Wilco: Album by Album

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Parachute Woman, May 11, 2020.

  1. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    I just saw a notice from Joan Shelley on Twitter that West Virginia Public Radio will be rebroadcasting the 2016 episode of Mountain Stage that includes Wilco and Joan Shelley, at 6 pm this evening. This was the event where Joan met Jeff, incidentally, which led to him producing her superb 2017 self-titled album.

    Listen here: WVPB - Homepage | WVPB
     
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  2. wavethatflag

    wavethatflag God is love, but get it in writing.

    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    I listened to Schmilco three times today, but have no comments to offer here. It really is unlike any other Wilco album, with all of Jeff's hushed vocals, and it's like all the sounds are depressed instead of in relief, but the melodies are solid. Except for "Common Sense," which I inexplicably manage to get through every time, nevertheless.

    I'm "Yup" on "Nope." Why kill a man when you can drive him crazy? (Not to sure if I like that line. :D)

    OK, so I had comments.
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2020
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  3. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Someone to Lose


    We get another animated music video for this song, this one a stop-motion claymation piece that looks like it could have aired on Saturday morning (if Saturday morning cartoons were just a little bit more off-kilter). It actually reminds me of the Spike Jonze Where the Wild Things Are movie (which I adore) and I like it a lot, though the ending is sad. And 'Someone to Lose' is great. It's rare that I say this in the Wilco thread but...could one actually dance to this song? The pipe cleaner people on the wedding cake in the video dance to it and they seem to have a good time. It's got a fantastic groovy bass line--our man John still rocking it--and a delightful falsetto chorus and the whole thing just invites your toes to start tapping. Mine anyway.
     
  4. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    First, thanks all for yesterday’s comments, I’ve ordered Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance and One for the Road immediately, it was long overdue. :righton:

    Whenever people blame Jeff for his change of approach in the last six years (overdubbed demos, everything sounding like Sukierae leftovers, muffed vocals, not really Wilco etc.), I think of Someone to Lose, because it’s the one song about which those complaints seem equally fair and unfair to me. There's no denying that in this specific case, a more fully developed arrangement and production could’ve achieved even better results, something along the lines of Kamera or The Whole Love (the song). Nevertheless, I like the tune a lot, the bass line is infectious, the big Big Star/ Walken guitars coming in at 1’08’’ give it a great boost of dynamics, all in all, it becomes a fitting synthesis of what Schmilco is about, a lo-fi yet still lively version of Wilco. Danceable ? Maybe so, yes!
    Two little “influences” notes : 1/ I don’t know whether it’s intentional or not (I tend to think it is), but starting with Sukierae, Jeff’s continuing infatuation with solo Lennon’s singing style is unmissable. 2/ Someone to Lose has a lot in common with Salad Days by Mac DeMarco, itself clearly indebted to Village Green’s Picture Book. But interestingly, even though we all know Jeff is obsessed by the Kinks, Someone to Lose doesn’t sound anything like Picture Book !
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2020
  5. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Someone To Lose: stealing lines of thought from both @Parachute Woman and @Fortuleo , yes, this is a toe-tapper and I do think this is unadulterated New Wilco (except now that I read Fortuleo’s piece I have to acknowledge the Lennon singing style).

    A great song and, by committee consensus, a playlister.
     
  6. chickendinna

    chickendinna Homegrown’s All Right With Me

    To me, Star Wars and Schmilco are two cheeks of the same ass. You could swap the titles on these albums and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Believe me, I wanted to love these albums. I gave them ample opportunity and neither one made much of an impression. It was more like, another year, another Wilco album. If I want to hear this era of Tweedy, I reach for Warm and Warmer which are both worthy additions to Jeff's canon. I hope this post doesn't come off as overly negative. I'll sprint to hear the next or newest Wilco release. In my opinion these two are middle tier Wilco, not bad, not great.
     
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  7. wavethatflag

    wavethatflag God is love, but get it in writing.

    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    I think I've sees this song live a few times, because Pat plays his cool guitar parts in typically nonchalant fashion.
     
