Wilco Album: “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”

In talking to fellow Wilco fans, I've noticed something that I don't often see in fans of other bands - an excitement about change. And let's face it - Wilco's sound has definitely benefitted from a lack of permanent grounding, and YHF takes the biggest steps from the often-repeated stories of Uncle Tupelo this and alt-country that and all the other hogwash.

So we can talk about labels and history and the like, but I'll leave that to the music critics. The history only matters if you're already a Wilco fan, and if you're like most Wilco fans, the change from the past isn't even that big a deal. The question is, what merit does this record have on its own?

YHF is an album for our times - the human spirit confronted with the modern world is one way you can look at both the songwriting themes and the sounds employed in this album. Put headphones on to hear the organic, typical instruments doing battle with the swirling noise and layered arrangements; this added "noise" is not an afterthought, but a carefully mastered part of the album's whole sound. The feeling you get listening to the way sound is arranged should be a clear indication that there is something deeper going on here, whether or not you're a fan of the noisiness that Jim O'Rourke brings to the table (and even though I usually don't care for this style, I am instinctively drawn to, and pleased by, its execution in YHF).

On top of this is Jeff Tweedy's touching songwriting. This is an album to read along to (or sing if you're luckier than I am), so keep the liner notes handy. Tweedy sings songs about the same love, unpredictable and wonderful and painful, in a strange world that is either always changing or always the same. Honestly, I don't know and I'm not going to try any harder than that to say what Tweedy says so much better with lyrics like, "tall buildings shake, / voices escape, singing sad sad songs / tuned to chords strung down your cheeks, / & bitter melodies, turning your orbit around." As he sings this in Jesus, Etc, Tweedy continues to talk about the night sky, and at the same time violins sweep through the air in a jagged, computer-challenged way that feels like the night sky is falling apart.

That's just one of thousands of intangible beauties that this album has, combining music and sound and word and thought (pardon if I sound like a hippie) into a truly special album, one that is reborn upon each listen. I have had this album for months thanks to the Internet, but nothing could have prepared me for my first CD listen, w/ liner notes, on headphones. It was an experience I'll never forget. Buy this album.

Eerie and heartbreaking, Wilco's latest effort somehow manages to blow 1999's "Summer Teeth," perhaps the best release of the late 90's, out of the water. How? Here's three reasons.

1. The band has been tweaked just enough to find the right mix. Though a fine drummer, Ken Coomer was more akin to a busy drummer like Keith Moon. But just as Moon wouldn't have worked on Velvet Underground records, Coomer's sound just wasn't right. Enter Glenn Kotche, a Moe Tucker with crash cymbals, whose sound adds a decidedly different flavor to this entire recording that Coomer's did on the previous Wilco records. In addition, Leroy Bach, whose piano work on classics such as "My Darling" and the Woody Guthrie-penned "Remember the Mountain Bed" has been hauntingly gorgeous, is now made a full member of the band, which shows in lovely flourishes on keyboard in "War On War" and spine-tingling piano for the achingly tearful closer "Reservations."

2. Jeff Tweedy has learned how to sing. If you're at all a Wilco fan or are educated in their history, you know of an old alt-country band called Uncle Tupelo, which featured Tweedy as lead vocalist. If you've never heard Uncle Tupelo, listen to Wilco's first record, 'A.M.;' it's essentially the same sound. But even as recently as 'Being There,' Tweedy seemed like he was still searching for a voice, still reaching just slightly out of his range and some sort of security as a singer. No longer. If in 'Summer Teeth' he found his range, Tweedy has now found confidence as a singer. The vocals on "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" and "Ashes of American Flags" prove that a mid-range singer can be just as powerful as an alto (a la Brian & Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys)

3. There are as many radio-friendly songs here as devotee album tracks. A few years ago, radio stations maligned Moby's 'Play,' saying it had zero commercial potential. Yet when the songs hit the airwaves after eighteen months of pushing them into TV ads to make some money off them, radio listeners enthusiastically gobbled the record up. So were the programmers right? Obviously not. However, the record company executives at Reprise, Wilco's former label, did essentially the same thing to 'YHF,' saying it sounded like, "a career-ending album." What they were probably frightened by was the strange free-form intro to "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart," even though it's not too much stranger than the intro to 1996's "Miunderstood."

