Now might be the time to explain my "rivers theory" of rock music. The fertile valley of rock music, like Mesopotamia, lies between two mighty rivers. The first river has its sources in the older forms of American music: blues, country, R&B, jazz, and folk. Lots of music floats on this river, including the whole classic rock tradition. The second river has its origins in the Velvet Underground (this is not an exaggeration) and is the river of punk, new wave, and "modern rock." When Wilco began they were very much in the first river, but in this era of the late 90s and early 2000s, they jumped over into the second river (although they had plenty of traces of it already.) Lots of bands change their sound, but they almost never jump rivers. That's part of what made this music so thrilling.
Summerteeth, 1999
This is the only Wilco album I did not listen to at the time of release. I had really liked Being There, but at this time I was fully immersed in the second river of rock, and had little time for the first. I had no clue that Wilco had migrated over with me. I picked it up after a year of obsessively listening to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and was immediately struck by its uniqueness in the band's oeuvre. More than any other, this is Jay Bennett's record. It turned out that the ass-kicking guitar player also knew his way around a mellotron. (At the time I had a joke based on the SNL "more cowbell" bit where I imagined Bennett in the studio yelling "I have a fever, and the only prescription is more mellotron!)
I also must admit, this album scared me a bit. "Via Chicago" and "She's A Jar" reference domestic violence in disturbing ways. Those songs and "How to Fight Loneliness" and others were much too accurate evocations of deep depression, something I was fighting at the time. I would save this album for my moments of depression when I could cope by wallowing deeper. I have a clear memory of a really bad day walking under a gray Midwestern sky in winter, listening to "She's a Jar" and feeling like I wasn't alone.
Listening to it again today I was reminded that there are also plenty of upbeat songs, like "Candyfloss" and "I'm Always in Love." In a subversive mood the album begins with "I Can't Stand It," which melds gorgeously bright pop melodies and sheen with lyrics of existential despair ("No love is random as God's love," "Your prayers will never be answered again," etc.) This song and others have Beach Boys Pet Sounds touches. Wilco was now swimming in rock's second river, but also sidetracking into the tributary of pure pop music.
Because I first heard this album after I had heard Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and after Jay Bennett left the band, it always makes me wonder what the band would've sounded like had he stayed. Now is maybe the time to mention that I had a chance to meet and have dinner with Jay Bennett. He was the close friend and musical collaborator of one of my friends and was living in the same area at the time. I must admit I was a bit star struck to be in the same room as him. but he was very friendly with me. Not only that, he was hilarious and a great storyteller. I still remember the tale he told me of Ian McLagen trying to get his organ back from Rod Stewart. I could see how someone with such a dominating presence might be seen as a threat if he joined a band with a different leader. In any case, I am sad that he is gone.
This record still takes my breath away, I just wish it was a little bit shorter.
Rating: Four and a half Tweedys
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, 2002
This is less an album than a totem of my existence as a human being on this planet. That's not a florid exaggeration, it's how much this record means to me. I put it on like I would put on an old sweater. Every note is lodged in my memory and every one speaks to me.
What's strange is that I was intimately familiar with it already before its official release. The music press kept reporting on how Warner Brothers, Wilco's label, refused to release it for not being mainstream enough. After that, the band put their album out online, quite a new thing to do in 2001. A friend burned it onto a CD (remember doing that?) and I bought the official release the minute it hit the stores out of solidarity with the band giving the corporate music biz the middle finger. Even if the music had not been as great as it was, it was still thrilling to be part of what felt like a rebellion against the overwhelming trend of cultural homogenization.
From the first bars things are different, and special. Original drummer Ken Coomer had been pushed out for Glenn Kotche, whose innovative rhythm patterns immediately make themselves known. They let you know that this is going to be an experimential album, but "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" also lets you know that this isn't just self-indulgent noodling, there are SONGS here. The drums, droning sounds, and opening lyrics "I am an Americian aquarium drinker/ I assassin down the avenue" combine to form one of the most striking and confident albums openings ever.
YHF's context matters, too. While the songs were written and recorded before 9/11, the vibe and lyrics spoke to me about the country's situation, especially "Jesus Etc" and "Ashes of American Flags." They got at my feelings of melancholy, confusion, and anxiety in that rotten, awful time. Much like Radiohead's early 2000s records, Wilco had already put their finger on a growing sense of dread about the modern world that the post 9/11 environment would confirm.
But it's not all sad dirges, either. "War on War" has a melancholy cast, but its up-tempo admonition that "You've got to learn how to die/ If you want to be alive" became a kind of personal mantra at this time. I emerged through a pretty dark tunnel of depression between YHF and A Ghost Is Born, and I came to the realization that I really and truly wanted to embrace life, but always with the knowledge it was going to end someday.
Maybe this album wasn't part of your voyage of personal discovery, but it was for me. Plus, "Heavy Metal Drummer" is the best song ever written about nostalgia.
Rating: Five Tweedys
A Ghost is Born, 2004
As much as I love Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, sometimes I wonder if I like Ghost even more. From a personnel standpoint, it's a strange record. Jay Bennett is gone, Mikael Jorgensen is in, but Pat Sansone and Nels Cline were not part of the recording. I saw that expanded lineup live the summer this album came out, and it seemed to make Ghost a kind of artifact.
The Krautrock touches via producer Jim O'Rourke are even more pronounced here. I can hear the ghosts of Can and Neu!, especially on "Spiders, Kidsmoke" and "Muzzle of Bees." Those songs, along with "Hummingbird" and "Handshake Drugs" make for a formidable core to this album. Around this solid center there are diversions, like the Neil Young guitar of "At Least That's What You Said" and the drone noise experiment that closes out "Less Than You Think." When the straightforward, anthemic "Late Greats" emerges from the tinny feedback to end the album it's a bit of a shock, albeit a pleasant one. This song, about the great musicians who never make it big, always felt like a bit of a self-commentary. Was this album Wilco's embrace of obscurity? After all, their biggest selling record was one rejected by the label for being too obscure.
This album also came out right around the time Jeff Tweedy went to rehab. Some songs, like "Hell is Chrome" and "Company in My Back" explore what Neil Young termed a "bad fog of loneliness" in the raw way of Summerteeth. Then again, "Company in My Back" rolls into the exuberant "I'm a Wheel," and "Handshake Drugs" has always radiated a vibe of contentedness to me. Tweedy's line delivery of "If I ever was myself I wasn't that night" is still one of my favorites.
On the eve of the album's release I wondered if Wilco could sustain its artistic high after Bennett's departure. Turns out they could, and even explore new horizons in the process.
Rating: Five Tweedys
Kicking Television, 2005
Live its musical ancestors, Wilco was required by the law of rock to release of double live album at some point. They indulged us with some live shows in their native Chicago. It would also be the first album featuring Pat Sansone and Nels Cline and first after Leroy Bach's departure. A Ghost Is Born would be the one Wilco album since AM without a hotshot guitarist in the band.
I had seen this lineup live in Milwaukee in the summer of 2004, so this album was not much of a revelation to me. That live show really blew me away, and I could see right away the difference Cline's playing brought to the table. I'm periodizing this album with Wilco's trinity of breakthrough records because it's a sort of victory lap, and those songs constitute the bulk of the setlist.
It's an objectively good album, but I know in my heart I've seen Wilco put on live shows more electrifying than what's here. I had already seen the new lineup before this one came out, so that was not a selling point. Nevertheless, it's worth a listen if you haven't had to privilege to see Wilco in the flesh.
Rating: Five Tweedys
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