  8. jewelsnbinoculars

    jewelsnbinoculars Forum Resident

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Not overly negative, spot on.
     
  9. wavethatflag

    wavethatflag God is love, but get it in writing.

    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    This video is crazy.
     
  10. jalexander

    jalexander Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    I’m definitely a fan of Someone to Lose. It’s not breaking any new ground for Wilco 3.0 (I.e., Tweedy’s work from Sukierae to the present), but it’s simply a treat tune. Start off (as usual) with a plonky little acoustic thing, and then blow it up with some Big Star style mega-overdubbed riffage, but make it all just a little out of tune and dissonant for a modern edge. I love the sighing weepiness where some of the vocal lines follow the bending guitars.

    A few critiques though:
    • I have to agree with @Fortuleo that this is one where Wilco might have brought more to the table. The riffs sound like Jeff’s overdub default style, so the tune sounds more like Tweedy than Wilco (that’s two in a row).
    • I wonder as well about any Mac DeMarco influence. He loves to make everything pitchy and warbly with lots of vibrato. Is Jeff tapping into that younger generation at all or is this all his own modern take on those old Kinks, Big Star, etc influences.
     
  11. fspringer

    fspringer Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    I think we should look on the bright side with Jeff. He hasn't been overly influenced by Conor Oberst and broken into an Elmer Fudd warble on highly emotional tracks. (I kid - I'm a fan.) This is a good, straightahead Wilco pop song like many before it. I'll never get tired of hearing the band do tracks like this, regardless of any barriers unbroken. Come to think of it, The Velvet Underground wasn't breaking any barriers when they did "Sweet Jane," yet the song resonates across the decades. Why?

    P.S. I suspect chickendinna covertly works for Wilco and has just previewed the title of their next album: Two Cheeks of the Same Ass.
     
  12. wavethatflag

    wavethatflag God is love, but get it in writing.

    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    Conor Oberst is good but he's kind of a ham. Either that, or without guile. I can't decide. Probably both.
     
  13. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    I’ve been humming Ronnie Lane’s ‘Annie’ from yesterday. It was in my head again this morning and so I was absolutely stunned to hear it featured in the final episode of season 1 of The Rebel (British tv comedy centered on aging Brighton Mod; music soundtrack featuring The Who, Small Faces, Kinks etc.). And then he plays ‘Annie.’ What are the odds of that?!
     
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  14. Al Gator

    Al Gator You can call me Al

    It's nice to hear a straight-ahead "rocker" like Someone to Lose. I put rocker in quotes because it's a rocker in Wilco terms, but it's still a fairly sparse production and certainly doesn't "rock out", but that's in keeping with this album's tone. Anyway, Socks and I enjoyed it just now.
     
  15. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    "Someone To Lose"- I think part of the problem with many of these songs sounding the same from Sukierae until today is Jeff's preference of the acoustic guitar he uses on what sounds like a majority of the songs. He plays it on the Tweedy show and even on the new solo album. Does anyone know what guitar I am talking about? The very dead and muffled sounding guitar that sounds like the strings are never changed. This is not really a knock on that guitar, but I would think with the dozens of guitars in the loft he would mix it up more. It has become Tweedy's trigger guitar. I like the guitar sound, and maybe he is mixing it up more than I realize, but that guitar seems to be featured on many of these latter day Tweedy and Wilco albums.

    This is a good song. The bass lays the groove down and I'm always a fan of fuzzy guitars. I also really like the lyrics. Like others have mentioned this sounds like it could be another Sukierae song. This and "If I Ever Was a Child" are definitely the contenders for the most pop friendly radio songs from the album. I really enjoy the stripped back vibe of this album, but I am realizing how some might have wanted a richer and more full sounding Wilco album. This album gets lumped in with Star Wars for some reason, but I think they are two completely different sounding albums. Star Wars sounds more like a band effort to me. I can't remember, but I do recall hearing that both albums were recorded around the same time.
    We are six songs in and I pretty much love everything so far. There are a couple more favorites coming up, but overall this is a front loaded album. 4/5
     
  16. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Yes, I agree. My initial reaction to Star Wars was so negative that I didn’t even bother to check Schmilco out until now. If it had been Schmilco first, I would have eagerly sought out Star Wars. (And then have been stunned.)

