Wilco- The Whole Love

At some point in the past decade, Wilco went from being America's #1 forward thinking, progressive, experimental-pop band behind a string of masterpieces to... being America's #1 backward looking, hard touring, dad-rock band behind kind-of-OK craftsman-like work of Sky Blue Sky (underrated! secretly awesome!) and the kind-of-self titled Wilco (The Album). Whether this transition took place as a result of Jeff Tweedy's successful rehab, or just as a natural growth of the band itself, it's hard to say. What I do know is that Wilco has, with The Whole Love, gone from one of those bands-I-love-to-love to being one of those bands-I-still-want-to-love-but-don't.

Wilco (The Album) left me a bit bored. I also can't seem to remember many songs from it, other than the meta-titled 'Wilco (The Song)' and experimental throwback 'Bull Black Nova', a sort of more nervous/anxious sequel to the superior 'Spiders (Kidsmoke)' from A Ghost Is Born. See, Wilco are at their best when they're reaching or expanding, and to see them spend another album coasting is a disappointment. The only new-sounding experimental parts of The Whole Love essentially boil down to the first and last tracks, which showcase Wilco's jammy, guitar-heroics side ('Art Of Almost') and their multi-part, slow-build epic stuff ('One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)'). In between, though, it's just a lot of Wilco sounding like Wilco all thrown into a blender together. 'I Might' recalls the retro, raucous edge of some Summerteeth and Being There tracks mixed with some Sky Blue Sky looseness. 'Black Moon', meanwhile, sounds like a mix between the haunted ballads of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (in particular 'Radio Cure') with the jaunty alt.country stuff of A.M.

All told, however, this album is neither a step forward nor a modest return to form. I hate feeling this way about The Whole Love because it has got some excellent songs, such as career highlights like 'Born Alone' and the wonderfully, well, jaunty 'Capitol City' which could pass for a 1930s pop tune. Indeed, there's nothing inherently wrong with this record at all. It's simply that, if this is what passes for experimental and/or new from Wilco, they aren't really trying any more. A lesser band could never pull off a track like 'Rising Red Lung', but Wilco somehow turn it into an oddly unmemorable reminder of better moments from their past. Lyrically, The Whole Love leans toward the less abstract and has a close to 50/50 split between passable verses and forgivable clunkers. It isn't that Jeff Tweedy isn't trying, he just doesn't seem to be trying very hard.

Which is precisely the core of my issue with The Whole Love. It isn't the band sounding like this or that album one at a time, as it was on Wilco (The Album), so much as it is Wilco kind of smashing all of their old albums together and odd combinations of those coming out here and there. The more I listen to it, the more I like it, admittedly. 'Whole Love', maudlin lyrics aside, is simply too much fun to pass up. But the album as a whole also increasingly feels like if I give this record a full score it would be like rewarding someone for winning a race by coasting for the last half-mile just to show off how much of a lead they had. Yes, Wilco, you used to forward thinking; you used to be so far ahead of us back in 2001-2004. But we've long since caught up.

3 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Great Album Covers- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Though my opinion of the album has gone back and forth over the years, there's no denying what an important and iconic album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was and remains. Chicago had become a cultural mecca in the 90s for the indie and post-rock scenes though realistically the city was known as a center for great art of all stripes for many years. Indeed, it is the artistic mecca of the entire Midwest. That a band like Wilco would end up there seems only fitting, since they spent the first phase of their career moving from alt.country to more experimental music, much as young people from the Midwest often leave their suburban and rural birthplaces for the intellectual and artistic offerings of Chicago.

It's only fitting that something from Chicago would end up on a Wilco album cover, and that it would also be on the band's most iconic album is sweet serendipity. The low angle view of Marina City emphasizes the bizarre appearance of its towers; unless you're from the area you probably weren't sure exactly what you were looking at right away. "What are these, man, like prickly corncobs...?"

Beyond the unique look of these buildings, their use on the cover cements Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as a Chicago album through and through.

Wilco- A.M.

If I may: upon its release, Wilco's A.M. got an undue amount of grief and bad mouthing from every side imaginable. Even members of the band, in particular Jeff Tweedy, regard the album as a failure, inspiring him to craft the massively ambitious follow-up, the double album Being There.

