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*Wilco*, by Wilco
If you aggregating a lot of binary opinions, I vote yes you should buy it. It's more accessible and less mysterious-sounding than their usual fare, which you may consider either a plus or a minus. If you're wondering what my underlying stance is, a few days ago I said to Brian Hooks something like: "I'm glad I've never really been a fan, that leaves me free to enjoy them without feeling threatened by what they stand for."
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 1, 2009 at 05:40 PM in Music | Permalink
Comments
I'm not sure exactly what your getting at above.
I like listening to Wilco, but I do find them pretentious (both musically and personally) and that annoys me. It often doesn't seem like they are having fun.
Posted by: thehova at Jul 1, 2009 6:15:54 PM
Not sure what he means either, but it only takes me a split second to roll my eyes at certain Bono lines, so I don't sweat it. Besides, I think of a lot of the liberalism as aspirational (and the rest is groupthink). If musicians had to sit through government committee meetings they would need even more drugs.
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 1, 2009 6:26:48 PM
I find it perverse that Wilco turned out to be the more successful half of Uncle Tupelo. Jay Farrar's contributions were uniformly more musically profound and more honest, and yet Son Volt has nowhere near the listenership of Wilco.
Posted by: sidereal at Jul 1, 2009 6:37:02 PM
I dunno, I'm a huge fan of Wilco and I think Tyler hit it pretty head on. The new album strikes me as overly masturbatory (even though I, for some reason, accept because the band seems to know it). And so I do struggle with this album, and I am working hard not to be so disappointed.
Posted by: Steven at Jul 1, 2009 7:09:22 PM
wilco sucks. mark e. smith is the dylan of our generation not jeff tweedy
Posted by: anon at Jul 1, 2009 8:50:28 PM
i'm planning to check it out, but wilco peaked at summerteeth & yankee foxtrot hotel. haven't been too interesting since. this doesn't make it sound like they're trying to become more interesting, so my hopes are not high.
Posted by: kyle at Jul 1, 2009 9:17:23 PM
That's right, Sidereal. Everyone who was paying attention at the time thought that A.M. was nice and all, but that it was clear that Tweedy was not the brains of the operation. However, I think Jeff has always been willing to try something new and working with great musicians like Jay Bennett (RIP) certainly helped him go where Jay Farrar and Son Volt never could.
Posted by: david at Jul 1, 2009 9:37:27 PM
Sorry, the three good Wilco albums began and ended with the Jay Bennett partnership. AM + the most recent three albums are fine but not special.
Son Volt had one very good album, one OK album, and some duds. Recall that Jay Farrar did some (boring) experimentation in his solo albums (see "Space Junk").
I don't know that I would call either of them particularly honest. The fact that they wanted to care about coalminers, etc. doesn't mean that two kids from the outskirts of St. Louis actually did.
Posted by: jay at Jul 1, 2009 11:41:08 PM
"I'm glad I've never really been a fan, that leaves me free to enjoy them without feeling threatened by what they stand for."
What exactly does Wilco stand for besides (good) MOR dad-rock? Do they represent a band winding down and becoming less adventurous? It's very hard to see how whatever they are could be threatening in any fashion.
Posted by: Robert at Jul 1, 2009 11:45:49 PM
I am also mystified about Tylers comment on what Wilco's 'stance' might be. As a dad, I like Wilco much better than when I was a hipster.
Also mark e smith is not the dylan of our generation, but he is very good for a long time
and YHT is freakin great.
Posted by: mickslam at Jul 2, 2009 12:09:12 AM
Other possibilities re: Wilco's stance.
-They represent a talented band that doesn't try to be innovative. Artists have a responsibility to advance the art and be daring.
-They represent a talentless band that relies on inauthentic emotional signaling for sales and acclaim. How can such a successful band have anything honest and sad worth saying, especially now?
-They represent a talented band that has disturbingly betrayed their alt-rock heritage by including electronic elements and other weirdness.
-They represent a talentless band that used OK Computer esque production on YHF to give more weight to their otherwise unspectacular songs. YHF is just Summerteeth + melancholy digital tricks engineered by Jim O'Rourke to ensnare the critics.
Posted by: Robert at Jul 2, 2009 12:34:07 AM
"-They represent a talentless band that relies on inauthentic emotional signaling for sales and acclaim. How can such a successful band have anything honest and sad worth saying, especially now?"
This strikes me as the truth (esp. the first sentence). Am I the only who doesn't like YHT. I don't blame the record company for scrapping it.
Posted by: thehova at Jul 2, 2009 1:25:17 AM
The Village Voice hits it out of the park (http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-07-01/music/wilco-the-review/)
""Wilco" is a five-letter word for the quiet slaughter of all that is elemental, passionate, and reverentially stupid about rock 'n' roll. Try finding a vein on a Wilco album. Oh, Wilco: middle-aged Midwesterners with stubble and suit jackets. Precise instrumentalists who make mushy, edgeless music. Two healthy guitarists who alternate featherlight solos with the sound of breeze and rustle. (The pussyfooters call this "atmospherics." Whatever it is, it's very tasteful.) Wilco: The Band That Rocks, Within Reason. Their peak party moments sound like a good time as described by someone who hasn't actually had one. "I'm trying to balance fun with crushing depression," frontman Jeff Tweedy once said onstage. "Always a challenge." In this band, that's a punch line. Is there anything dangerous about Jeff Tweedy? Is there anything dangerous about a pale father of two, comfortable in soft denim, mewling his way through a prescription-pill addiction with songs about how dishwashing just isn't the same without his wife around?"
