I've missed over the last few days. "Low Key" is so good that I wondered if it might make its way into Wilco setlists at the time (before we knew that the Tweedy band had legs). "Slow Love" seems more divisive here than I would have thought — it's an essential and representative track on the album to me. Definitely an earworm. "Nobody Dies Anymore" is just hauntingly beautiful — another track that is made by the Lucius backing vocal. It really contributes to the autumn feel this album has for me. "I'll Sing It" is one I don't really care for. It's not bad, but I typically skip it.
I’ve been getting a bit behind here, so it’s catchup day: Wait for Love is a nice little love song 4.5/5 Low Key seems a bit like a Jeff Tweedy anthem. Another good song. Love the background singing on this one. 5/5 Looks like I’m going to disagree with many on Pigeons. It is not only of my favorite tracks on the album, I think it is kind of a personal Wilco Favorite of mine. Not at the top of the mountain, but on one of the many lesser peaks.. Love the acoustic guitar and wise lyrics. Jeff’s delivery works for me. Very soothing song. 5/5 Slow Love has a late 60’s psychedelic vibe that I like. Kind of a cinematic mood piece that is easy to get lost in. Beach house is a good comparison @Parachute Woman , another band I love. 4.5/5 Nobody Dies is a Wilco Classic. Period. 5/5 I’ll Sing It to you is an ok song, but something about it seems a little bit like a project song that didn’t quite cohere. Jeff repeating I’ll sing it to you leaves me thinking I’d rather he didn’t, at least not so insistently. Probably my least favorite song on the album. 3.5/5
"Nobody Dies Anymore" is excellent. It's spare and somewhat repetitive, but that serves to focus attention on the lyrics. Parts of this have a Neil Young sound (circa On The Beach) to my ears. "I'll Sing It" sounds unfinished to me - certainly unpolished (which is sometimes a good thing but not here). The backing "yeah yeah yeah"s are really annoying. The riff is okay and, on the whole, I probably like this more than I like "Slow Love", but it's a bit of a mess. The lyrics don't connect with me either.
Let's crack on to disc two: Flowering One thing I have noticed with this album is that the second disc features mostly fairly brief songs. Only one song over four minutes and most of them are around the three minute mark, just like this one. I like a good short song and 'Flowering' is really nice. I have no idea what the lyrics are meant to indicate (they seem like stream of consciousness word pairs to me) but the melody is pretty delightful and the arrangement is really sweet and simple. Nothin' fancy. I think this is such a likeable song and just good ol' pop/rock from Jeff.
Desert Bell 'Desert Bell' has lyrics that feel really dark to me, all about death and regrets it seems. They are still pretty oblique though. Jeff wasn't writing in a particularly straightforward manner on this album, which may have been a direct result of the anxiety and pain he was in (I don't want to psychoanalyze him, but maybe it was just difficult to write in a really plain way about this stuff?) But even though I don't know what every line means, the lyrics still paint a clear picture of desperation for me. The music is nice but this feels a bit like just another track on the album to me. Not a standout but not a weak point either. There isn't a very sticky melody, but it is pleasant in sound. Spencer plays well, cutting back on the fills and such. I don't know. I guess I have mixed feelings on this song.
The pick of today’s pairing is... Desert Bell! Shades of Jim Croce/70s singer-songwriters, at least it had me following the narrative. “I’m so sorry you don’t recognize me” and then provides a suggestion of (I think, based on one listen) what to do about it.