While that may be the only silver lining of this record for most people, I have the strong impression that if anyone bothered to listen to the thing today, with all the alt.country/No Depression/rivalry with Jay Farrar's Son Volt in the distant past, they'd discover a decent little album with some fantastic songs. After all, Wilco often bust out fan favorites 'Casino Queen', 'Box Full Of Letters', and 'Passenger Side' as crowd pleasing stompers during their shows. If three great songs don't exactly a great album make, they do help make it a good one. In other words, A.M. is, depending on your familiarity, not as bad as you remember or not as bad as you've been led to believe.

I would add 'Too Far Apart' to that list of great songs from this album. As this is the only Wilco release on which Brian Henneman appears, his lead guitar playing on this track makes it among the most unique in the Wilco canon for that reason alone, though the mid-60s Dylan-esque organ stabs and ramshackle drumming help make this my pick for most underrated, unknown Wilco song. It's simply a rocking little album closer, unassuming and casual, the sort of thing critics and disappointed music fans probably derided the album as being boring or underwhelming for. Which means to me, it's populist and fun, hard to hate but also difficult to praise or critique in a meaningful way.

Yes, what strikes me most about A.M. is its populist appeal. Not so much alt.country as a country-rock record patterned in the rustic-by-way-of-folk-and-rock Bob Dylan/Neil Young style, the album title is also a dead giveaway for the band's aim, making music that would feel welcome next to, say, The Band on a classic rock station. Sure, there's some twang to tracks like the modest 'That's Not The Issue', the record's undiscovered treasure (next to 'Too Far Apart', anyway), featuring some spirited banjo picking and pedal steel guitar licks. Sure, nothing on here hints at the stronger rock, pop, and later, experimental elements that were to come, to say nothing of the forthcoming greater artistic ambition. Yet listen to this in the context of the band's discography as it stands in 2011 and you'll find that, as a whole, A.M. is closer in sound and spirit to Being There than Being There is to Summerteeth and everything after.

This may sound strange, especially coming from someone who generally loathes brainless, feel-good pop music, but even I enjoy modest, good-time music now and again. And A.M. is just that; nothing more, nothing less. Not every song is great or an amazing piece of art but with an album like this, it's unnecessary. Furthermore, it's ironically almost an asset that some of the songs are mediocre because, at a party (the ideal place for such music), it's nice to have a break to get up and grab another beer or greet those lackadaisical friends showing up fashionably late.

All of that said, A.M. is without a doubt Wilco's worst album. Being There is a more artistic and enduring rejiggering of its aesthetic minus the boozy fun-time country-rock swing, as if Tweedy was finally putting in a genuine effort to try. By which I mean, not only to try to best former Uncle Tupelo bandmate Jay Farrar but also to carve his name on the tree of rock history. Whatever record you think he managed to complete both of those with--I wasn't totally sold until A Ghost Is Born, which probably sounds insane--I don't think anyone would claim he did it with the debut. Still, calling A.M. Wilco's worst album is analogous to calling Grizzly Bear's Horn Of Plenty their worst, too. Both are true statements, though those debuts are quite different in spirit and tone from what they would go on to do, to say nothing of personnel changes. Thus I would append the claim to be a variation on the sophomore slump rather than "worst album." So, no, those albums aren't the worst; they're the "freshmen slump" of both bands.

3 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Video: Wilco- Cars Can't Escape

I'm going to see Wilco after work today, so there won't be a substantial post. Instead, enjoy this video of an unreleased song from the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot sessions, taken from the I Am Trying To Break Your Heart film. Also included is some funny studio footage.

Wilco- Wilco (The Album)

Just as diversity can be a good or bad thing, a band content to sound like itself can be a good or bad thing, too. I think this is the reason the Beatles's self titled album (commonly referred to as The White Album) is my favorite of their's. It's all over the map, stylistically and mood-wise, and in the end it didn't represent a leap or further development for the band so much as a consolidation of their strengths and a longform demonstration of their gift for inventive, art tinged pop. By contrast, Wilco's self titled album is arguably the weakest thing they've done since their debut, A.M., because Wilco (The Album) is a mess of contrasting styles that recall music from their various albums but come off like weaker versions.

I actually love Sky Blue Sky, which has a laid back, classic rocky feel to it. Even in that 'simple' setting I felt that Jeff Tweedy and company were exploring new things and pushing themselves. Also, the songwriting remained strong, a crucial element in the band's appeal. 'Sunken Treasure' and 'I Am Trying To Break Your Heart' are songs that hook fan for life; even the peppy 'Wilco (The Song)', the best thing here, isn't that good.

