{"id":10720,"date":"2011-12-08T13:28:07","date_gmt":"2011-12-08T18:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=10720"},"modified":"2011-12-08T13:28:07","modified_gmt":"2011-12-08T18:28:07","slug":"wilco-then-and-now-the-whole-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wilco-then-and-now-the-whole-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilco, Then and Now: The Whole Love<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Although I’ve never been a full-blown fan of the band, I’ve made a habit of keeping up with each new Wilco<\/strong> release, buying\u00a0about two thirds of their albums over the years. The band’s\u00a0latest album, The Whole Love<\/em>,\u00a0has been in my rotation the last month. \u00a0It’s my favorite album by them since Summerteeth<\/em>. That doesn’t mean I like it without reservations and anxieties that a man my age should not experience over a rock ‘n roll album. But I do, and you know I will share.<\/p>\n

In the coming days I will revisit some of the band’s earlier releases, pulling out my original reviews at the time of their release. I hope you find the development in my views on the band enlightening, but let’s start in the present tense…after the jump<\/em>!\u00a0<\/p>\n

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It’s me, not you, Wilco.<\/em><\/p>\n

The experience of listening to any new Wilco album is fraught with mixed emotions. I like the fact that they’re a band that knows what it means to at least want to be great. They’re a guitar-based band\u00a0with the sonic core of that strain of Classic Rock, that began with Bob Dylan’s landmark electric albums and ran through The Band, the Stones’ Mick Taylor era, and Neil Young.\u00a0Like those artists\u00a0they’ve got an experimental bent, even pulling in the occasional Pet Sounds<\/em>, minimalist, and “European” influences. They can rock pretty hard, in the way their denim-clad forefathers did, and they seem like they actually read books\u2014high-brow novels, history tomes, and the like. They use authentic instruments: vintage guitars and organs that make squeaky, clicky noises during the quiet songs. I’m a sucker for that stuff!<\/p>\n

Overlooking the nonsense of critics and\u00a0hipster kidz<\/em> who feel the need to throw around the term electronics<\/em> when discussing the band’s records, as if we’re living in the time of Thomas Edison and\u00a0musicians are\u00a0first experimenting with\u00a0electricity, there are some things that gnaw at me as soon as I hit PLAY on any Wilco album. Primarily, I’m bugged by the fact that this band I should love is nothing more than a band I like. Even the songs I start out loving fade into the Like<\/em> bin. There’s a sameness to the music of Wilco that too readily dictates which songs I’m going to like and which songs I’ll quickly skip.<\/p>\n[audio:http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Wilco_02_I-Might.mp3|titles=Wilco, “I Might”]\n

The songs I like are always the 1960s-cum-Replacements-cum-ELO 2-chord stomps with cool guitar and keyboard textures underpinning a\u00a0deliberate bassline. Jeff Tweedy puts his reedy voice to best use on these numbers with lyrics about his downer-popping, screwed up, seemingly eternally\u00a0recent past. The new album’s “I Might” and “Born Alone” each fit that bill. A few weeks ago, if you asked me whether I liked those songs I would have answered, “Are you kidding me? I love<\/em> them!” Shoot, “I Might” even works in fuzz bass and glockenspeil. Rock nerds live for that stuff! If you ask me today, though, my enthusiasm would be tempered, thanks to the band’s other main song template.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n[audio:http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Wilco_03_Sunloathe.mp3|titles=Wilco, “Sunloathe”]\n

That other main song template I find myself skipping over on Wilco’s new album is their mellow style, characterized by a bed of swirling Wurlitzer organ, tinkling piano, and Tweedy singing in the voice of a dying Confederate soldier taking his last breaths while clutching his newborn son to his chest. When songs like “Sunloathe” and “Rising Red Lung” start up I first try to gauge how their latest effort at writing a “Whispering Pines” will stack up before briefly trying to imagine what it must be like to prefer downers to uppers. Then I hit SKIP. Life’s too short for more than one of those songs on any artist’s album.\u00a0Wilco’s too decent an attempted great band, too loaded with gently chugging numbers like “The Whole Love” to drag listeners down with that stuff.<\/p>\n

The band also finds time to indulge in a wholly experimental side, which I can appreciate. It’s yet another part of their attempted greatness. The Whole Love<\/em>, for instance, kicks off with a 7-minute, 15-second “Art of Nothing,” which makes me think they were listening to Radiohead<\/strong> and mid-period Roxy Music<\/strong>. I like it. I even admire the sickening self-indulgence of “Capitol City.” The production shifts are ambitious and well done, if loaded with all the proctomusicalogical baggage a Jon Brion<\/strong> could imagine. As much as I appreciate this kind of stuff, though, it inevitably makes me hate myself, like I feel after eating an entire box of Chicken in a Bisket<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’ll keep trying with Wilco\u00a0and continue digging the really enjoyable songs, especially when I give their albums a couple of months off between spins, to keep them fresh.<\/p>\n