Making one great album from Star Wars / Schmilco

[March16-20]

I like the last two Wilco albums, but feel like they should have just created one (possibly) great album with 10-12 songs.  I say possibly, because I haven't been able to come up with the perfect sequence yet. Here is my initial thought:

 

1. EKG  

2. Someone to Lose

3. Cry All Day

4. The Joke Explained 

5. Magnetized 

6. Normal American Kids 

7. Random Name Generator

8. Happiness

9. You Satellite

10. Just Say Goodbye

 

Ideas?

 

[lost highway]

I'm disqualified for liking each as its own thing BUT..... if I were cherry picking I'd be sure to include "More". It may have been the bombastic final straw in my car's ailing speakers.

[Passenger Sid]

1. Quarters

2. Taste The Ceiling

3. Someone To Lose

4. Happiness

5. Shrug & Destroy

6. Cold Slope

7. King Of You

8. Cry All Day

9. You Satellite

10. If I Ever Was A Child

11. We Aren’t The World (Safety Girl)

12. Just Say Goodbye

[tinypeopleinthewoods]

1. More...

2. Random Name Generator

3. Cry All Day

4. Someone To Lose

5. If I Ever Was A Child

6. Cold Slope

7. King Of You

8. Normal American Kids

9. The Joke Explained

10. Magnetized

11. We Aren't The World

12. You Satellite

[Winsloe]

1. More

2. Someone to Lose

3. Happiness

4. Taste the Ceiling

5. Cry All Day

6. Random Name Generator

7. Quarters

8. If I Ever Was a Child

9. Magnetized

10. Shrug and Destroy

[linclink]

OK, for me, this is like the old "Make a single album out of "The Beatles (White Album)" threads! In response, I've actually started up- "Make a Triple Album out of "The Beatles (White Album)" by adding extra non-album tracks from the era" threads in response...

So, please allow me here to chime in with these contrarian ideas, raising the flag of the loyal opposition

1) The "Schmar Wars/Stilco Sessions" (hope that phrase sticks )  a second chapter to Wilco's "Great Lost(Found) Double Albums That Never(Ever) Were)". The first involved all the extra material out there from the "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" sessions. All put together there is an incredibly compelling full length album's worth of companion material that works incredibly well in creating a double album.

"Star Wars" and "Schmilco" (or the  "Schmar Wars/Stilco Sessions") produce a unique Yin/Yang (or Yang/Yin if you prefer & we locate things with their chronological appearance) double album of epic proportions & I sincerely couldn't imagine cutting anything from it/them.

2) How 'bout this instead... What about making a triple album from this era instead? Since I couldn't imagine losing any tracks from either of these albums.

I tend to think of this era as one that produced 5 albums (and those 3, count 'em 3, non-album cuts that came out around the time of the Tweedy double- one B-side & two soundtrack songs)... The Tweedy double album, these two Wilco albums & the other Tweedy album that is supposedly "in the can" (believe Jeff said in an interview that it was mixed, sequenced & ready to go, if I am remembering right...). During this era of Suzie's healing journey, Jeff immersed himself in songwriting as part of his process in an incredibly productive & fertile burst of creativity. It all feels "of a piece/era" to me personally.

I love that the Tweedy debut was a sprawling double. I love sprawling doubles! And while I'm glad it was, I can identify my half-dozen second tier tracks on that one. That means there's, 14 songs from that album proper (and, at the very least "Everyone Hides", my fave of the 3 extras... and maybe "Why Why Why" & "Do The Minimum", haven't totally decided) to work with.

So, "Star Wars" has 10 songs proper & an instrumental intro number & "Schmilco" has 12 songs. Then it's how many ever you'd use form the Tweedy double sessions to construct that 3rd album, of roughly equal length...and, depending on how many you use, which ones you might add to either of the two Wilco albums to pad things out & keep things roughly even in regards to number of songs on each/running time etc. ... though going 10/11, then 12, then 14/15 isn't bad either.

So I'll post mine later, but just wanted to creatively be a conscientious objector, with an extra creative, pro-active edge/end to my subjective objection & conscientiousness

What's your triple album from this era look like?

[brucebanner]

Love it, Jeff has been so prolific the last two years, what would a double album in the tradition of the greatest double album ever sound like?  Four sides LP-wise of great music, here is my attempt to make the White Album out of this awesome era of Tweedy/Wilco, B-sides, soundtracks, etc.

