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=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: Sailor Ripley on July 20, 2004, 09:52:00 am

Title: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: Sailor Ripley on July 20, 2004, 09:52:00 am
I've asked myself this many times.  I'm sure there are plenty on the board who will try to enlighten me.  Slate takes a stab in an  article (http://slate.msn.com/id/2103887/) today.
 
 My favorite quote:
 
Quote
To a listener accustomed to Hootie and the Blowfish, Wilco sounds like the Minutemenâ??daring, allusive, funky, weird, and yet so right. To a listener accustomed to the Minutemen, Wilco sounds like Hootie and the Blowfish: classic rock for frat boys.  
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: Bags on July 20, 2004, 09:58:00 am
That does it.  Wilco and GBV are in a dead heat as the bands most mentioned here.  Though Wilco has more debate over its merits and which era of Wilco is best, I'd wager (though it's close).
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: Sailor Ripley on July 20, 2004, 10:16:00 am
I ask the same question about GBV.
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: ggw on July 20, 2004, 10:18:00 am
The Minutemen rule
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer on July 20, 2004, 10:21:00 am
I wonder if the writer realizes that Uncle Tupelo did a song about D.Boon. Hootie didn't do a song about D. Boon. They're more likely to do a song about Tiger Woods or Greg Norman.
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: Sailor Ripley on July 20, 2004, 10:28:00 am
Quote
Originally posted by ggwâ?˘:
  The Minutemen rule
Make sure to catch Mike Watt and the Secondmen when they come through in the fall.
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: ggw on July 20, 2004, 02:41:00 pm
More masturbatory metaphorical musings on Wilco (http://www.popmatters.com/music/features/040714-wilco.shtml)
 
 Ghost rewards the listener with fits and spells of cohesion and beauty bursting from unassuming setups. Revelatory nuggets are hidden within the record's tranquil crevices much like a legion of proverbial needles in the haystack. Like the fuzzy first hour spent waking up, these moments offer Wilco the opportunity to excavate secrets from a foundation of muted and dissonant tones.
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: Bombay Chutney on July 20, 2004, 02:56:00 pm
Please tell me that's a joke.  They can't be serious.
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: Mobius on July 20, 2004, 03:05:00 pm
Wow. Give that guy a box of kleenex.  2-ply.
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: ggw on July 20, 2004, 03:11:00 pm
Ray Carney, writing specifically about cinema in his book The Films of John Cassavetes, made intuitive observations on the creations of the ambitious artist: "[They] can only teach us new understandings by forcibly denying us old ones, and that can be bewildering. They can only freshen and quicken our responses by altering our habitual modes of perception, and that can be disorienting". This idea can be directly applied to what we're required to do as listeners with Ghost: refine our sensibilities, restructure our expectations, and wholly cleanse an existing palette for a new experience. The refusal to grow stagnant with rehashed complacency is what keeps Wilco meaningful; Ghost is yet another manifestation of this ideal, albeit in an entirely different form. "I'm a wheel," Tweedy squeals in the record's final third, "I will turn on you". This is an apt summation of what Ghost does: it turns on you, rotating at will, inciting you to focus as its wheel goes round and round.
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: thirsty moore on July 20, 2004, 03:43:00 pm
This guy's too easy to make fun of.
 
 The hazy atmospheric fluttering of Tweedy's nimble fingers on the fretboard envelop the listener's ears and comfort the soul.
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: twangirl on July 20, 2004, 04:12:00 pm
so this guy is writing his master's thesis on Wilco?
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: Random Citizen on July 20, 2004, 04:22:00 pm
This reminds me of a Ph.D. candidate's (http://www.dimpleandasmirk.com/music/bitch.html) paper on Greg Dulli written a few years ago.
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: ggw on July 20, 2004, 04:43:00 pm
Quote
Originally posted by thirsty moore:
  This guy's too easy to make fun of.
 
 The hazy atmospheric fluttering of Tweedy's nimble fingers on the fretboard envelop the listener's ears and comfort the soul.
What he really wanted to say was:
 
 Dear Penthouse Forum,
 
 The hazy atmospheric fluttering of Tweedy's nimble fingers on my 'fretboard' enveloped this listener's desire and comforted my burning loins.
Title: Re: What's So Great About Wilco?
Post by: palahniukkubrick on July 20, 2004, 05:07:00 pm
Quote
Originally posted by ggwâ?˘:
  The Minutemen rule
agreed.