Wilco
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
»
Wilco
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Nonesuch, 2002
RiYL: Neil Young, Radiohead, John Lennon |
This album was ready nearly a year ago, but the band's label, Reprise, rejected it, calling it a career-ender. Wilco begged to differ, refused to make changes, and swiftly left the label last summer. After months of swooning and wooing, the band signed with Nonesuch Records, another imprint under the Warner Music Group umbrella. So, as everyone knows, Warner paid twice for the same album.
Funny stuff.
The label fiasco gave Wilco unprecendented media coverage, garnering positive press in just about every mainstream music magazine, as well as big-time newspapers like the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times. The story was always the same: why on Earth did Reprise give up on this album? Streaming audio from Wilco's website last fall unveiled YHF to the world, and everyone, I mean everyone, instantly hailed it as a masterpiece.
Reprise blew it, they all said. Even dull-eyed record executives should be able to hear the brilliance of YHF, an album that will certainly launch the band to the next level, whatever level that is. Well, Reprise may have blown it on YHF, an album recorded last year. But whether Wilco makes it to that next level is another question entirely.
What's nearly forgotten in all the glowing reviews of this album is that the recording of it practically killed the band. The Wilco before YHF is certainly different than the Wilco of today. And whether the slicker, streamlined version of the band can move beyond the already impressive levels of the first version remains to be seen.
Let me be clear: YHF is a terrific album.
With it, Wilco has achieved a milestone that few bands ever reached. Starting with 1996's brilliant Being There, the band has issued a string of four- or five-star records, including the two Grammy-nominated Mermaid Avenue records with Billy Bragg. While not nearly as comfortable as Being There, 1999's Summerteeth was a solid effort marred only by the band's overindulgence and vocalist/chief songwriter Jeff Tweedy's determination to exorcise his alt.country past. The album is overproduced and lacks the charm and rough-edge that made Being There such a refreshing listen.
Clearly, Wilco learned from its mistakes and YHF is almost a 180-degree turnaround from the polished Summerteeth. Tweedy and main collaborator/multi-instrumentalist/jack-of-all-trades Jay Bennett adopted a minimalist approach to the new album, creating a stark, mostly beautiful but sometimes mind-numbing disc.
The album opens with the moody, plodding "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart," where Tweedy somehow carries a hummable melody over quiet, haunting keyboards and a simple drum beat. Things pick up a bit with "Kamera," an upbeat ode to Tweedy's patience, or lack thereof, and obsession with moodiness."I need a camera / to my eye / to my eye / reminding / which lies / have I been hiding / which echoes belong," Tweedy sings.
"Radio Cure" is the album's only clunker, a decrepit, slow-moving number containing some of Tweedy's most nonsensical lyrics to date: "Cheer up / Honey, I hope you can / there is something wrong with me / my mind is filled with radio cures / electronic surgical words."
Boy, a verse like that almost makes Tweedy's former Uncle Tupelo cohort Jay Farrar appear clairvoyant.
But rest assured, the rest of YHF is damn good, near brilliant. Tweedy, Bennett and company shine brightest toward the end, starting with the quirky "I'm The Man Who Loves You" and moving on to the almost peppy "Pot Kettle Black," and the Beatles/Brian Wilson-esque "Poor Places," truly a tour de force that ranks up with "Misunderstood" from Being There as Tweedy's best song.
But here's where things get complicated. Since finishing YHF, Tweedy booted out Bennett, widely acknowledged as the group's second heartbeat. No one will argue that YHF isn't a great album. Hell, not only will it win several Album of the Year awards, it'll probably get a Grammy nomination (and remember, you read that here first!). However, the question for Wilco, and most importantly Tweedy, is "What next?"
YHF is the product of a band gelling and reaching its creative heights together. While Tweedy is and has always been the de-facto leader, Bennett's versatility and overall musicianship took the band from simply a rootsy Uncle Tupelo spin-off to the verge of being hailed as the Great American Rock Band. Wilco's 1995 debut A.M. was solid, but did nothing to better Tweedy's reputation as Jay Farrar's second fiddle in Uncle Tupelo.
That all changed, of course, with Being There, an album that not only welcomed Bennett to the band, but also brought out a reborn and refreshed Tweedy, who apparently found out that his record collection went far beyond the traditional country offerings Uncle Tupelo specialized in. Being There was, and remains, Tweedy's strongest statement as a songwriter, both lyrically and musically. But without Bennett, the album probably would not have sounded all that different than A.M.
While Summerteeth, in retrospect, is a bit of a disappointment, YHF is clearly a work of a band at its peak. And the problem going forward is that Wilco is not the same band anymore. Nowhere is that more apparent than in their live act: although the band is still one of the tightest around, it's still struggling to find its identity without its anchor in Bennett. Luckily, and ironically, YHF is such a minimalist album that the new songs don't appear hurt by his disappearance. But the older tunes from Being There, A.M., and Summerteeth are obviously missing something.
So Tweedy's certainly put his balls on the chopping block now. In my limited knowledge of similar events in rock history, the result is not always that good. In fact, it's usually worse. Think the Clash were any better without Mick Jones? How about the Sex Pistols without Glen Matlock? Or Van Halen without David Lee Roth? The list goes on and on...
I guess in the meantime, we should all enjoy YHF while we can, because there may not be another Wilco album this good in quite some time.
RODEO ROB | An expert on all things "alt," Rob spends his days covering the energy industry and his nights covering the DC-area bars. Raise yer glass especially high to this man, for he has contributed to this site constantly since its creation four years ago.