Most of Wilco (The Album) feels undercooked and effortless. By which I mean, effortless in a bad way. It adds nothing to their sound and only a handful of songs rise above "this reminds me of X off of Y", where X represents one of your favorite songs from album Y. 'Bull Black Nova' reminds me of 'Spiders (Kidsmoke)' off of A Ghost Is Born, but not as good. 'Country Disappeared' reminds me of, well, a lot of songs off of Sky Blue Sky but isn't as good. 'You Never Know' reminds me of 'Outta Mind (Outta Sight)' off of Being There but is weaker for it. I would never complain about Wilco recording stuff that sounded like songs they've done before but if the songwriting isn't as good it doesn't matter what they're trying to sound like. The Sea & Cake have sounded like themselves for most of their career but every album they put out is of a consistent quality.

So I find myself in the strange position with this album of recommending it to newcomers but telling established fans to skip it. It's as good an introduction to the band as you can get, containing most of the various styles and guises Wilco have worn. But once you've heard the rest of their discography, it sounds like a weak, insular release. Considering how many bands are pushing themselves and releasing their best music yet (check out the releases from Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, and Sunset Rubdown from this year), and how Wilco has the amazingly talented and experimental minded Nels Cline and Glenn Kotche, it's almost a shame that Tweedy was content to coast. Wilco (The Album) is not actually bad, but it is underwhelming, unsurprising, and ultimately unsatisfying.

Loose Fur- Born Again In The USA

Wilco's Sky Blue Sky divided a lot of people because it wasn't another experimental, Big Important Rock Album like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born were. Rather, it's an easy going, classic rock, 70s worshipping release, and once you get past what you expected it to be and enjoy it for what it is, Sky Blue Sky is actually every bit as good as Wilco's best. Still, it's not as if it came out of nowhere. In fact, if you have been paying attention to what Tweedy was doing outside of Wilco--or read between the lines of A Ghost Is Born's more immediate, catchy songs--you'd have been prepared for it.

I'm resisting the urge to say that Loose Fur's albums are like a preview of where Wilco is going, but their two releases make for an easy cause and effect relationship. Though not released until 2003, Loose Fur's first self titled album was recorded in 2000, during the recording process for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Comparing the two, you really get the sense that Loose Fur unblocked whatever problems Tweedy was having with Wilco. Though Loose Fur is more overtly experimental and at the same time not as consistent or excellent as Yankee, the sound of the two albums isn't that different. The same could be said for Born Again In The USA, which was released a year before Sky Blue Sky but approximates its 70s sound and classic rock just as equally.

By the time of this recording, Loose Fur's three members had a very familial working relationship--Jim O'Rourke had produced or worked on a couple Wilco albums while both Glen Kotche and Jeff Tweedy are in Wilco. Like its predecessor, Born Again In The USA isn't as good as the related Wilco album, but it has a low key, relaxed charm all its own. Guitars are the obvious centerpiece of this album and nearly every song has some outstanding playing on it. Tweedy and O'Rourke remind us both of their chops and their way with a song; though O'Rourke only sings two, it's nice to hear him again since he's spent most of this decade off the mic. Tweedy, meanwhile, reveals the playful side that's emerged lately both in his music and in his personality/stage presence. 'The Ruling Class' is a jaunty tune and sees him singing about a Christ-like figure (or maybe Christ himself, returned) shootin' smack and smokin' crack. And as usual I've got to give some token appreciation for the efforts of Kotche, always showing the difference between simply being a drummer and being a master musician/session musician, doing what he can to add to the music, never getting in the way. In fact, I'll go one step further and say that he is a deceptive drummer because what he's playing, despite filling the usual role of holding down the groove/rhythm of a song and keeping time, is much more complex and interesting than it initially seems.