 

Side 1

EKG

More…

RNG

The Joke Explained

Common Sense

Nope

You Satellite

Where Do I Begin

 

Initial blasts of guitar noise, Star-Wars style glam, pomp, and shredding, followed by acoustic craziness, guitars drifting and floating and orbiting along, and ending with a recap of the Wilco landscape, full of haunting lyrics and beautiful melody followed by the sound of a train falling off a mountain

 

Side 2

Fake Fur Coat

World Away

Pigeons

Everyone Hides

Low Key

Pickled Ginger

Wait for Love

Happiness

 

Beauty in the bubble gum filtered through the myth of the dry weeds of Guthrie, Zeppelin stomp-Zappa guitar freak-out, beautiful finger-picked common birds, minor/major ear worms, throwing it down in the road, and ending with tales of love and loss

 

Side 3

Normal American Kids

If I Ever Was a Child

Cry All Day

Cold Slope / King of You

Taste the Ceiling

Do the Minimum

Where My Love

 

Can’t mess with Schmilco-sequence perfection for the first three, rolling into some Lennon-style rock and soul, the sweatiest, loudest rock n roll Tweedy ever put on wax, closing with a hymn about what inspires it all

 

Side 4

Locator

Summer Noon

We Aren’t the World (Safety Girl)

Quarters

Diamond Light Pt.1 and 2

Just Say Goodbye

 

Sounds of doom forthcoming, a two-fer that ensures you will listen to this side again, a “grower” that I predict will go down as the most underrated track on many future lists, experimental Tweedy, closing with the classic album ender that Jeff is so darn good at

 

Bonus EP – 6 tracks

Someone to Lose

Magnetized

Nobody Dies Anymore

Why Why Why

Slow Love

Shrug and Destroy

 

Too good to throw away, just didn’t seem to have a way to squeeze them on to the White Album flow I was going for.  Man, are there any other bands going right now out there that can compete with this 2-3 year output?

[linclink]

Love it, Jeff has been so prolific the last two years, what would a double album in the tradition of the greatest double album ever sound like?  Four sides LP-wise of great music, here is my attempt to make the White Album out of this awesome era of Tweedy/Wilco, B-sides, soundtracks, etc.

 

Side 1

EKG

More…

RNG

The Joke Explained

Common Sense

Nope

You Satellite

Where Do I Begin

 

Initial blasts of guitar noise, Star-Wars style glam, pomp, and shredding, followed by acoustic craziness, guitars drifting and floating and orbiting along, and ending with a recap of the Wilco landscape, full of haunting lyrics and beautiful melody followed by the sound of a train falling off a mountain

 

Side 2

Fake Fur Coat

World Away

Pigeons

Everyone Hides

Low Key

Pickled Ginger

Wait for Love

Happiness

 

Beauty in the bubble gum filtered through the myth of the dry weeds of Guthrie, Zeppelin stomp-Zappa guitar freak-out, beautiful finger-picked common birds, minor/major ear worms, throwing it down in the road, and ending with tales of love and loss

 

Side 3

Normal American Kids

If I Ever Was a Child

Cry All Day

Cold Slope / King of You

Taste the Ceiling

Do the Minimum

Where My Love

 

Can’t mess with Schmilco-sequence perfection for the first three, rolling into some Lennon-style rock and soul, the sweatiest, loudest rock n roll Tweedy ever put on wax, closing with a hymn about what inspires it all

 

Side 4

Locator

Summer Noon

We Aren’t the World (Safety Girl)

Quarters

Diamond Light Pt.1 and 2

Just Say Goodbye

 

Sounds of doom forthcoming, a two-fer that ensures you will listen to this side again, a “grower” that I predict will go down as the most underrated track on many future lists, experimental Tweedy, closing with the classic album ender that Jeff is so darn good at

 

Bonus EP – 6 tracks

Someone to Lose

Magnetized

Nobody Dies Anymore

Why Why Why

Slow Love

Shrug and Destroy

 

Too good to throw away, just didn’t seem to have a way to squeeze them on to the White Album flow I was going for.  Man, are there any other bands going right now out there that can compete with this 2-3 year output?

Nice work! Love it!!... I'll put up my triple here eventually too...

 

With 30 songs on your double, you'd have a 5 songs a side/10 songs an album, triple album!! Not to mention your bonus EP... Including those you'd have 36 songs to work with... you could go "Sandanista" here & have 12 songs an album/6 songs a side, for your triple.

 

Mine will be 10/11 of "Star Wars" + 12 from "Schmilco" + 14-17 from the Tweedy releases= working with 36 to 39 songs myself... hijacking the thread for the expansive, rather than reductive, route!!

[parisisstale]

Jeff commented tonight at Rough Trade before playing The Joke Explained that they are re-releasing both albums together next year with the title "Cease & Desist".