New double album where they're "doing country" for the "first time." Maybe they should have called it Used To Be There.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUr1bjehRDU it's..okay?

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At first I thought this might be good. I can still make a case that "Boxful of Letters" is his best song. But this shit sucks. It sounds like George Jones if he were a suburban dad who was in the middle of transitioning.

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Don't take it personally.

I maintain that Wilco never needed to record another song after "One Sunday Morning." Everything since has been just okay or outright bad.

I wouldn't put "Boxful of Letters" at #1 overall but I've really come around on AM in recent years. I love "Shouldn't Be Ashamed."

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Very interested in this. Uncle Tupelo's alternative country has always been one of my favorite styles of music. If this album is anything similar, I'll definitely check it out.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

As the biggest Wilco mark on this board, suffice it to say that I am quite enthusiastic about this song and will be attending their Solid Sound Festival at the end of the month should any board members care to meet up.

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I feel like it certainly gets off the ground a lot more than Schmilco, Ode to Joy, or especially the solo project Welp Mom Has Cancer And That Sure Sucks, but it still doesn't get all the way there. I'm still eager for the rest of the album. I'll always have to give them a shot.

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"Box Full of Letters" is just his breakup song about Farrar. I like its Byrds jingle a lot, but I'm not even sure it's the best song on A.M. or better than any number of tunes from the Uncle Tupelo era.

I prefer Farrar's "Drown" as far as Uncle Tupelo breakup songs go.

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Yeah, I'd put "Casino Queen" and "Shouldn't Be Ashamed" ahead. "Should've Been in Love" 4th, I guess.

I've always loved "New Madrid" the most from Uncle Tupelo.

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I don't like "Casino Queen" very much. If you're gonna do something that's been done a million times before it should be more special than that. And I say that as a gambler who has played on the tables he's talking about. "Box Full of Letters" has a way better hook and a lot more emotion. "Dash-7" is pretty good too.

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Don't take it personally.

I would love to hear a return to Alt Country for Wilco. A.M is such a terrific album, although I think Son Volt's Trace is the best album from any Uncle Tupelo alumnus.

Always thought Farrar and Tweedy would eventually grow up, put aside their differences and reunite for an album/tour. Especially during the period when Farrar had dumped the Son Volt name and was releasing solo albums and Tweedy was shedding band members like Boris Becker girlfriends. But then Son Volt started up again and Wilco became the American Radiohead (or is Radiohead the British Wilco?) and probably the economics of it didn't or don't make sense for Tweedy.

Joe Orr Christgau

Ode to Joy grew on me. Schmilco just never gets going.

That new song is OK.

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I went in 2018
I have some Boston area friends
Of course as just a festival goes, it's good . The grounds are awesome, it's a good experience overall
But i just don't like Wilco
I realize you could say this about a million bands, but i just don't get it. The fact that they have a legion of devoted followers is impressive bc they're basically the equivalent of sliced white bread

They're certainly not my favorite band, but I think you're way underselling Tweedy's songwriting here. The incarnation of the band with Bennett was a pretty special thing. Summerteeth is just an absolute masterpiece.

The problem came with the Kotche/Cline version of the band where Tweedy's brilliance was obscured by noise for the sake of noise. That's one thing when the songwriter in question is as common as someone like Thurston Moore. Then by all means make some weird and possibly interesting noises because the songs aren't very strong in the first place. But wreaking destruction on Tweedy's pop creations is like letting Jackson Pollock use the Mona Lisa as a canvass. It's criminal despite the fountains of jizz spurting from the cocks of critics over Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

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Don't take it personally.

incredible run for the original Wilco from 95 to the release of Loose Fur in January 2003. In addition to the Wilco albums, the Woody Guthrie albums, backing/producing Tim Easton and Lonesome Bob and Handsome Family and others along the way. Have they produced an album's worth of comparable output across all their releases in the 20 years since

The run from A Ghost Is Born through The Whole Love is better than you're giving it credit for. I loved Sky Blue Sky, the album that gave the world "dad rock," from day one and still do. Certainly the lesser half, but still very, very good.


How often did that really happen, though? Star Wars and a few spots on The Whole Love? The problem with the Nels Cline iteration of Wilco, if anything, is too much pleasant noodling. Every song can't be "Impossible Germany." My issue has been that Tweedy seems to need someone he can't get along with in the room with him to write his best stuff. Maybe that wasn't a sustainable model. One of the people he couldn't get along with is dead.