I suppose this is where Sukierae either becomes a truly special piece of work or kind of dissolves into what some call “sameness”. Flowering and Desert Bell open the second record, after the emotional and formal peak of Nobody Dies Anymore and the “we’ll see you after a short break” subtext of I’ll Sing It. This second LP is not what I’d call necessary : we got the full idea with the first one, and Jeff even went as far as explaining in interviews that his vision for a double album was that you could listen to them in two different sittings and that each LP was sequenced as a stand alone one. So they really work like Warm/Warmer, they can exist with or without each other, the second one is not an expansion of scope, it’s mostly more coming from the same well. Meaning : more great Jeff Tweedy tunes, more great loose acoustic riffs, more electric guitar and bass soulful licks, more syncopated instinctive drumming. Flowering sounds like a pretty cool mix between Nobody Dies Anymore and World Away while Desert Bell is another country waltz like Wait for Love, just a little less tenderly melodic and a little more cryptically poetic, with a sublime instrumental ending. As for me, I could live without Flowering and Desert Bell, but I certainly would not want to, as I find them both excellent. Listen to this beauty here…
The strengths of Flowering are in the noodling guitar conversations, from acoustic strumming to the deftly played electrics with just a little added fuzz. These manage to make an otherwise nondescript song shine. 4.5/5 What is it with waltzes? It seems just about impossible to make a bad one. It is in their nature to tug at our hearts, and no matter how hard we might try, they keep pulling us back in. It is also hard to make a great waltz for some reason. They almost always suffer from the same samey sameness demanded by the 3/4 form. Desert Bell is no exception. 3.5/5
"Flowering" is a great track. Like a lot of songs here, great bass line, and great guitar interplay between Jeff and... Jeff... layering the acoustic and the electric. I relistened to "I'll Sing It" for the first time in a while and was reminded about how much it doesn't fit in the sequence. IMO, the album flows much better from "Nobody Dies Anymore" into "Flowering." It just seems like a natural progression. "Desert Bell" is pretty forgettable to me. I usually skip it.
"Flowering"- The second album takes a little longer to sink its hooks into you. This is a good example. I guess I listen to the first album more, but the second album can be just as rewarding. Even though the song is on the first record, part two seems to be more "Low Key". "Flowering" is a good way to kick off this selection of tunes. Another song that sounds like Jeff effortlessly writing another catchy little song. I don't think there is much on this album that gets a low rating from me. It's all good and hard for me to fault any of these heartfelt and homespun songs. 4/5 "Desert Bell"- Has a touch of Neil Young and floats by like a lost 70s classic. I also think it's a really good set of lyrics. Jeff hasn't lost any of his poetic sensibility. I say give these songs a few spins and you will find them tunneling into your brain. This song inspires me to want to write, play guitar, paint, and pull out some Neil Young records. Jeff is frequently a source of artistic inspiration for me and this album is chock-full of it. 4/5 I'm also surprised that "I'll Sing It" didn't get more love yesterday. I had that song stuck in my head all day! A great little blast of rock n roll. Marc Bolan would be proud.
"Flowering" is a pleasant, calming little tune. Not exactly what I would expect as the first track on the second disc of the album. The lyrics are vague in that Tweedy way, but they don't annoy me (as so many of his less direct lyrics do). There's just a peaceful, natural feel here that I quite like. This one is in the upper tier of songs on Sukierae for me. "Desert Bell" follows on nicely but lacks the melodic beauty of "Flowering". Still, this is pretty good and I'm a sucker for any song with the word "desert" in the title, being a child of the American Southwest. I especially like the instrumental break at the end.
Pretty much how I feel. Disc 2 always feels inessential for me. That mindset means there are always pleasant surprises like Flowering, though, when I do revisit it. Desert Bell is fine but forgettable. A big difference compared to something like Remember the Mountainbed where Tweedy keeps you hanging on every word through a relatively repetitive song.
I apologize if many folks aren't that interested in Sukierae. It seems very quiet in here. Or perhaps things are just going to be a bit slower for the rest of the thread as we move into these later albums. Anyway, I so appreciate the continual comments. Summer Noon Truly lovely song. An excellent and beautiful melody from Jeff and a light, swoony arrangement (I especially love the subtle use of piano and what it brings to the song). The bass on 'Summer Noon' is also great. And the words are excellent. I think some of the lyrics on the Sukierae project as a bit too dense or metaphorical for me to properly connect with them, but I definitely 'get' the words on this song. Never leave your mother’s womb Unless you wanna see how hard a broken heart can swoon This is one that may on a bad day feel a tiny bit MOR (like 'You and I'--good for listening while shopping for groceries) but on a good day I know it is a rock solid piece of songwriting.
Honey Combed This is really sad. It is another song on the album that is really Jeff solo: no Spencer, no backing vocals. Just bare honesty and a feeling that would have fit right in on Warm or Warmer. The use of just acoustic guitar with a slide guitar style (but not actually slide guitar) backing figure definitely feels like Warm. The song to me seems to reflect everything that Jeff had gone through over the previous decade and how Susie had always stuck with him and now he is sticking with her through the hard times. I have written with a rope Wrapped around my throat Loomed like an island Dope hooked and cycloned Honey-combed my heart in love Jeff's got a lot of songs like this one but this is so raw and real. It really hit me hard this morning.
