"Ode To Joy" Reactions

[Magnetized]

Hey Diane, Andrew Zender here. That Facebook group has gotten out of control. I don’t blame you one bit. I’ve gotten drawn into far more spats than I care to admit, and there’s definitely a strong vibe of personal attacks. The concept of “your opinion is wrong” runs rampant. The weekly “what’s the worst Wilco song?” or “rank the album” threads are getting really annoying. I’ve considered unfollowing and may have just talked myself into it.

I hope you don’t leave just yet. It seems to be getting a little better now that people are actually going to shows and sharing their excitement. But I understand the frustration, believe me.

[sinko25]

It happens to every Facebook group that gets to a certain size. Not the moderator's fault. It's really just a terrible website, I really wish humanity had collectively decided on some other way to keep in touch with literally everyone...

[bleedorange]

Hey everyone!

 

It has been a while since I've posted on these boards, but I definitely wanted to check out the reaction to the new album. For me, Ode to Joy is quickly becoming one of my favorites. The sounds, textures, lyrics, and subtleties surrounding all of those things represent a direction for the band that I've always wished they had pursued. In a way, it reminds me a little of a Califone record. I love how Glenn is out front, and the music seems sparse and understated, but with each listen, I'm hearing more and more intricate details that make this album both cohesive and surprising. 

 

Every single one of these songs has gotten stuck in my head at some point (yes, I have been listening to it a lot), but they will just pop in my head randomly, which, to me, underlines the songcraft. I was also a little skeptical after the release of the first two singles, but hearing those songs within the context of the album as a whole has transformed them both in my mind into highlights. They come in at perfect times in the album.

 

Admittedly, I haven't been this excited about a new release in years. Not that anything else in the back half of their catalog is bad, but I just haven't initially embraced a new release of theirs like this in a long time. I can't wait to see them live in DFW here in a week-and-a-half.

[Beltmann]

Hey everyone!

 

Hi bleedorange! Great to see you back in these parts!

[bleedorange]

Hi bleedorange! Great to see you back in these parts!

 

Thanks, Beltmann! Great to "see" you again, too!

[dagwave]

I’ve been enjoying the new record a lot, trying not to overplay it as I believe like any great music, the magic is rarely provided immediately. I thought the webcast painted the songs in a really interesting, groovy light.

 

I’m thankful for anything and everything that gets put out by these guys (including all projects)- thankful they are still releasing new material and thankful I’m around to enjoy it.

 

That being said, not unlike my children, of course I have favorites.

[5hake1t0ff]

...with each listen, I'm hearing more and more intricate details that make this album both cohesive and surprising. 

 

Every single one of these songs has gotten stuck in my head at some point (yes, I have been listening to it a lot), but they will just pop in my head randomly, which, to me, underlines the songcraft.

 

 

All of what you wrote maps neatly over my own experience with this album. I haven't been able to stop listening to it for more than 24 hours, and then I'm hearing different songs from it - never the same song - in my head in between listens. When I try comparing it to other Wilco albums, I get confused as to what it is exactly I love so much about it.

[i'm only sleeping]

Wilco: Portentoso y liberador Tweedy

 

https://elpais.com/cultura/2019/10/15/actualidad/1571157570_859884.html (in Spanish)

 

Google translate from Spanish

 

Wilco: Portentous and liberating Tweedy

The band's new album receives a rating of 9 out of 10

LAURA FERNÁNDEZ

Oct 16, 2019 - 09:16 CEST

It seems Jeff Tweedy with Wilco determined to extract sadness to the last drop of beauty, a beauty of a powerful American almost always delicately rock, an alt country, or art rock, which here, on his 11th album, sounds balancedly naked, Concise and portentously liberating. It opens, Ode to Joy, with a percussive cut, Bright Leaves, which is not just an attempt at some kind of redemption but a way to delve into the universe of an album in which each song is built, in all directions, from a center marked by, yes, some kind of mantra (the supplicant Before Us explores the epic of the one who has lost everything), which are sometimes threatening shakes (Quiet Amplifier opens up to a digression very Being There, distant but essential second album of the band, and it is, for Tweedy, the most “perfect” experiment of the album) and sometimes explodes in comfortingly muscular solos (previous slapping) like the one that puts in the heart of, for example, the perfect piece of camera Hold Me Anyway Or try to burn yourself in a playful, Citizens.

