Indie band Wilco is one of the most innovative groups of the last two decades. However, they haven’t always been critical darlings, and some of their most inventive works have simply sailed over reviewers’ heads. As they prepare to release the “The Whole Love,” here’s a look at their most important albums.
Being There – Before Wilco was the indie band to beat, they were more focused on crafting great songs and being a really, really tight band than in crafting genre-defining sound scapes.
The double album “Being There” is still one of Wilco’s best works. From the Stones-like stomp of “Monday” to the growing tension–and unexpected whistling solo–of “Red Eyed And Blue,” this was the album that showed Jeff Tweedy as one of the best songwriters of the 1990s.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – Despite numerous critical awards, Wilco had trouble breaking into the mainstream with their alt-country influenced sound. After “Being There,” they released “Summer Teeth,” a great pop album, so fans might have expected something along the same lines for their fourth release.
“Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” was not a great pop album. It was something entirely different, packed with noise, elegantly crafted songs with bizarre lyrics and Wilco’s now-famous sound: the band would build on a single musical theme with incredibly tight musicianship, throwing in everything but the kitchen sink in the meantime–violins, synthesizers, samples, loops and the sound of an electric toothbrush on bare piano strings.
Wilco was dropped from their label after completing “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” which actually helped to build incredible buzz for the band. It was a shocking album at the time and still stands as the perfect example of the band’s work.
A Ghost Is Born – Where “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” zigged, “A Ghost Is Born” zagged. This album played with loud-and-soft dynamics and its songs tended to be contemplative or even meditative, as with the controversial “Spiders,” a Crazy Horse-like tune packed with noise and oddly monotone vocals.
While “A Ghost Is Born” has some of Wilco’s best songs, it was a subtle album and the definition of a grower if there ever was one. While some reviewers saw it as a retread, it was more like fine-tuning. It’s less sloppy than “Summer Teeth” with better songs overall than “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” but it’s definitely an album for patient listeners.
The Whole Love – After “Sky Blue Sky,” some fans were disappointed by Wilco’s apparent boredom with experimentation “Sky Blue Sky” and its followup, “Wilco: The Album” relied on almost Steely Dan-like guitars to fill out the bare spots in Tweedy’s songs. Apart from that, Tweedy’s voice was arguably less engaging, with fewer imperfections–and less emotion–than in previous works.
It’s hard to imagine Jeff Tweedy reading reviews and making a conscious decision to change his band’s direction, but nevertheless, “The Whole Love” is undeniably a more fractured and more lined with clever experimentation than the last two albums. It starts with some blistering guitar and a more lo-fi sound than anything from the last decade of Wilco’s work. It’s also packed with well-written songs and some of the frustrating, brilliant sonic experiments that made albums like “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” so engaging. Critics and fans will certainly have a lot to talk about when the album is officially released on September 27th.
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