930 Forums
=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: ggw on June 21, 2004, 10:11:00 am
-
The Ever-Expanding Legend of Wilco
By KELEFA SANNEH
SLOWLY, improbably, unwillingly, Wilco has become one of those bands that stands for something. Too many things, perhaps. If you believe the myths, Wilco is a band so adventurous that a major label cut and ran; a band so prescient that it recorded a beautiful album about 9/11 â?? months before 9/11; a band so great that it coaxed half a million boomer listeners out of retirement.
Wilco's breakthrough album, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," was released in 2002, and its success birthed a small industry. There was "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," Sam Jones's reverent documentary. Greg Kot has just published "Learning How to Die" (Broadway Books), a loving biography of the band, and this fall the band is to release "The Wilco Book," advertised as a "visual analog to the band's music." Alan Light has named Wilco as one of the bands that inspired his new magazine, Tracks, devoted to "Music Built to Last." (And aimed, one presumes, at listeners who already have.) Fans of Wilco's singer-songwriter, Jeff Tweedy, could keep busy with the self-titled 2003 album from his side project, Loose Fur, or his book of poetry, "Adult Head," published earlier this year. And on Tuesday, Wilco is to release "A Ghost Is Born" (Nonesuch), its wildly anticipated and â?? why wait any longer to say it? â?? stunning new album.
If you're a bit suspicious of the Wilco cult â?? an army of earnest listeners, inordinately proud of their own middlebrow tastes â?? don't worry, you're not alone: Mr. Tweedy joined the Wilco backlash long ago. And so this new album is yet another evasive maneuver, intended to frustrate listeners who don't share Mr. Tweedy's belief that detours are as important as songs. More visible than ever, he has made the most self-effacing album of his career.
There's a moment early in the Sam Jones documentary that shows the way Mr. Tweedy keeps himself just out of his fans' reach. "Yankee" hasn't been released yet, and he is suffering through an exquisitely awkward backstage meet-and-greet. A fan asks what the new album is going to sound like, and Mr. Tweedy mutters something about how the music is full of "holes." He tries to explain himself: "Open spaces between what's supposed to be, like, the music." He's not connecting. "I dunno," he says â?? by now everyone's uncomfortable. Finally, he sees the exit and ambles toward it: "I'm gone."
Long before he was terrorizing boomers with 11-minute noise compositions (more on that later), Mr. Tweedy was helping to popularize one of the most conservative rock 'n' roll movements of the last few decades. He made a rootsy racket with his band Uncle Tupelo, which borrowed from old country records to create an early version of the back-to-basics style that would come to be called alt-country, or y'allternative. Uncle Tupelo broke up in 1993 and Mr. Tweedy formed Wilco, and at first it seemed he was content to satisfy his listeners' hunger for sturdy traditionalism.
Then Wilco's universe started expanding. A 1996 double-CD, "Being There," was grand, bleak, woozy: it began with a six-minute collage that went from chaos to a piano ballad and back, until Mr. Tweedy was shouting, "I'd like to thank you all for nothing at all!" The 1999 follow-up, "Summerteeth," was even more perverse, full of breezy, infectious tunes and miserable stories â?? the songs oozed and ahhed. In Mr. Kot's book, Mr. Tweedy claims that the album's blissful sound was a form of self-protection: "I felt I needed to bury those lyrics safely under glass."
Along the way, Wilco also energized its base by collaborating with Billy Bragg on two albums of Woody Guthrie covers, but it was the band's fourth proper album, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," that turned its name into a rallying cry. The album is full of noisy interludes and transitions that sound like so many cobwebs, and Jim O'Rourke, who mixed it, found subtle ways to make instruments slowly disintegrate and materialize, so that the music is slowly but ceaselessly mutating. This approach matched Mr. Tweedy's songs beautifully, but it didn't quite match the expectations of Reprise Records, which released the band from its contract, at which point the myth-making machine really got going.
To Mr. Kot, Reprise's decision is emblematic of all that was rotten in the music industry. "Learning How to Die," an invaluable but infuriating book, is in large part an allegory: Wilco stands for all the small, pure-hearted bands who are trying to save music, and Reprise stands for all the big corporations trying to kill it. In a world dominated by image-conscious entertainers like Jennifer Lopez (who's adduced more than once as an example of all things impure), Mr. Tweedy is "all about the music."
This is the way many listeners have been trained to think about Wilco, and it's a minor miracle that the band still sounds good in the face of all this reactionary rhetoric, so eager to divide the world into Tweedys and J-Los. I love "Yankee," too, but if we absolutely have to pick sides, I think I'll join the multiethnic horde on the dance floor.
"Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" was eventually released by Nonesuch, which was known, Mr. Kot writes, "for putting out beautifully packaged, pristinely recorded albums that found an audience the old-fashioned way: through word of mouth, with an occasional assist from National Public Radio and the more adventurous Triple-A commercial stations." Ah yes, "the old-fashioned way," when rock 'n' roll fans would sit around the campfire listening to "All Things Considered." There must be something about Mr. Tweedy's strained and battered voice that makes fans nostalgic â?? sometimes indignantly so â?? for an imaginary past.