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Wilco is a band?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I agree with this. There are two, I guess three iterations of Wilco. The first two are great in different ways. The third not so much yet.

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But wasn't the noise on YHF a product of Bennett's influence? He's the one who famously warned against the "danger" of every Wilco song sounding like a folk song and introduced the noise aesthetic as a result. But t's not like this happened against Tweedy's will or something. After he launched Bennett, Tweedy amped up the noise aesthetic on AGIB, most notably by almost completely destroying one of his most beautiful songs, "Handshake Drugs", with extended feedback and distortion.

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that's my favorite record from them. "she's a jar" is one of my all-time favorite songs but the whole thing is excellent.

oh yeah, AGIB is definitely an oversight. The Jim O'Rourke Wilco album. O'Rourke playing the role of Jay Bennett for that album elevates it above subsequent Wilco output. Always felt like the coda to Jay Bennett Wilco. Mostly songs that had been bouncing around during the Bennett era given final form by O'Rourke.

The Whole Love and Sky Blue Sky are both better than AGIB; both contain top-3 Wilco songs.

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From an artistic standpoint I consider Being There and Summerteeth to be sort of analogous to Mott the Hoople's All The Young Dudes and Mott. Being There and Dudes showed you what was possible and then Summerteeth and Mott completely realized it.

I have no criticisms of Kotche and Cline as players. They're the type of guys who write columns in Modern Drummer and Guitar Player. But they don't know nothin' about my soul. I'm perfectly fine with Tweedy playing heartbreaking pop songs in a bar with just a journeyman drummer and bass player.

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Don't take it personally.

Funny how that works. You'd think better players/musicians automatically elevates the songs/band.

But I recall a conversation about the White Stripes with a drummer/producer who played in post-rock/math rock type bands around Chicago--unique time signature stuff requiring precise, accurate playing. I bemoaned that Meg White was a crap drummer; which by any standard Meg wasn't much of musician or drummer. But this guy who himself valued musicianship but still enjoyed the White Stripes music said that giving Jack White a competent drummer would kill the vibe and feeling of the White Stripes music. The White Stripes worked in part because of Meg's charmingly defective drumming.

"One Sunday Morning," "Impossible Germany"?

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That's what I'd go with.

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I don't want to compare my little hardcore band to guys that make a living playing music, but I will say that a couple guys in my band are real professionals. And that's become an issue for me to some degree.

Timmy Matlock has toured with some relatively big metal bands with record deals. He's played the role of Kerry King in a serious Slayer tribute band. He's an accomplished player in the style that he plays. Despite the fact that we've been in a band together over a 35 year period, it's not really a style I ever aspired to play.

And in the mid-eighties Casey West was a punk rock God in Chicago. He played in arguably the biggest hardcore band in the city at the time, dressed like a skinhead, and listened to Oi. But that whole time I think he must have been just trying to bang cute white chicks with mohawks. Because Casey doesn't really love punk rock. His bands are Zeppelin and Rush. He sneers at the lack of musicianship in a typical punk band.

I have a completely punk rock ethic. I'm not interested in making everything perfect. Sometimes a little mistake makes the song. Like the false start of the vocals coming out of the guitar solo on the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie". Casey would have made them re-record it.

When we hadn't played together since 1991 and we decided to get together and play some shows we started to practice a bunch of old songs and Timmy refused to play some because they were "written wrong." Meaning that neither he nor I understood scales or typical chord progressions when we wrote them. (I still don't.) I like the weirdness though, e.g. a solo in a completely different key than what "should" be there.

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Don't take it personally.

I think The Whole Love is a pretty great record. But it doesn't seem to get much love because it marked a return to a more straightforward style. "Born Alone", "Whole Love", and "I Might" are great songs.

Incidentally, drug problem aside, by all accounts Tweedy is a good father, husband, family man- he's Joe Suburban Dad- so it's impressive just how dangerous he can sound on something like "I Might" or "She's a Jar."

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Don't take it personally.

Another single from Cruel Country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY9ZQMdRAY4.

I'm not sure it's country, though. It sounds more like Bread with a little more texture. Maybe they should have called it "Crusty Multigrain Bread".

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