Posted by: thehova at Jul 2, 2009 1:28:46 AM
Personally, I think Jeff Tweedy needs to become a vicodin addict again. It worked for YHF...
Posted by: BR at Jul 2, 2009 1:33:36 AM
thehove nails it. My grandmother loved this album, though she still cranks the Tony Bennett when she's in the mood for something heavy.
Posted by: Jason Brennan at Jul 2, 2009 8:16:49 AM
I know this will sound trollish, Tyler, but I increasingly find myself not having any idea what you're talking about. We're not mind readers, just say it already.
Posted by: Pat at Jul 2, 2009 8:49:53 AM
Finally, a critic whose appreciation of YHF matched mine: turgid and boring. Just the kind of album Rhapsody music service was made for: one you could listen to and then pass on.
Posted by: Norman Pfyster at Jul 2, 2009 10:57:28 AM
I listened to this album when it was streamed online and found it pretty boring (I enjoy YHT and Summerteeth by way of comparison). But that Village Voice reviewer who describes them as 'Midwestern' 8 or 9 times through the course of his review has, just two articles back, a review that describes Animal Collective as 'challenging' in its opening paragraph. I suspect he's not very bright.
Posted by: Josh at Jul 2, 2009 11:05:21 AM
Totally agree with thehova. I've never been a mega fan of Wilco, but always enjoyed their albums and concerts. I saw them about 3 months ago and they were so constipated and uptight, the show sucked. Have fun, why is that so hard?
Posted by: Kent at Jul 2, 2009 11:39:47 AM
Status games in music appreciation...
Posted by: Greg at Jul 2, 2009 12:06:05 PM
Getting the thumbs-up from an economics blog must surely be the death knell for any rock band...
Posted by: ogmb at Jul 2, 2009 12:43:22 PM
Their peak party moments sound like a good time as described by someone who hasn't actually had one.
I heard that these guys were good and interesting. Descriptions suggested that they were up my alley, so I tried to like them, but it just didn't take. Everything is too measured and precious. Stop pondering and calculating and experimenting and effing play like what you're doing really matters, at least to you.
Few things are more tedious to an audience than an artist's as-yet unrealized, half-baked vision of something or other. Genius really IS mostly perspiration, not inspiration. If any artist doesn't have the skill, motivation, time, or temperament to bring inspiration to actual fruition, they have no right to expect an audience.
Throwing a bunch of stuff into a pot and calling it dinner is ok if your wife does it, but when you go to a restaurant and pay for a meal, the bar gets raised.
Posted by: kranky kritter at Jul 2, 2009 1:05:08 PM
thehova: No, you're not. Yankee Foxtrot is an unlistenably bad album. The fact that Tweedy - maybe the worst singer of a major band I've ever heard - was allowed to be the front man speaks ill of his bandmates ears. Then there are the songs, with their endlessly repeated bass lines. I'm even into pretentious bands - just not really untalented pretentious bands.
Posted by: jult52 at Jul 2, 2009 1:16:27 PM
I've enjoyed Wilco for a long time. I'm not a huge fan of the new album, but I really liked "Sky Blue Sky". And if you think they aren't doing anything musically interesting, I suggest you listen to "Impossible Germany" from that album. Fantastic song.
Wilco is hard to peg because they don't fit in any of the standard categories of music. Just before Sky Blue Sky, they hired Nels Cline as their new lead guitarist - a guy who made a name for himself doing some experimental jazz stuff. Now he's in an alt-country band that doesn't sound remotely country. Regardless, he's a great improviser and has added a needed punch to the band. I heard them live last year, and their older songs from YHF, Summerteeth, and AM sound much better than they used to, thanks partly to the fact that Cline tends to rip the roof off the venue with his fantastic playing.
Wilco has a lot of haters because they've alienated their old alt-country fans, and yet they're a little too weird for mainstream pop. They're more experimental jazz/country/pop fusion, and that's bound to make a lot of people dislike them.
As for Tweedy's politics... whatever. If I stopped listening to every band that had execrable political views, my record collection would be mighty thin. Some of the best music Wilco ever made is their collection of songs written from Woody Guthrie lyrics, in collaboration with Billy Bragg. If you haven't heard "Mermaid Avenue" parts 1 and 2, you don't know what you're missing. Fantastic stuff, although everyone involved, including the dead Guthrie, is about as far left as you can get.
Posted by: Dan H. at Jul 2, 2009 5:50:28 PM
I wonder what it's like to be the type of person who searches for reviews of bands they don't like on unimportant websites. I guess everyone craves the experience of creating something --including and especially those whose talents peak at talking shit.
Posted by: Person at Jul 3, 2009 3:34:00 AM
