Formed out of the ashes of famed Belleville, IL alt-country band Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy's Wilco is one of the great American bands of the last 20 years. While Uncle Tupelo helped formulate the prototypical alt-country sound, mixing 80's underground indie bands like The Replacements and Husker Du with Hank Williams, Sr. and Woody Guthrie, Wilco took things to a new stratosphere. While the band's debut album A.M. was more standard fare, Tweedy took the Beatles, Beach Boys, and countless other pop bands and swirled them into his Americana sound for the albums Being There and Summerteeth.When Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was recorded and handed in to his label reps with Warner Music Group, they deemed the album a "career-killer", and refused to release it. Undaunted, Tweedy put the album on the internet, where it was streamed by millions (including me), where it reached classic status. In relation to their previous music, the sound of this album is definitely different. To me, the record has always sounded like switching through static-filled radio stations on the 4th of July. There are more typical (albeit outstanding) songs like "Jesus, Etc". and "Heavy Metal Drummer" (which contains references to Tweedy's youth seeing shows in downtown St. Louis), coupled with more experimental fare like "Radio Cure", "Ashes of American Flags", and the ultimate standout, "Poor Places".
This album has already been deemed one of the greatest of the young century, and I most certainly agree. Wilco would go on to smooth their sound out a bit, more recently, but this album is one of the great examples of an established band taking a chance, and fans of music reaping the rewards.
Absolutely no exposure to this group prior to this week. We listened to ‘I Am trying to break your heart’ in the car over the weekend, and then lost reception. I was dreading listening to this again as the opener didn’t do much for me. I was pleasantly surprised by the rest of the album upon getting over my fears. This turned out to be one of my favorite David picks. The mixing is really terrific, Jeff’s vocals are sufficient, the lyrics are just deep enough to intrigue the audience, and then the appearances from random instruments keeps you listening closely for what’s next.
ReplyDeleteThe opening track gives me my first taste of Jeff Tweedy’s vocals, which are more tolerable to me than some of David’s past picks. He kind of reminds me of Tom Petty. The most interesting part was the really creepy piano playing completely off tune in the background. Kind of reminds me of Climbing up the Walls. I suppose it gives me some insight into why they’ve been dubbed the ‘American Radiohead’.
‘Kamera’ has a completely different sound to it. The song screams summer to me and reminds me a lot like Blister in the Sun. ‘Radio Cure’ is kind of like their version of ‘Creep’. ‘War on War’ is amongst my top 3 tracks on the album. I have to first get over the inconsistency of the slow then fast then slow then fast pace tracks, and also the need to repeat the name of the track 8 times to enter the song. Beyond that, there is a lot of cool instrumentation between the keyboard and the mixing.
‘Jesus, Etc.’ sounds very familiar. It may just be the Beatles influence, but this comes off as the most radio friendly track. The instrumentation is the star of the show here, with what comes off as a full string section accompanying them. Again, a lot of cool instrumentation on ‘Heavy Metal Drummer’. The bass is actually the highlight for me, but the headlines drums do not disappoint.
The string between ‘War on War’ and ‘Pot Kettle Black’ is absolutely perfect for driving in the summer time. The songs are pretty fun, keep a consistent pace, and have a sing-along quality to them. ‘Poor Places’ ended this streak as it was a bit of a downer and had a slow start.
Overall, only gripe I have is the opener, and perhaps the track order. Which album of theirs should I check out next?
Favorites were Jesus, Etc, War on War, and Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm glad you liked it, Thomas. I would check out 'Summerteeth' next....'A Ghost is Born' is also really good.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite tracks are:
1) Poor Places
2) I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
3) Radio Cure
interesting, I bet my favorites were your least 3 favorites. :)
ReplyDeleteDefinitely not. Jesus, Etc. would be #4, and I love Heavy Metal Drummer too. I love the way that "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" sounds like a guy with a hangover just waking up and stumbling into his day....it's a weird interpretation, but it's how I've always felt about that song. "Radio Cure" is the perfect example of the broken radio transmission aspect of the whole album, and "Poor Places" is the best Tweedy's voice has ever sounded....and I love how the piano driven track descends into the feedback/military coding at the end.