If forced to pinpoint what exactly it is about this album that makes it merely above average, an interesting side project but not as good as Wilco's main stuff, I'd have to give two reasons. The first is 'Wreckroom.' While it is eight minutes of mostly interesting music, it doesn't quite gel with the rest of the album. In the same way that I like 'Less Than You Think' on A Ghost Is Born but rarely listen to it, 'Wreckroom's extended outro of swirling, pealing guitar space never works for me. The second reason is that, well, this is just a side project, ultimately. I don't want to insinuate that Tweedy saves up his 'A' game for Wilco because I like these songs a lot and he's not holding back. But due to the way these songs are played and what they are, they don't have the panache and punch that Wilco does. Loose Fur get by on a lot of charm and "we just did this because we enjoy playing together and it was fun" on Born Again In The USA. Anyway, when are side projects ever taken as seriously and loved as deeply as the main stuff?? It's pretty rare. Loose Fur was an album about risk taking and sonic discovery and though I do like it better than Born Again, that's a matter of personal taste. The two albums are trying for different things and succeed at them. On Born Again, they aren't trying to push themselves; it doesn't have the sense of experimentalism and searching that made Loose Fur so interesting and worth hearing. But, again, this isn't trying to be that. Just as Sky Blue Sky was a good old fashioned rock album at its heart, Born Again is a good old fashioned rock side project, where a few guys from other bands or what have you get together to hang out and play music together because they like each other.

Born Again In The USA may not have the freshness and historical importance that the first album did, but that doesn't diminish it in any way. It's a nice companion piece to Sky Blue Sky, at any rate, and an above average album in its own right. Since you'll come to this via one of the three people involved, there's little chance it will blow you away in the same way the main projects do, but it's still great music for fans.

Album of the Week: Deerhoof- Offend Maggie

Deerhoof are an endlessly fascinating band assuming you're a fully baptised member of the tribe who enjoy their music. They're the sort of group who elicit extreme reactions from listeners: you either love them or hate their guts and the guts of the people who listen to them. I don't think of Deerhoof as an extremely experimental band but I have a very skewed perspective. I think it's easy for people like me to forget that bands like the Fiery Furnaces and Animal Collective sound like absolute, intolerable, and pretentious crap to most people. At any rate, if you've never liked Deerhoof before, Offend Maggie will do nothing to change your mind, so you may as well just click away from this review right now and I'll count to five before continuing.

....five. OK, the haters are gone.

Offend Maggie is a mighty fine Deerhoof album. I was more than pleased to hear that the band had added another guitarist to their fold while recording the album because, in my opinion, the band functions best with two guitarists. Deerhoof's sound started to congeal into something interesting with Reveille in 2002. But it was with their next two albums, Apple O' and Milk Man, in 2003 and 2004, recorded after Chris Cohen joined, that they really started to record some great stuff. I still hold The Runners Four as their high point, being a fascinating and sprawling double album and all, but moreso I think it was because they sounded like a band. When Cohen left, their next album, Friend Opportunity, became a lean collection of experimental pop that simultaneously expanded both the band's pop and experimental sides. It's an odd album by any standard, with almost a third of its length given over to the final track, which was an 11 minute epic. Though I like Friend Opportunity, it sounded like a studio album made with little regard for live performances. Watching the now-threesome version of Deerhoof perform shortly after its release, they felt a bit limited. They did a good job of pulling off some of the older material even with only one guitarist, but Friend Opportunity was a bit too ambitious for its own good. 'Kidz Are So Small' doesn't quite translate well to the stage when the same guy playing the odd samples and keyboards has to play the guitar parts, too.

Offend Maggie is a return to the classic two guitarist Deerhoof sound and I welcome it with open arms. The more time that goes on, the more I think of The Runners Four as a masterpiece, so it's good to see the band...well, not returning to that sound, but hearkening back to it. At the same time, while Offend Maggie isn't as good as The Runners Four, it is a musical feast for fans of the band. The emphasis on this album is definitely on the instruments, from the clashing-and-interlocking guitars, bouncing Paul McCartney-esque bass lines, and the ultimate secret weapon of the band, the controlled chaos of Greg Saunier's drums. Deerhoof does their 'spastic prog rock, stop on a dime' stuff here better than ever. However, the downside of all this is that the vocals and lyrics are buried. I'm a fan of Satomi's voice beyond the surface "hey, listen to that weird Japanese chick sing random stuff!!" enjoyment of hipster irony-nauts, so it's a bit sad that I can't really tell what she's singing most of the time. Meanwhile, Saunier continues to deliver his one or two vocal turns per album with 'Family Of Others'; much like his drumming, his voice is a secret weapon for the band, with his child-like innocence and Brian Wilson-esque register.

