and Solitaire because those songs both felt like a band moving forward from Sky Blue Sky, strings attached, but different. I really am only disappointed with Deeper Down and I'll Fight. I really was/am thrown off that the same Nels Cline guitar tone from Sky is slathered rather a lot on this record and left a bad taste in my mouth about how it's inclusion had taken the uniqueness away in a band I loved to celebrate for the differences in their records more than the similarities. I'm sure there are plenty of you who hear different references, none at all, or have a completely different opinion but that was what I was specifically referencing and it's only a single person's objective opinion.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

I hate to pile on, but I have to agree with those who have been disappointed with the band's evolution (or devolution) in the 2000s. I absolutely love YHF, Summerteeth, Being There (the songs, if not the overall production of that album), A.M., AGIB and most of the Mermaid Ave. material. Once Jay was gone and Nels came along, I started to lose that wonderful feeling of being compelled to absorb every word and every note. I feel bad even mentioning it, because I like Jeff and have met and spoken with him on a couple occasions - back in the days when the band weren't as successful, and you could walk up to them with a CD and get it autographed - and I know there are plenty of people on the board who are friends of the family. It's been well documented that after the whole migraine/painkiller/rehab experience, Jeff's writing became more domestic in a "positive" way ("I hate it here when you're gone" as opposed to "Beware the quiet front yard"), but for me, I have always felt that there was a noticeable dropoff in the quality of material.

 

I rarely learn how an artist creates their songs, but sometimes they are generous like Jeff and give fans insight in interviews. For some, the words come first, then the music; for some, it's the opposite; and in some cases, it's at the same time. Jeff's writing during the 1990s was so strong, I figured the words came first and he had to find music to fit them. But in later years, I've read where he literally was in the studio grunting sounds over a musical track (I think it was I Might, but someone else might recall better). When I contrast latter Wilco lyrics with the stone classics of YHF, Summerteeth, Being There and AGIB, I find myself at a loss. I know songs like Via Chicago and I Am Trying to Break Your Heart word for word, but I've never been able to even pay enough attention to the work from W(tA) on for the songs to have any staying power. There are a few exceptions, but only because they've gotten lots of play in concert (Born Alone, Art of Almost), but I don't even know those by heart. It's been a disappointment, and seems to parallel the inevitable dropoff in lyrical quality mentioned above in pretty much any artist as they progress through life...from R.E.M. or U2 to Neil Young and Dylan himself. So part of my feeling is from Nels sort of, er Nels-ing it up on every freaking track (think of the ridiculously out-of-place wankery in the middle of Dawned on Me), and the other, main part is Jeff going from lyrics like "rest my head on a pillowy star and a cracked door moon says I haven't gone too far" to "the Magna Carta's on a Slim Jim blood brutha."

 

Don't get me wrong, I'll still buy every new release sight unseen (sound unheard), and as boss_tweedy noted, they've earned it. But it doesn't mean I'm going to play them over and over. I think those days have been gone for a good long while.

[lost highway]

I hate to pile on, but I have to agree with those who have been disappointed with the band's evolution (or devolution) in the 2000s. I absolutely love YHF, Summerteeth, Being There (the songs, if not the overall production of that album), A.M., AGIB and most of the Mermaid Ave. material. Once Jay was gone and Nels came along, I started to lose that wonderful feeling of being compelled to absorb every word and every note. I feel bad even mentioning it, because I like Jeff and have met and spoken with him on a couple occasions .

 

No need to feel bad. I think everyone can agree that the music has changed. I freakin love Star Wars, I love it.  But my relationship with it is different. It's like AGIB and YHF were in my bones the way Joni Mitchell, or Nick Drake can get.  It's a poetic, sonic, deeply emotional conversation that merges with your actual identity as a listener.  Star Wars gets into me the way that Guided by Voices does. It's imaginative, invigorating and joyful, it just doesn't cut as deep. Few things do, I love the Faces, or R.E.M., or the New Pornographers, or ELO, but they don't bare the same kind of weight for me as Bob Dylan, Jawbreaker, Van Morrison, or Sharon Van Etten.

 

When a band sticks around long enough, they can be both (Neil Young has been that and more for better or worse). It's inevitable that what everything means in the conversation is going to change as it goes on for so long. The rarity of something as striking as those middle period albums is even greater than the rarity of some of the purity and whimsy of the more recent ones. We don't get to find much music like this, I think that's why we're here :-)

[brownie]

What a great post, Mr. Heartbreak. I think you've crystallized a lot of what I feel as well. I know every word by heart of so many songs from Summerteeth, YHF, and AGIB. And like you, much of the newer material fails to stick with me in that way, although there are definitely some great songs in there - One Sunday Morning springs to mind, but for me, that one is all about the music and the sound...I couldn't tell you one line from it off the top of my head. To be honest, I'd never quite thought about it this way until I read your post. I had been thinking more that maybe I'm in a different place in my life now, so maybe that's why the more recent songs don't resonate with me the way the old ones do. But wow, Via Chicago gives me goosebumps to this day...I know every word and every note and every sound by heart. It is definitely the combination of the words and music that make that song so memorable.

[rhino4evr]

some real negative nancies in here.

[merkattack]

Sky Blue Sky - Getting out alive and happy to still be here, rays of optimism whilst making an effort to fix up the mess.  

 

I've always been struck by this title being a palindrome, and I wonder sometimes if it's meant to be a hidden clue of some kind. To me, if you take the tracks in reverse order there's a sort of sequence of the dissolving of a relationship: the relationship starts strong ("On and On and On", "What Light", "Walken"), then begins to come apart ("Leave Me (Like You Found Me)", "Hate It Here"), a little pushback ("Please Be Patient With Me", "Side With the Seeds"), the start of some acceptance ("Shake It Off"), returning home ("Sky Blue Sky"), realizing the importance of communication in any relationship ("Impossible Germany", "You Are My Face"), and finally some acceptance to allow for moving forward ("Either Way"). I love this album so much more these days than I did when it first came out.

[Passenger Sid]

the cover art of Schmilco is awesome.

 

Wonder who's idea it was to use this art?

 

I googled the artist. I don't "get" his art. At all. But hey, to each their own.