The hit-single !! I’m only half joking. Summer Noon is one of the catchiest things Jeff ever wrote, and one of the greatest “chorus only” songs I know. We’re familiar with quite a few of “verses only” songs (Dylan is the master, Jeff one of the best disciples), but “chorus only” is even more difficult to pull off. There She Goes by the La’s comes to mind, Dylan’s All the Tired Horses, a nice song called Divisionary by AgesandAges… maybe Harrison’s Give Me Love ? California Stars was kind of in-between (was it a verse or a chorus ?). Here Jeff does it effortlessly, everything is so adorable, tuneful, majestic, the vocals are sensational, the melody irresistible. Nothing much to add. This is classic classy Tweedy.
Due to some out of town work travel and just generally being slammed at work this past week or so, I have been AWOL from this thread. Hopefully I will have some time to catch up tonight. I had to drive to Atlanta last week for work and had some time in the car and took Sukierae with me - listened to it on the way down and the way back. Played it again this weekend. How much I now like this record has been one of the great surprises/revelations to me of this thread. It is a really, really good album. Like I mentioned before it could have perhaps been trimmed a bit. But that is a minor complaint. There are some really, really good songs on here that I (sadly) have not paid a lot of attention to through the years. Going sort of off topic, but not really. A lot of times I feel like I suffer from "music overload." Between music that I stream to check out, and CD's I check out of our local public library, I sometimes think there is just "too much music to listen to." I end up listening to a record once, maybe twice and then its on to the next thing that interests me. As a result I am always afraid that records are going to fall through the cracks, despite my best intentions. I think that is what happened to this record, to be honest. The great thing about this thread (well, one of the great things because there are many) is that it "forces" me to slow down, to slowly go through a record, take my time with it. This record has DEFINITELY benefited from that.
"Summer Noon" is a great song. I love the movie Boyhood and it fit so perfectly in that film (I am pretty sure that it played over the end credits). Its the song I probably remembered the most or was most familiar with heading into our discussion of this record.
Yes, I've found this can be a real 'problem.' In some ways, it makes you long for the days when you were a kid and had to save up to buy things and thus treasured each album and got to know them very intimately.
"Summer Noon"- I really like Jeff's bass playing on this album. This is a contender for the song that sounds the most like Wilco. It would fit right in on Schmilco and I wouldn't notice any difference in the playing. Spencer even plays some really great drum patterns instead of keeping things plain and simple. This was a good choice for a single, and I guess it also got plenty of exposure from being in the movie Boyhood. I have never seen it, but maybe I will check it out. Great song that I think most Wilco fans would love. 4.5/5 "Honey Combed"- A sweet tune that sounds as if Jeff is sitting next to you and playing you his new song. Yep! It's another good one. 4/5 and here he is playing next to you on the couch.
We have thrown away a lot of really good things (and plenty of bad things too) with the shifting of listening habits and the music industry's response to those shifting habits. It's a different thing now for sure. I've had Sukarie for a while and I am pretty certain I only listened to it once, it definitely never grabbed me, I listened to it 2 or 3 times on repeat a few days ago uninterrupted while driving and it still didn't really hold my attention. I did like Flowers pretty well which is definitely my favorite track on the entire album.
So true. During my High School years (1976-1979), Friday's were "album day." I would usually buy 2 records from that week's paycheck (these were probably 6 dollars for a single album and maybe 11 or 12 for a double) and that record or records would be on the turntable for the entirety of the week. Got to know that album(s) very well before the next album day rolled around.