When the initial excitement of a new Deerhoof album wears off, the inevitable conclusion is reached: it's just another Deerhoof album. You can't fault a band for sounding like themselves, but Offend Maggie is, in the end, Deerhoof doing Deerhoof. This album features some incredible songs but it would be hard to argue that there's anything entirely new about it. Again, this is not a bad thing, but Offend Maggie features some now-standard Deerhoof tropes from albums past, with the annoying/unlistenable song ('This Is God Speaking'), the repetitive-but-addictive song ('Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back'), the epic album closer ('Jagged Fruit'), and the awesome song that doesn't get the praise it deserves ('Buck and Judy'). While Offend Maggie does offer some new tidbits (the acoustic guitar intro to the title track, the sly use of pianos/keyboards here or there) this isn't really an album about change. This is a 'consolidate lessons you've learned' kind of release, putting the emphasis on band dynamics, interplay, and "let's do what we do best" songwriting. This makes for an easy, compulsive listen. Kinda like Wilco's Sky Blue Sky or Radiohead's In Rainbows in that regard, two albums that didn't do anything new but were nevertheless really damn good.

So where does this leave us?? Well, if you're a fan of Deerhoof--which I assume you are if you made it this far into this review--you should rush out immediately and buy this album. It's another great album from a band who've been on a winning streak for five years. Those of you non-fans who've made it this far into my review, well, you won't like Offend Maggie and are best served by giving Friend Opportunity or The Runners Four a try, albums that are a bit more welcoming to newcomers but still have all the elements of Deerhoof that will either excite or sicken you.

My Morning Jacket- Evil Urges

My Morning Jacket are many things to many people. Like contemporaries such as Wilco, who crossover between many different crowds (closet music critic/bloggers, jam band followers, too-cool-for-school indie rockers, etc.), the band threatens to lose or neglect fans by changing their sound too much. Wilco overcomes this by not really giving a crap what their fans want, while My Morning Jacket are currently overcoming it by putting something for everyone on their albums. Their Z is a fantastic album, and even though it was the first time those outside the Southern Rock/jam band/classic rock axis took notice of them, it still had enough pure guitar fury to keep the attention of the latter. To put it succinctly, 'Lay Low' tears it up.

Problematically, My Morning Jacket expand their palette even further on Evil Urges, with none of the laser-sharp focus and inspired experimental pop that Z showcased. At 47 minutes, it was the band's shortest album, and while brevity may not be a sign of quality, it was in that case. Evil Urges is scattershot and varied, but it never hangs together as a whole. It's as if every few songs the album restarts--first it's funky, then it's blue eyed country soul, then it's fist pumping rock, then it's spacey and prog rock-y. This is similar to the problem that so many jam bands have: they want to showcase their songs on studio albums, their variety of styles, but also their ability to improvise. Thus they release overly long albums that are too much for newcomers to grasp, and too dry and short for the diehard to love. In My Morning Jacket's case, the problem is that they are now attempting too much on a single album, and none of it is particularly good. Z was 10 tracks, but those 10 tracks pack in a great deal of variety and inventiveness. Evil Urges only has 4 more songs, and 8 more minutes, but feels bloated and unfocused.

Most worryingly of all, the addition of funk to the band's palette is a disaster. 'Highly Suspicious' is quite possibly the worst thing they've ever recorded. It feels like a bald faced attempt by the band to inject some humor and kitsch into their music, which is a fine idea in theory, but in execution is awful. Jim James has one of those "raise the hair on the back of your neck" voices when he sticks to his brisk tenor or his spacey, reverb soaked wolf howls, but when he tries to sound like Prince, it's simply embarrassing. Title track and opening song 'Evil Urges' fares a bit better by combining the band's various musical strands with this new vocal style, but it's such an odd, long winded choice to begin the album I don't know what they were thinking.

Mainly, as I've struggled to get a handle on Evil Urges, the impression that this album is one for the fans takes shape. As it compares so unfavorably to Z, this is the only conclusion I can come to. Assuming you are a hardcore fan of the band, you'll undoubtedly love this. Assuming you're like me, and thought Z was a great album but you're still not sold on the band, then Evil Urges will do nothing to convince you otherwise.

Album of the Week: Wilco- A Ghost Is Born

For all its so-called indulgences--the guitar solos, the long noise-drone-fest at the end of 'Less Than You Think', the sleight and I-hope-intentionally-kind-of-stupid lyrics to 'I'm A Wheel'--I think we can all agree that A Ghost Is Born opens with one of the most stunning and arresting moments in Wilco history. Barely above a whisper Jeff Tweedy sings "When I sat down on the bed next to you, you started to cry" and this incredibly visual scene of delicacy and pain gives me the absolute chills every time I hear it.