All-in-all, there is no reason why any listener should not own this record. It may go down in history as one of the greatest of the new millennium. Certainly it will go down as the best record of 2002...or 2001 (when it was released via the band's website)...or whenever.

Is it possible for an album to completely change your state of mind? If it is Wilco's YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT it is. For Wilco's fourth album they once again change their sound, showing their vesatilty. If you are looking for the alternative country sounds of their first and second albums, A.M. and BEING THERE, this is not the place to look (although I highly recommend Ryan Adams if that is what interests you). Likewise this album doesn't contain the power pop of SUMMERTEETH. It beautifully blends the pop sensability of SUMMERTEETH with the dark undertones of BEING THERE. Like Radiohead's KID A, this album is more experimental than the band has ever been, and it comes out as a gorgeous example of their talents. The tracks range from the Beatles-esque "I'm the Man Who Loves You," to the more subdued "Radio Cure," in which lead singer Jeff Tweedy sings, "Cheer up/Honey I hope you can/There is something wrong with me/My mind mind is filled with radio cures" with all the honesty he can muster, however he does not have to resort to using any gimmicks as many singers do when they convey such raw emotion.

It is just a shame that one of America's greatest bands has to have such a hard time gettng their music heard. This album has been finished for some time but the band's previous record label Reprise would not release the album stating that it is too "uncommercial." I only wish that the music industry could see that it is "uncommercial" projects such as this that are going to save the music industry. With the "boy band" era dying, we can hope for a bright future on the horizon for music: with bands like Wilco and Radiohead exploring new territory, and old favorites like U2 and R.E.M. still producing albums that keep our feet planted in the tradion that is still necessary. This album can not come recommended highly enough. It will leave you wanting to explore the bands roots; and if you start listening with Tweedy's beginning band Uncle Tupelo, to Wilco's previous efforts, to their collaborations with Billy Bragg, you will not be dissapointed anywhere.

This record is stunning - possibly among the finest pieces of modern American music. It is hard to explain why it is so good, though. Folks who look for catchy pop will find this album formulaic and increasingly dull with each listen. Folks who look for way-out-there craziness will find this a pathetic effort given all the other electronic tweaking and Beefheartian possibilities being explored today. Folks who are committed to an underground or an indie or an obscurantist groove (e.g., Chilton-heads) will see this as just more evidence of "Summerteeth" sell-out from Tweedy & Co. But, those of us who are willing to listen carefully and really engage the music - those of us who are not necessarily wedded to some sort of musical ideology - will find this album ceaselessly rewarding. The songs get at something - a certain longing, a certain glee, a certain confusion - without being sophomoric musings in the key of G (yeah - lots of G on this record - it's true). Tweedy never reaches when he sings - but he is not lazy either. Like a good actor who knows that a little twitch above the eye or lean of the head is better at getting across emotion than an outburst, Tweedy hits the mark just enough when singing. It really feels like you are sitting with a good friend and just rapping. But, this is not enough to make it a great album. The music itself - so simple and direct - has a scrambled edge to it that keeps it from becoming just another example of a stale genre. Rather, the music spreads out and fills out the room (or wherever). The music feels like a peculiar and slightly awkward emotional response to everyday events. It is not spectacle - something people inexplicably still long for after 9/11 - it is rather music that reflects a very confident but perhaps too-intellgent person's confusion about what to make of the world before him or her. This music is meant to be savored and felt - it is not a quick one off. I have been a Tupelo fan for almost a decade and, for the first time, I will say it: Tweedy and co. have moved far out of the shadow of Tupelo. Congrats, Jeff... and thanks.

but so what. Here's my simple litmus test: I keep putting this CD on, month after month. I've bought a lot of enjoyable stuff in that time period and listened to all of it more than once, but I keep coming back to this album. When I haven't listened to it in awhile, I catch myself humming one of the songs, maybe singing a few words from "Reservations" or something. This is by far my favorite Wilco album, but it is more than that. In a collection of 500-600 CDs, this one has methodically worked its way up to the top of my list as one of the best CDs I own. No joke.