Summer Noon is a great tune. The repetitive pattern could be a bit draining, but the melodic bass makes the tune for me. I remember buying this 7” on a trip to New Orleans at Peaches Records. Before COVID I travelled regularly for work and made it a habit to use record stores as a walking map for cities. I definitely miss this casual way of exploring new places! Honey Combed is also a good intimate little tune, and an improvement over Pigeons as a solo number. @Parachute Woman ’s mention of Jeff’s slide-like playing made me step back and consider Jeff’s evolution as a songwriter and musician. A few milestones I’ve noticed: Way back in Uncle Tupelo, Jeff evolved from bass player to guitar player and “other guy” to writing their last and biggest single AM is an opportunity just to prove he can do something without Jay Farrar, but he hands off lead guitar to his buddy Brian Henneman Jay comes on board as lead guitar but also collaborator, allowing Jeff to really blossom Jim O’Rourke and inspiration from Glenn helps Jeff abandon constraints of Americana for good and go in his own direction He also really gets into fuzz guitar at this point and his signature guitar sound emerges - the sustain it heavily fuzzed guitar is what can take it into pseudo-slide territory He then assembles a stable band that produces three albums in a row and gets really, really good live And that brings us up to this solo record, which I would argue behind the era of Jeff really becoming the songwriter and musician he wants to be. Despite fans’ love for Being There or Yankee (or in my case Ghost), I think those were all transitional albums leading toward Sukierae. It’s like he was developing all of these building blocks, and with Sukierae he brings them all together. And I’ll argue in a week or so and moving forward that he’ll close the loop by bringing all of this back into Wilco. So I’d argue the Wilco history is essentially: 1.0 - AM through Mermaid II - the Americana age 1.5 - Yankee-Ghost (plus Loose Fur) - the transitional phase 2.0 - SBS - Whole Love- the new collaborative 2.5 - Sukierae - the second transition 3.0 - Star Wars ff - the Tweedy era (but more on that later)
Every era has different listening habits. In my teen years I had two hours of travel to/from school every day so there were always about ten cassettes or CDs in my school bag and I would listen to them again and again and again. I definitely don’t have that luxury today! But if I were a teen today I’d be listening to songs - not albums - on streaming platforms. But communicating with my friends while I listened. So while I might lament the loss of the value of listening to an album as a whole, the new model allows for real-time interaction around the listening experience which is pretty cool imo.
Actually, this is pretty on topic and helps explain why I don't have much to say about this album. I've been listening to music for roughly 50 years. The first five years or so were spent listening to frilly 70s pop - Billy Don't Be a Hero, Seasons in the Sun, etc. - or at least starting there, genuinely loving what many rock fans consider the burning, stinking pit of rock and roll, the summer of 1974. Of course, AOR radio in the 70s was filled with the 60s rock gods (Beatles, Stones, Who, etc.) along with the 70s rock gods (Zep, Floyd, Springsteen, etc.). But what many people forget is that there was a TON of "classic rock" music thrown in the mix that covered an enormous musical territory, from Yes to Linda Ronstadt to 10CC to The Ramones. It was a great way to start listening to music. AND to branch out from there, exploring influences: blues, country, soul. Then to go farther back in history for celtic, classical, jazz, etc. Take on the world with reggae, Brazilian, African, etc. A problem I noted earlier was not having enough time to listen to music I love, much less purposely exploring music that I really don't like, and can tell I don't like based on decades of experience! I've been proven wrong quite a bit over the years - I'm forever stumbling on really good hiphop tracks that in no way registered the first time around, but made more sense when I heard them in an HBO show or commercial (while most of the genre will always leave me cold). Or modern soul. (I heard this track while watching the dicey Trainspotting sequel. This is great!) Point being, along with the vast sea of music I already know, the constant back exploring into deep genres that sometimes have existed for centuries, and then stumbling onto cool new music like this, even at this point in my life, I am routinely overwhelmed by too much music to listen to - it's almost like a part-time job, but so tied into my identity that I will never give it up. It's around the time of this album that Jeff got what I call Ray Davies Syndrome. Stated simply, it's reaching a position of artistic control in a group where no one tells you "no" in regards to creative decisions. It doesn't lead to grandiosity; it usually leads to mediocrity. This album, I pulled about half a dozen tracks into my big Wilco playlist. Might seem like a lot, but not in the context of a double album, and I was picking any track that even remotely grabbed me. Most of it strikes me as whispered vocals with heavy reverb on songs with very thin melodies. I have similar feelings to Luke Warm and the follow-up, Luke Warmer. I always find value in these albums, but I need to work for it ... whereas in the past Wilco album's landed on me like a motherf'ing spaceship! It's not fair to say his creativity is drying up - it seems to be exploding! Or make that a muffled explosion. But it took a turn for me in ways I didn't and still don't find appealing. That said, I really liked a lot of Star Wars and Schmilco. For me, he'll always work better in the group context. But this solo stuff feels like I'm humoring an old friend on karaoke night at the local bar.