A Ghost Is Born is one of those albums that has a muddled reputation. Shortly before its release, Tweedy entered rehab. Perhaps the album was so consuming that it causes a breakdown?? At the same time, reviews were all over the place--some calling it better than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, some calling it much worse--and I've never been quite clear what the general consensus actually is. In my case, it's overwhelmingly positive.

For all its successes, I've never found Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to be a particularly human or listenable album. Despite the fun tracks like 'Heavy Metal Drummer', it's became a museum piece that I dust off every once in awhile to make sure I wasn't wrong; then, satisfied, I file it back away. It's the kind of album that, when I listen to it, I usually find myself skipping over tracks--not out of spite or dislike, but because I feel I don't need to hear them. They aren't "fun" to listen to, and I certainly don't relate to them. I'm no slouch when it comes to figuring out the meaning of things, but the album opens with "I am an American aquarium drinker/I assassin down the avenue" which certainly sounds cool but doesn't mean anything. Even the ones where Tweedy is writing in a fairly plain language about human feelings, I can't help but think he's writing about other people, or things he's imagined. Do I like heavy metal, let alone think it's kitschy or funny to write a song about nostalgia for being in one??

Thus I find A Ghost Is Born to be a better album, both because of its fantastic, enjoyable songs and its humanity. 'Heavy Metal Drummer' and 'I'm The Man Who Loves You' are good songs, but they're not my favorites from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I think this is what I mean when I say it's not a listenable album: my favorite songs from it are the slower, more experimental ones, and it's hard to listen to music like that all the time. The opposite is true for A Ghost Is Born. My least favorite song, 'Less Than You Think', is the slowest, most experimental one here, while everything else moves with force and purpose even if it's more mellow and nuanced('Hell Is Chrome', for example). I can listen to this album all day long (and by extension, Sky Blue Sky) because the songs are just fun to listen to. They're catchy, but they aren't fluff or classic rock Frankensteins (like the creature, not the song). It's the same reason I love Surfer Rosa by the Pixies; the songs are addictive, listenable, and fun, but they aren't easy, obvious, or compromised.

As for the humanity of A Ghost Is Born, well, you wouldn't think it on first glance. The artwork and packaging, not to mention the song titles, suggest something cold, unfeeling, austere, and drained of life. But listen to the album with a lyrics sheet--get past the guitar solos, and noisy bits--and you'll find an album with a vulnerability and poetry in its veins that few seem to notice. 'Muzzle Of Bees' contains the following lines, which send me into fits of jealously and awe every time they come on:

And the sun gets passed from tree to tree
Silently, and back to me
With the breeze blown through
Pushed up against the sea
Finally back to me

I'm assuming you got my message
On your machine
I'm assuming you love me
And you know what that means

It's very rare that a writer can be both vague and direct at the same time, but Tweedy accomplishes this here. Everywhere else the album seems to deal, explicitly or implicitly, with Tweedy's personal problems, from the oddly upbeat 'Handshake Drugs' to the pained love song 'Company In My Back' to 'Hell Is Chrome', which I've always assumed was either about him going into rehab or deciding to start abusing painkillers. Even the two "fun" tracks, which aren't about these issues, have a humanity to them that surpasses Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. 'I'm A Wheel' is a stupid tossaway that sounds amazing live, where such broad strokes work well, while 'The Late Greats' is nothing more than a pleasant relief, a pill to be taken, if you will, to recover from the migraine-simulating ending to 'Less Than You Think.'

Though I'm sure no one will agree to this, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the type of album that critics and fans will call the band's best and most essential release, always voting for it on lists, but never really listening to it much. No, I think, if people are being honest with themselves, they would prefer any of the other Wilco albums--other than A.M., that is. And so, A Ghost Is Born is mine. It didn't generate the praise and hoopla which Yankee Hotel Foxtrot did, but, actually, it's better. Give it another chance.

Video: Wilco- Side With The Seeds

One of the reasons I like Wilco is that I could fit right into the band, looks-wise. Members often have terrible haircuts and three-day-shadows on their faces. I can appreciate that.

This is a performance video from, as far as I can tell, some kind of bonus DVD that accompanied Sky Blue Sky when it was first released. This particular clip starts with Jeff Tweedy talking about growing up, or something like that, before they cue up 'Side With The Seeds.' While mostly following the album version, you do get a chance to see Nels Cline in action.