There are few bands with which I’ve had such an about face with as Wilco. I “didn’t get” Wilco for many years, and then finally one day my last year of high school I “got” Being There, the bands 19 song, 1996 Opus. Something clicked pretty strongly for me in songs like Sunken Treasure, and I slowly moved on to Summerteeth when I became introduced to songs like Via Chicago, then before you know it I was looking for a vinyl copy of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and somewhere in town that had A.M. in stock.
I loved that Wilco was a rock band whose wank-off guitar solos were odd synth sounds, toy pianos, radio noise, found sound, and buzzy guitars. Then one day, their wank-off guitar solos became wank-off guitar solos. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first to sing Nels Cline’s praise, but something about this new era of Wilco, that is to say Sky Blue Sky, doesn’t feel special to me. It’s not daring in any way, and to me it’s ironically their least rock and roll album ever despite of it’s tendency to prominently feature a guitar solo in every song. Guitar solos are fine, heck guitar solos are great, but for some reason I don’t come back to Sky Blue Sky like I do every other record in their catalog.
[mp3] Wilco – I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
[mp3] Wilco – Box Full of Letters
[mp3] Wilco – How to Fight Loneliness
[mp3] Wilco – Sunken Treasure
[mp3] Wilco – Handshake Drugs
Hard to Find a Friend - A Music Blog 
September 29, 2008 at 5:21 pm |
100% right on
September 30, 2008 at 1:12 am |
You could also title this post: “wow, drugs aged Jeff Tweedy.”
September 30, 2008 at 11:18 pm |
I couldn’t agree more, sir. Summer Teeth is hands-down my favorite. I’ve heard that Jay Bennett hasn’t been making music for over a year now, which deeply saddens me.
October 1, 2008 at 6:01 am |
Well I disagree. I love the line up; I think they breathe new life into the old material, bringing it to a point it never achieved prior. I guess that speaks about them more as a live band, but I think Sky Blue Sky is great especially in a live context when it is placed against their more noisy and avant garde material… it makes a lot of sense in that regard. Everyone’s got their opinions… so we’re either all wrong or all right.
October 13, 2008 at 12:39 am |
This is spot on. My house is filled with framed Wilco posters and bootlegs from “back in the day.” I’ve a closet filled with t-shirts. ‘Sky Blue Sky’ skid off the road. Nels Cline is superb. Pat Sansone is superb. Mikael Jorgenson is superb. But there is a little something missing. The “old wierd America”, with intruding radios, mashed up diction and syntax, has been gentrified. The music is still complex, if you are counting beats and interested in counter rhythms. But that grandeur is lacking. I hope they are getting it back for the next record. A lot of emphasis is placed on getting an “organic” sound, but in their case it was what was inorganic and manufactured that made their music great.
They’ve been on my mind recently too at:
http://www.hallockhill.net/post/53695028/this-is-a-circulated-demo-of-poor-places-from