As in an apocalyptic western, the sound is vitiated and condensed until it explodes in the We Were Lucky jam dialogue, the cut that gives way to the luminous (and now new band classic) Love Is Everywhere (Beware), with a saturated and precious riff as highly enjoyable as the excellently drawn pop of Everyone Hides. It would be said that those in Chicago always walk on the mainland and that they explore, timidly, at each new installment, the limits of a sound - a very marked, less and less progressive style - to which each new finding is incorporated as if from a small treasure It was. Here, what is incorporated, what is explored, is percussion, in all its variants, and the result is, we said, an album, in a sense, manic, blunt, arid, in which Tweedy's velvety broken voice plays expand towards fragility, at times maintained and at times torn down by the numerous elements that nourish each song, containers, all of them, of ideas - pianos meeting, choirs rising - bright. Tweedy says he is especially proud of this album, and he has no reason.

An album, they say, protest, but of an intimate protest, like everything that would be said, signs that of Chicago, and one, in this case, that grows with every listener but is located, from the first, close to the highest peak reached by the band to date.

[lost highway]

^ The Spaniards get it. Que padre.

[Thats Me Beefing]

Well now after some time to digest I can say I love this album. The only songs that haven't really grabbed me are One and a Half Stars and White Wooden Cross, theres just nothing very exciting going on with those, to my ears at least. We Were Lucky is one that I thought wasn't super great on the first couple listens but it's become one of my favorites now. The two singles are fantastic and get stuck in my head all the time. And the first two tracks are just spectacular...they kind of outshine the rest of the album imo but not too too much. 

[jff]

When am I going to find out if I won the Tele or Jazzmaster in the pre-order raffle?

[theashtraysays]

Well now after some time to digest I can say I love this album. The only songs that haven't really grabbed me are One and a Half Stars and White Wooden Cross, theres just nothing very exciting going on with those, to my ears at least. We Were Lucky is one that I thought wasn't super great on the first couple listens but it's become one of my favorites now. The two singles are fantastic and get stuck in my head all the time. And the first two tracks are just spectacular...they kind of outshine the rest of the album imo but not too too much. 

I agree on the "skippers" - those haven't moved me as much as the others.  It's nice for this album to kinda settle in to something "normal" (faves, skippers, steady growers), but it also took quite a few repeated listens for me to start to feel that way.  And still not totally sure if it will be in heavy rotation in a year or five.  But happy to have it on steady repeat to find out!

[TCP]

When am I going to find out if I won the Tele or Jazzmaster in the pre-order raffle?

 

I think I heard a few weeks ago a winner was already contacted  

[HungryHippo]

as i wrote on LP11 thread, i think its best since "ghost is born". i'm not counting "kicking television" although maybe i should. OTJ gets better on each listen. this one is a winner. hope we get some dates in the northwest soon!

I haven’t visited this message board in ages! My first Wilco album was YHF back into 2002. I became a die-hard fan when AGIB was released, however, I thought that album was too mellow and low-key for what I imagined Wilco should sound like. It wasn’t until a few listens where it clicked and stuck. With a little time, AGIB became a masterpiece to my ears. I have anticipated and listened to every album released since 2004. OTJ brings back those same exact feelings and sentiments that AGIB did.

[jff]

I think I heard a few weeks ago a winner was already contacted

 

Wouldn't that have been before the album even came out?  They were still using the "pre-order for a chance to win a guitar" pitch less than two weeks ago.

[TCP]

Wouldn't that have been before the album even came out?  They were still using the "pre-order for a chance to win a guitar" pitch less than two weeks ago.

