"Tired of Taking It Out on You" is the name of the song, by the way.

Terrific pop tune.

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I've been revisiting Schmilco lately, especially in light of the negative comments about it here and elsewhere. I think it's really quite a good album. I'm surprised you don't like it given its obvious Lennon influences.

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I'm listening to Cruel Country right now. It's closer to Mermaid Avenue or Uncle Tupelo's March 16-20 than it is AM or Being There. I like what I've heard so far.

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I had to change my plans to attend Solid Sound. I'll be catching them when they come to Vermont in August instead.

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I heard this on Sirius yesterday and for a minute I thought it might be off this album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2q6Q4Iq1z0

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

CC could have used some editing. Some songs don't seem to belong on this album, and possibly not anywhere else. Still not done listening to it.

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Major Grateful Dead vibe on some of these songs.

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Noodlin' Nels!

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

I listened to it today. It was uneven, but there were some songs I really liked. Looking forward to giving it another spin.

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Upon further consideration: I think this is a pretty remarkable album and easily ranks among the band's best.

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Really? I see this as something for completists or Wilco diehards.

"Hearts Hard to Find" and "The Plains" are good songs. But there's nothing on here that grabs me like "Theologians" or "Whole Love" or anything with the emotional punch of "She's a Jar" or "Misunderstood."

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

While I haven't yet fully digested it, my initial view is that this album is a meditation on the psychic and cultural effects of (neoliberal) national polarization. I like the album more and more with each listening and think there are a bunch of terrific songs on it, especially:

"I Am My Mother"
"Cruel Country"
"Hints"
"Ambulance"
"Bird Without a Tail"
"The Universe"
"Tired of Taking It Out on You"
"Hearts Hard to Find"
"Falling Apart"
"A Lifetime to Find"
"Mystery Binds"
"Sad Kind of Way"
"The Plains"

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I prefer my anti-neoliberal anthems to be a lot less oblique than Tweedy's best Dylanesque word salads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LilVDjL ... 50&index=3

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

It's growing on me, but I'm still a little too proud of myself for "lol more like Used To Be There" to deviate from that assessment. I do hear the Mermaid Avenue in it for sure.

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Wilco is pretty good, but can you imagine how great they would be with even more noodling? I know, let's add the guy from the Grateful Dead!

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

one thing that amazes me about life is even tho i specialized in having free time from ages 24-38, i still never had enough time to listen to wilco. clearly my life is thoroughly incomplete and i'll hang my head in shame on the way to the dole queue for the rest of my sad subsidized existence, but still, at least i never had to deal with any of this crap.

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I don't think Tweedy is really an anthemic kind of guy. CC feels like a chronicling of the effects of neoliberalism--most notably polarization--on individual subjectivity. The album is conceived within the constraints of the hegemonic political economy, and doesn't seem to be pointing to an outside. I guess that makes it alternately-rebellious-and-acquiescent-dad-rock.

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You can hear a lot of old Wilco filtered through what Tweedy seems to view as the monolithic web of neoliberal polarization and social disintegration, particularly AM, Being There, Summerteeth, and Mermaid Avenue. The album recycles and reinvents the Tweedy canon as much as it revisits and revises the music of the Grateful Dead, CSNY, 70s country and 60s folk. It's an ambitious album both lyrically and musically--and more subtle than many reviewers have given it credit for being. It's a top four Wilco album for me.

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Can't wait to see them for the first time in March.

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You've never seen them live?

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I haven't! Shameful, I know. I was never really a big live music guy for a long time. My ears fuzz out if volume gets too loud, like a blown speaker. It's only been in the last few years that I've chilled out, and every time I had tried to buy tickets before, they were sold out. I still need to catch Tindersticks and Radiohead live and then I'll have a row on my bingo card.

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Amazing show last night. I looked at all three setlists and Sunday's was easily the best of the three as far as my favorites are concerned (it was a no-repeats thing). "Impossible Germany" into "Sunken Treasure," closed with "Reservations" and "Jesus, etc.," "Shot in the Arm," "Late Greats," and "On and On and On" for the encore. Got everything I could have asked for except "Poor Places" and "Shouldn't Be Ashamed," which I don't think they played any night and probably wouldn't have. They even did a Loose Fur song! I remember caring about Loose Fur.

All in all, they played half of Sky Blue Sky, which suits me just fine. Everyone says that album was when they became dad-rock (I think the p4k review for it actually coined the term "dad-rock"), but I've always loved that album. The decline didn't start until Schmilco.

EDIT: they did "Poor Places" on Saturday night, that's fine, I'll take it

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That sounds like an awesome first concert. All three set lists look pretty great. Really, what a catalogue they have.

I agree with you about Sky Blue Sky. I love that album.

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Yeah, not my first concert ever, of course, to be clear. Looking forward to Caroline Polachek and M83 in a few weeks. Those should be three very different crowds.

I think Sky Blue Sky is special to me because that was the first new album as a fan. I got into them right after A Ghost Is Born came out. First time getting to stream the debut with everyone else. I think it was the same week as Neon Bible or close to it. Good time for music. I miss it.

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I figured

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I finally watched this movie. It didn't change my opinion is that Tweedy is a great songwriter and Bennett was a genius in a way similar to Brian Wilson.

I also listened to the original Bennett mixes of YHF. I'm gonna say Jim O'Rourke ruined that record.

I have no issue with Tweedy wanting to run his band. Wilco is Tweedy. But I will say this- I'm 100% sure that it's personally important for Tweedy that others see him as a "good guy." That's probably the case for most people. And I think such virtue is really important in his social circles. And it obviously isn't virtuous to shove a guy out of a band that was making great music because of your ego or desire for control. So he had to pretend that Bennett was a bad guy and difficult to work with and it seems he used Sam Jones to cast Bennett in such a light.

Also, Coomer is salt of the earth. You can just tell what a good person he is.

I don't quibble with ambition taking precedence over relationships. But you don't get to also be a "good guy." Just own it.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

Yeah, but Bennett had a knack or genius to incorporate all these weird elements into a great pop song without burying the song itself. I think you can hear that on the original YHF.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

Listening to the EP that just came out a few days ago. "Annihilation" is the best of the bunch, but could have been on Cousin and fit just fine. The production is not great, however: Tweedy is just a little too low in the mix, in that uncanny valley where he's not buried enough to sound like it's a clear stylistic choice. Kind of an aural version of film's 30-degree rule.

I don't think we talked about Cousin. It's definitely late-era Wilco, but the highs are higher than they've been in a long time. "Meant To Be" is their best song since "One Sunday Morning" or "I Might," for whatever that's worth. It's a refinement of Tweedy's "sure do love my wife" solo oeuvre, finally.

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