ReplyDeleteLike most great albums, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot gets better and better with age. It's "classic" in its sound, yet there's not another album I could begin to compare it to. For me, it's like unpacking an old sweater from winter storage and it having that familiar smell and comfortable feel that you'd almost forgotten over the summer but it brings an immediate sense of coziness and warmth.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Thomas that "War on War" kicks off a phenomenal sequence of songs. Not to say that I don't enjoy the first 3 tracks, I do; I feel they are the appetizer before the main course. "War on War", "Jesus, etc." and "Ashes of American Flags" seem to be Jeff speaking about his own hardships and then relating his own problems with societies ills. With that and Jeff's voice sounding as strong as an eggshell on Jesus and Ashes it makes sense to bring a little levity with "Heavy Metal Drummer" and "I'm the Man Who Loves You". I get a lot of Paul McCartney's pop sensibilities all over this album. I love how this album squeezes all of its greatness out of it's simplistic beauty, it doesn't try to be this big spectacle. It doesn't need to be. I would urge everyone to revisit this album at least once a year if not more, just to marvel at how it doesn't sound like it's from any particular time in music from the past 30 years. I honestly have only been a Wilco fan for about 5 years and this album just keeps getting better.
Once again, not fair to only get to pick 3 favorites: Ashes of American Flags, Poor Places, Jesus, etc.
I have always resisted listening to Wilco in great depth, I think mostly because it seemed like people were always telling me I would like them based on my previous musical preferences, and it felt like a lot to live up to. I'm still not sure they have, but this week's music did grow on me after a lot of repeat listens, so maybe I just need more time.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part, the music suits me just fine - but Tweedy's voice was just so-so. Not that it's bad, but I'm so used to hearing such unique voices from David's weeks that this one doesn't stand out as much. I'd first heard of Jeff Tweedy when I did an interview for The Telegraph with Blake Fleming, the drummer from Alton who was with The Mars Volta from 2001-2006. He mentioned Uncle Tupelo as a major local musical influence, being that they're from Belleville. Tweedy himself is from Belleville - so maybe I'm being hard on him as a hometown kind of boy. Another part of it is - being that Uncle Tupelo was a country band, I think I expected more of a country vibe than I actually got, and it may have been a little disappointing.
Overall though, I did enjoy the album. It's pretty solid as a whole. I don't have much of a frame of reference, but I might guess this release sounds slightly different than the ones the band released before it. After reading that this is Wilco's most popular album, I wonder if its popularity is partially due to the controversy surrounding it.
The ringing - or what sounded like bells to me in the opening track - reminded me of Pink Floyd at first, but the rest of the album turned out to be anything but. Other than the "experimental rock" sounds sprinkled throughout the album, I feel like some of these songs could easily be mistaken for classic rock, and others almost for easy listening. I did most of my listening at work this week (about a week late) and found that it was particularly adept at helping me to escape the stresses of a magazine deadline. It has kind of a calming feel about it, so I did appreciate that.
Probably the songs that stood out to me the most were 1. "Heavy metal drummer," 2. "War on War" (partially for that funky guitar sound in the - but also because it sounds very classic rock to me) and 3. "Pot kettle black."
At Bonnaroo 2009, David and I parted ways on Saturday evening because of a scheduling conflict between Wilco and The Decemberists (playing the "Hazards of Love" in full) - the bands' sets overlapped by an hour, but if you wanted to find a decent spot at either, you really had to choose. While this week has piqued my curisosity to learn more and hear more from Wilco - when given the choice again, I'm afraid I would still always choose The Decemberists.
Haha, I just read Thomas' comment - I find it funny, considering my comments on Tweedy's voice not being that special, that he found it more tolerable than David's other picks. I almost made the exact opposite comment. ;)
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