 

Ok I have refreshed my memory. I don't know what how much I can say since I don't know the person who won personally, but I can confirm someone definitely got the confirmation e-mail from Kung Fu a few days before the record came out.

[dave41]

When am I going to find out if I won the Tele or Jazzmaster in the pre-order raffle?

One of my Drive By Trucker fan friends won the Tele.

[tinnitus photography]

I looked over their return policy.  It says open items are non-returnable.  I only knew it was warped because I opened it so I could listen to it.

 

All returns are at the expense of the buyer.

 

The warping, it could be argued, is the fault of USPS (since they delivered it in the morning rather than in late afternoon like they do every other day).  Or even my own fault for ordering a record in summertime knowing where it'd be left.  (Although I know from being an Amazon seller that a delivery is the seller's responsibility until the buyer has the item in their hands and is 100% satisfied, so that argument works in my favor.) 

 

In any case, I see a lot of ways for Kung Fu to refuse my return, and their own paperwork makes it look like they are very unaccommodating.

 

Their papers don't include a phone number of email address, unless I overlooked it, but if I can contact them, I'll hit them up for a new copy. 

sorry for the late reply here, but not allowing a return because a record is warped, skips, drilled off center etc is total bullshit. 

[jff]

sorry for the late reply here, but not allowing a return because a record is warped, skips, drilled off center etc is total bullshit. 

 

It is, and ultimately, they gave me the option of a refund or a replacement.   I took the refund and went to the record store a couple days later to buy it.  I told my friend at the record store about the warped record (and showed him the video I too  of it spinning on my turntable), and he said their shipment was recalled due to damage and that a lot of the are probably like that.  Maybe it had to do with the heatwave in the south that week, because everyone else seems to be getting good copies.  So a week later they finally got their shipment and I went back to get a pink copy.

 

So it worked out in the end.

[bleedorange]

... The only songs that haven't really grabbed me are One and a Half Stars and White Wooden Cross, theres just nothing very exciting going on with those, to my ears at least. ...

 

It was the exact same way for me, although repeated listens have opened up White Wooden Cross for me, and to a lesser extent, One and a Half Stars. If I were forced to pick a weak spot on this album, that would be my choice.

[lost highway]

It was the exact same way for me, although repeated listens have opened up White Wooden Cross for me, and to a lesser extent, One and a Half Stars. If I were forced to pick a weak spot on this album, that would be my choice.

 

Mine would be Citizens. I actually don't dislike it, it's merely the song I like. The rest I love.

 

I keep thinking White Wooden Cross is like a 21st century Motown, or Stacks ballad. I can imagine the Supremes doo wopping through imagining if their nearest and dearest was spontaneously killed in a car accident.

[Beltmann]

Mine would be Citizens. I actually don't dislike it, it's merely the song I like. The rest I love.

 

I'm in the same spot. Lyrically, "Citizens" is right up my alley, but sonically the song doesn't grab me. "White Wooden Cross" and "One and a Half Stars," on the other hand, are album highlights for me.

[The Inside of Outside]

Same - Citizens is not doing much for me. I like or love the other 10 songs. The more I listen, the more I like it. It helps to have seen/heard them live, as they have a bit more power in concert.

 

I can see four-five songs continuing in the general rotation of songs after this tour (Before Us, Everyone Hides, White Wooden Cross, We Were Lucky, Hold Me Anyway). I don't think Schmilco will have that long term - maybe three off that one (Locator, If I Ever Was a Child, Someone to Lose) will get some play as time goes on.

[Magnetized]

This is the teensiest little niggling point, but the way Jeff pronounces “escape” on One and a Half Stars drives me nuts! Throughout the song he says EE-scape rather than ess-cape. In live performance I don’t notice it so much.

[Yaz Rock]

Well, he also has a phobia of pronouncing "swords" (10/12/19) and he says AL-bany instead of Awl-bany and ROE-chester instead of Rah-chester (Solid Sound).

 

I guess people from the midwest just pronounce things differently!