Wilco
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

review by: Brandon Copple
Date: 5/3/02

I was barely three songs into Wilco's new record when I heard Jeff Tweedy sing "there is something wrong with me," and thought: No shit. At first listen it feels like Tweedy did everything he could to bury the songs on "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" under a heap of weird noise.

I was prepared for this, having read the breathless reviews. Still, it's a tough first go-round, with all the clanking clockworks and sci-fi squelching. There are a few straight-pop songs: "War on War" and "Heavy Metal Drummer" (the latter could've been on an Uncle Tupelo record). But even there it's not enough just to play the music--"Drummer" starts (ironically, I just realized) with a drum machine and "War" lays on the feedback early and often.

I can't help thinking that some of this is just sonic masturbation. But it works. The hooks and melodies are too strong, too catchy to be drowned out by all the shit. Tweedy may want to be an avant-garde rocker, but he's just too damn good a pop songwriter. No matter how deep it's buried, you can always hear the melody throbbing beneath the junk pile.

Lyrically, Tweedy just keeps getting stronger. He writes intense, introspective songs as well as anybody out there, that I know of. On "Yankee" he pulls back the lense a few times, throws in some macro musing on materialism, human suffering and other favorites of his old bandmate-cum doomsday sociologist, Jay Farrar. But Tweedy's vision is personal, and his poetic inclinations are best served when the camera is trained inward. As on "Reservations."

"How can I convince you it's me I don't like
not be so indifferent to the look in your eyes
when I've always been distant
and I've always told lies for love."

I'm still not sure Wilco has found its voice....Wait. You know what? Who gives a shit. This is an album review; if you want the navel-gazing crap you can read Rolling Stone.

Good record. Buy it.

review by: Michael Walls
Date: 12/10/03

I know I’m extremely late to the party, but I finally picked up this CD after taking my sweet old time watching some auctions on Ebay for it. I think I got it for $5.

"Wow…" That was my reaction to it the first time through it. “Wow” in a sense, “Wow, what the hell is the big fuss?” Nothing about this CD grabbed me during that first listen. I promptly let it sit for about a month, happy that I didn’t pay full price for a new copy.

I just picked it up again two days ago. And I’d swear that this isn’t the same CD I listened to a month ago. I’m not sure what has changed – my mood, my attitude, my surroundings – or what. But this CD blows my mind.

I re-read Brandon’s review (above) from over a year ago, and he claimed to have similar problems with this, saying "it’s a tough first go-around". And I agree. With all the noise and strange rhythms and muffled vocals, it’s difficult to get your ears to hold onto it musically. Also, I’m not familiar with Wilco or Jeff Tweedy’s style, so I don’t know if this is his usual approach to music.

But in my new mood or with my new patience, I was able to get through Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and I just can’t believe I waited so long to own it. I have not been able to get the disc out of my CD player, and have not been able to get any of the songs out of my head. Songs that, previously, seemed to have no hooks or melodies or anything to actual hold on to.

This CD reminds me of the first time I listened to Radiohead’s OK Computer, or Beck’s Odelay, or even Jeff Buckley’s Grace. CDs that were just so "out there" that the brain has a difficult time hearing the true genius or groundbreaking style the first time around.

One thing that is certain, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot needs to be listened to with patience and with concentration – at least until your brain can recognize the subtle melodies and tiny hooks without working too hard.

Wilco
Summer Teeth (1999)

review by: Brandon Copple
Date: 8/30/01

Curious news out of Chicago in recent weeks. First came word that Wilco is shopping for a new label after Reprise rejected the band’s latest record. Then we hear that Jay Bennett, who plays lead guitar and keyboards, among other things, has quit the band. Earlier this year front man Jeff Tweedy fired the drummer and made it known that the new album, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," would be the most avant-garde thing they've done so far. Tweedy calls Reprise chicken shit for refusing to publish his artistically pure new record and says the Bennett split was amicable. But in the barrooms (at least in the ones where I waste time and money), it has been suggested that Tweedy's ego may have driven away his label and half his band.

In case you haven't been following, Wilco is a spin-off of the seminal alt-country band Uncle Tupelo. Tweedy wrote about half the songs for that band and got the reputation (partly deserved) for being Mr. Merry Pop to Jay Farrar's Dr. Dark Country. After the 1994 divorce Farrar formed Son Volt, which made one epic album, "Trace," then just sat there. Wilco has been more interesting. Their first record, "A.M," was predictably jangly but imminently enjoyable. In 1996 they released "Being There"—carefully crafted, with a splash of country sounds and a tablespoon of angry lyrics. The last of Wilco's rootsy offerings showed up on the "Mermaid Avenue" albums of Woodie Guthrie songs with Billy Bragg, which would've been great if not for the inclusion of Billy Bragg.

Then came 1999's late-Beattle-esque "Summerteeth."

I'm sure there are others like me, lovers of Uncle Tupelo and Wilco's previous albums, who heard "Summerteeth" and initially thought "whatthefuck." It sounds pretty and all, but I like my music straightforward and rhythmic (think Johnny Cash), not ornate and melodious (think Brian Wilson, if you can stand it). So it took some getting used to. But the record won me over as I began to hear, beneath all the orchestration, the consistent melodies and powerful lyrics. On "Summerteeth" the storm clouds that formed over "Being There" unleash a torrent of anguish. Such as: "I dreamed about killing you again last night and it felt alright to me; Dying on the banks of embarcadero skies, I sat there and watched you bleed." That's from "Via Chicago" and it's a far piece from the early Uncle Tupelo days when Tweedy used to write about how fun it is to sit on the porch and play guitar.

Supposedly the new album that Reprise blew off pushes the musical envelope even further. People who have heard it are throwing around comparisons to "Pet Sounds" and "OK Computer." Is it going to be a work of genius that no A&R man would understand? Or a piece of shit that nobody would love except a bored songwriter who's come to believe his own blather? The more I listen to "Summerteeth" the more I'm impressed by Tweedy's progression from pop ditties to complex meditations on life's burdens. Let's hope the burdens aren't getting to him.