Wilco

by Michael Harkin • July 10, 2009

Wilco
Wilco (the album)
(Nonesuch, 2009)

Seven years ago, I thought Wilco was the absolute bee's knees. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot lassoed in myself and a gazillion other NPR listeners, enchanted by Jeff Tweedy's jilted, rootsy songwriting voice and the band's peculiar balance of classicist pop, haunting folk, and contemporary electro-acoustic experimentation (admittedly, this last component most likely stemmed from their affiliation with Jim O'Rourke at that time). Sure, the lyrics often came out a bit clumsy, but it didn't really matter a great deal, as the music always managed to come across as sincere, hard-fought, and compelling. Wilco, at their best, can take the best parts of '60s/'70s pop and roots-rock songwriting and sculpt them into memorable songs with a wistful, unsettling shape.

As any casual fan knows, a lot has happened since the aforementionedFoxtrot. A Ghost Is Born continued along the angst-y path laid by YHF, but with 2007's Sky Blue Sky, they mellowed out considerably, toning down the angst in favor of a more contemplative, starry-eyed take on their previous sound. Tweedy is, by all accounts, much happier these days than he was around the time of the aforementioned YHF and 2004's A Ghost Is Born, and that's great to hear—it'd be selfish and stupid for any fan or follower to wish he was writing songs now like he was back then. That said, it's awfully hard, as a listener, to identify with or invest in the tunes he's singing on the band's newest, Wilco (the album).

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Crawdaddy! Magazine was founded by Paul Williams in 1966 and was the first U.S. magazine of rock criticism. John Lennon, Cameron Crowe, P.J. O'Rourke and many others have contirubted to its pages, and it is currently owned by Wolfgang's Vault, home to the legendary rock promoter Bill Graham's archive.