To his credit, Mr. Tweedy is too difficult, too diffident to be an effective cult leader. And if "Yankee" was a monumental album that sounded as if it were crumbling, "A Ghost Is Born" is even harder to pin down. Mr. Tweedy loves to write couplets that hint at boldness, then retreat in ambiguity. One of the most famous couplets from "Yankee" promises passion, then backs off: "I would like to salute the ashes of American flags/ And all the falling leaves filling up shopping bags." (These words were often cited by reviewers who heard the album in the context of 9/11.) In "I'm a Wheel," a short, sharp song from the new album, he takes this strategy one step further, shouting out a cryptic slogan and then turning it into nonsense, like a sheepish schoolchild declining to repeat his dirty joke: "Once in Germany someone said, `Nein!'/1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9!"
This is what makes Mr. Tweedy's music so seductive: he carefully takes apart what he builds, until you can't be sure anything was there at all. Unlike "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," which was largely patched together at the editing deck, "A Ghost Is Born" was mainly recorded live, with a slightly different lineup: Mr. O'Rourke plays on every song but one, and the music sounds a bit more shivery without the cozy keyboards and guitars of Jay Bennett, who was sacked before "Yankee" was released. The result is an album that's both emptier and ruder: during the slow-motion R & B throwback "Hell Is Chrome," Mr. Tweedy's cranky guitar solo arrives all at once, splintering the serenity; during the 11-minute "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," the band spends most of its time hammering away at a Spartan, Neu-inspired groove â?? it sounds as if they're trying to erase themselves.
Maybe they are. "A Ghost Is Born" is, in part, the story of a man who wants nothing more than to dissolve â?? to dissolve into his lover ("Oh, it's O.K. for you to say what you want from me"), into his songs, into "the gray fountain spray of the great Milky Way." Near the end there's a painfully quiet lullaby called, "Less Than You Think," on which the man tries (and fails, naturally) to argue himself out of existence: "Your mind's a machine, deadly and dull/ It's never been still and its will has never been free," he mumbles. (The song's lyrics also appear, slightly modified, in Mr. Tweedy's poem "The Black Hours.") Soon everything fades away, replaced by a gentle wisp of hum and feedback that gets less gentle, more insistent, more invasive.
It would continue for 11 minutes if you let it, but of course you don't â?? eventually you lose patience and skip ahead to the next and last song. I think that's the idea of the hum: Mr. Tweedy wants to force his listeners to cut him short, to shut him up. It's a clever way to undermine overly reverent fans.
The last song on "A Ghost Is Born" is "The Late Greats," a short, fuzzy ode that celebrates the pleasures of obscurity while slyly sending up Wilco's own cult status. Mr. Tweedy pays tongue-in-cheek tribute to an imaginary band that's completely unsullied by the corrupting influence of the music industry: they're "so good, you won't ever know/ They never even played a show/ You can't hear 'em on the radio." But then the joke transforms into something more bittersweet: "The best song will never get sung/ The best life never leaves your lungs," he sings, as if he's finally learning that you don't have to escape to disappear â?? he's dissolving into himself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/arts/music/20SANN.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/arts/music/20SANN.html)
-
Interesting take on the new album...thanks for posting this article.
-
<img src="http://waccoe.com/uploads/fp.please.jpg" alt=" - " />
-
For the Wilco fans (and haters, who are probably not quite as interested), those very cool 9:30 club posters from the Heads of State are for sale on the Wilco website for 20 bucks. FWIW, I'm not affiliated with either.
-
I can't wait to get the official copy of the album, though I've thoroughly enjoyed my pirated copy (minus the late greats of course).
-
The Late Greats was available a couple days after the rest of the album.
-
A pitchfork review that I very much agree with:
Ghost Is Born (http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/w/wilco/ghost-is-born.shtml)
Early returns on the album veer wildly from rapturous proclamations that this record solidifies the band's genius to cred-snipers who see it as a crippling failure. To me, it sounds like neither extreme, but rather like a band in need of a break, a band that's been reading their press, a band straying too far from their strengths, and a band that's still too good to let any of these things completely obscure their talents.
-
Uh, this is a little overboard...
The most eagerly awaited weird CD of 2004 (http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/22/music.wilco.ap/index.html)
-
Saw them perform a new track on one of the late night shows last week and I couldn't help but think they were preforming a song for the next Muppets release.
-
Maybe it's just me...but I just don't "get" Wilco. Am I missing something?
-
Originally posted by bunnyman:
Maybe it's just me...but I just don't "get" Wilco. Am I missing something?
Nope, there are folks with you. Seems like you just get 'em or you don't. But even if you do and you are a big fan, the debate over which of their albums are best/good/disappointments seems to go on and on and on and on and on.....