    (This is where I point out that I’ve repatriated several Star Wars tracks due to this thread. The ‘stunned’ part is real-time reaction).

    Star Wars doesn’t pair with Schmilco at all (unless half the SW songs were dropped and others (unknown to me) were substituted instead).
     
  17. slop101

    slop101 Guitar Geek

    Location:
    So. Cal.
    From his book...

    [​IMG]
     
  18. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    Are you talking about the Birds guitar? One of those feature stories that someone posted tells us that Jeff likes the sound of "dead strings." At one point they get a new guitar in The Loft and someone else in the band predicts that Jeff won't completely approve because the strings sound too bright. Sure enough, when he comes in, he's pleased but says that it won't be just right until the strings are properly dead. On The Tweedy Show this year, he explains that the Birds guitars are cheap instruments made in the 1930's; the company hired artists to paint the birds just to give people work during the Depression (imagine!). He feels compelled to collect them even though his wife thinks that he has more than enough, already.

    "Someone to Lose" is certainly a highlight of the album. I like how it builds from an acoustic guitar riff, quickly doubled by the bass line, joined by the keyboard, and then Jeff's vocal sort of echoes the figure at points. The arrangement is on the spare side, but at least in this case they do play with dynamics when the twin blast of guitars comes in to start the chorus. At the start of the album, I wondered what Mikael and Pat do around here anymore. In the KCRW set, during "Cry All Day" it's hard to tell if Mikael is playing anything, and Pat is actually sitting by his keyboard but playing nothing but... a triangle. On "Someone to Lose," though, you can see that Pat is doubling the big guitars part with Nels. It's a cool effect.



    I also don't understand the lumping of Star Wars and Schmilco together; they don't really sound alike. But I wonder if there was any overlap in the recording sessions. There was almost exactly a year between release dates. It's certainly possible that Jeff at least made demos of some of these songs while recording Star Wars, but the final sound of Schmilco is more like the Tweedy/Wilco albums that followed.
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2020
  19. fredyidas

    fredyidas Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    I found this thread in July, and I have read every single post and finally caught up with the end on Friday! It's been interesting reading everyone's thoughts. My first exposure to Wilco wasn't until a live show in 2009, and I was completely blown away by the show and it made me a huge fan. When I heard the whole place sing along to every word on Hummingbird, I was thinking "there is something special here, and I want to be part of it". I've now seen them 10 times.

    I'm flabbergasted that there are people that hate Pat's "rock star posings" on songs like I'm a Wheel live. It's so obviously tongue-in-cheek, and I love it. If you've ever been up close when he does that, you see him grin and you know he's having a laugh.
     
  20. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Welcome to the forum. (I can’t remember when the thread started so can’t recall where we were in the discography in July.)
     
  21. Al Gator

    Al Gator You can call me Al

    I bet a lot of people had their first exposure to Wilco at a live show. It was for me, they were the opening band and blew me away. I've been a fan ever since.
     
  22. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    Ha ha! That's awesome. Love that quote. I also never change my strings and have been playing a cheap Yamaha acoustic since I started playing guitar. Friends have more expensive Martins and I prefer my cheap Yamaha with old strings. I can relate. As I said, I have no problem with his guitar sound, but it is noticeable on the last several albums, and could be a reason some think it all sounds the same.
     
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  23. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    That's not the guitar I was referencing, but I believe it has a similar sound. I guess he also plays that one a lot. I love that bird guitar. I was thinking of the guitar that he uses the most on the Tweedy show and his recent live performances. Maybe he does switch up guitars often, and all the acoustics just have that dead and never bright sound. Here it is from a recent performance of a new song.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cObf6rZwGE
     
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  24. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Welcome!
     
  25. fredyidas

    fredyidas Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    Thanks! Your intros to each album and song are great and have made this an excellent thread.
     
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