-
There are certain bands I have really tried to like because I thought that they just needed time. I mean, Wilco is OK, but I guess it's just not my flavor of the month. I wasn't that upset when they bailed out of Coachella, but I was hoping the Pixies' set time would get extended as a result. Oh well!
-
so any opinions on the album now that people have had 24 hours with the new album
I still have not bought it, or heard it on the website
-
i think you already know my opinion pollard...actually, if you play the disc in your computer, it gives you access to a live stream of their performance at the Vic in Chicago (much better performance than the DC show...the sound was better) along with a slide show of pics. apparently, the content will be updated regularly for those who continue to check back.
-
I'm still sticking with my preference list as:
1 Being There
2 Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
3 A.M.
4 Summer Teeth
5 A Ghost is Born
I think this will stand the test of time - with maybe a few minor shakeups (I think AM is the better record, but Summer Teeth has better songs).
AGIB is going to provide some great new fresh material for my ever evolving Wilco mix cd.
**************
You can download the recent Wilco Pittsburgh show for free here:
Point State Park 6/6/04 (http://www.glidemagazine.com/downloads.php)
Actually sounds pretty good. Download At Least That's What You Said if you need a good dose of the new wilco-rock-stylin.
-
thanks for the link, grotty...i pretty much agree with your list although i'd bump summerteeth up to 3, AGIB to 4 and AM down to 5.
-
Originally posted by joz:
thanks for the link, grotty...i pretty much agree with your list although i'd bump summerteeth up to 3, AGIB to 4 and AM down to 5.
Yeah - those last 3 are really pretty close for me - it probably just depends on which Wilco phase I'm feeling like hearing.
Everytime I hear Via Chicago though, Summerteeth shoots way up - then I pull it out & it always just sounds overall a little too cheerful - even though the lyrics are generally far from happy.
Thinking back - Via Chicago was a pretty good indicator of the Wilco to come: A BEAUTIFUL song that disolves into dissonance. Took some time to get used to, but now it's perfect. They pretty much used that template all over YHF - GREAT melodic songs hidden inside noisy beginnings & endings.
-
good point, grotty...maybe that's why i love the new wilco so much. songs like via chicago and misunderstood have always been my favorites. don't get me wrong though, i can't help but love the beautiful, twangy country of songs like forget the flowers or do you remember the mountain bed. i think it's great they can write/perform music with such versatility, even within one album; i mean, look at muzzle of bees and spiders...what a crazy juxtaposition of songs?
-
finally bought it and i would say there are about 4 pretty good songs on it:
At Least That's What You Said
(the Neil Young impersonation 2 minutes in is the best thing on the album and I think is a more natural progression for them)
Hell is Chrome
Hummingbird
Handshake Drugs (but they had already released this)
and maybe The Late Greats
Spiders(Kidsmoke) would probably be on this list if it was half as long, but as it is, I thought it was ending 8 minutes in and there were still 2 minutes left
and no song ever better says don't listen to the last song than Less Than You Think
-
I predict Company In My Back will grow on you.
At Least That's What You Said is my fav song also. It could be a Neil Young cover. Check out that live version above to really hear it smoke.
Spiders/Kidsmoke is entirely different in its latest incarnation than what they were playing live during the earlier part of the year. I must have heard it before, but can't remember what it sounded like. Can't find it on Kazaa either. I've heard a few diehards saying that they think Wilco ruined one of their better songs & I've read where Tweedy gets pretty defensive saying "who are they [fans] to think that they know better than us what one of our songs should sound like?"
-
Originally posted by grotty:
I predict Company In My Back will grow on you.
not a bad song, I remember it being even better live, I will check out the live version of the Neil Young song, I will call it that from now on :D
-
and where is kicking television?
is that an O'Rourke song?
-
I was wondering the same thing. I seem to remember it was listed as a track in some pre-release, pre-rehab press.
Originally posted by pollard:
and where is kicking television?
is that an O'Rourke song?
-
i downloaded the album about 2 months ago and really disliked company in my back at first...i like it much better now than the first time i heard it.
kidsmoke sounded a bit different than the first time i heard it live (at the DAR show with Sonic Yoth). i'll admit that they probably could have knocked off a minute or two but it doesn't grate on my nerves nearly as much as the noise at the end of less than you think, which is a beautiful song minus the noise.
songs i would have liked to hear on this album:
(1) kicking television - definitely...this song is fantastic live. they played it at the Vic show. bummer they didn't bust it out in dc.
(2) cars can't escape - pretty amazing song. they had it streaming on their website a few weeks ago and were just "dusting it off". i have a copy of it if anyone's interested. maybe we can look forward to this one on the next album.
(3) be not so fearful - i can't believe that wilco's never recorded this one. it's an old bill fay song (the original blows me away...and to think that hardly anyone has heard of this guy; they sing it briefly before a gig (a capella i believe) in the documentary IATTBYH. i heard loose fur do it live in brooklyn and it tore my heart out.
that's my wilco geek-out for the day.
-
btw...tweedy wrote kicking television (at least the lyrics). i'm guessing o'rourke had some influence on the instrumentation.