slop101

Which do you guys like better?

Being There,
or
Summerteeth?

Yancey

Summerteeth by a long shot. Being There is my least favorite. I really detest Jeff's 70s rockers like "Monday" or "Outta Mind Outta Site." I think they're the most boring things he does.

RoQuEr

rolling stone called it the best album of the year so far, but you already know that.

Gdrlv

Definitely Summerteeth. Being There is a great roots rock record. However, Wilco's just starting down the road to heavy experimentation on it, and it's not as satisfying as Summerteeth.

Yancey - You like A.M. better than Being There? That surprises me. I like A.M., but Being There is a much more ambitious album. I look at it as the disc where Jeff showed that Wilco was much more than an alt-country band.

Yancey

Being There has wonderful moments, but if you knew how much I listened to AM and UT's March & Still Feel Gone in high school, you'd realize why it's so important to me. For me, AM is driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway with my best friends, getting stoned, not caring about anything. It's impossible for me to listen to that record without thinking of that.

I know that Being There is a better album, no question, but on a personal level, AM means much more. Same with March and Still Feel Gone. Still Feel Gone was one of the first CDs I ever bought, I was 14 when I got it, right around when it came out. That will always be my fave UT record, even though March is light years better.

slop101

Good to hear, becau*e a* hard a* I tried, I ju*t couldn't get into Being There (good to know It'* not ju*t me) - Though I love *ummerteeth and YHF (never picked up A.M.).

filmzombie

Well if I was going to rank them, I'd put YHF over Being There and Being There over summerteeth. But then again, "ranking" the albums isn't really a fair way of assessing 3 really great albums. Sorta like asking which is better among "let it bleed" "exile" and "sticky fingers." I'm just saying I'd recommend someone who is not familiar with there stuff to buy YHF first. But frankly, I think "anodyne" is the best thing any of em have come out with.

I would still LOVE to see a UT reunion with new stuff.

Yancey

So my review of the record is up at Neumu.com. Check it out if you feel inclined.

Penny Lane

Ooh, now I know your last name! Stalkey stalky time!

Gdrlv

Good review. I agree with your statement that Wilco's evolution has been greatly exaggerated. From Reprise's reaction to the disc and some of the press they've been receiving, you'd have thought that they went off the experimental deep end with the disc. Actually, I think it may be more accessible to the public than Summerteeth was.

Yancey

Yeah, it was mainly Kot and DeRegatis in the Chicago papers who started this idea that YHF was Captain Beefheart and Can all over again. This is, with a few exceptions, obviously false. They are both amazing writers however.

mike1978

It's too bad you non-Chicago folks can't listen to Kot and DeRogatis Tuesday nights on Chicago's WXRT. I've been a fan of those two for years (especially Greg Kot). It does look like they're shooting for syndication by the end of the year.

Yancey

Yeah, Ira tells me that their radio show is great (apparently he is a frequent guest). He's old friends with both of them and will be introducing me to them, which could mean me writing pieces for the Tribune and Sun-Times, which, obviously, would be great.

Yancey

Some surprising news... It looks like YHF will finish in the Billboard top ten tomorrow. Right now early reports have it selling about 50,000 copies, putting it at #7 for the week. Pretty amazing, but with this much press I would hope that they sell that many.

Gdrlv

Wow, that is surprising but well-deserved. Unfortunately, I bet it drops like a stone the week after. First week sales have to be due to strong reviews from just about everywhere and diehard fans. The band just doesn't fit in too well in the current J.Lo-Creed-Linkin Park music scene. It's a pretty nice slap in the face to Reprise though...Wilco's "uncommercial, career suicide" record is their first to go top 10.

Penny Lane

Hey, that's great!

Yancey

I think their previous high debut was 25k with Mermaid Avenue. Each Wilco album has sold around 500,000 copies worldwide, which is not too shabby.

But yeah, a huge drop off next week. Maybe 8,000 copies sold or so.

I think Warner Brothers is happy about all of the press. Wilco went from their subsidiary Reprise to their subsidiary Nonesuch. This album clearly would not have sold as well had there not been the whole scandal about the album being dropped. So they actually made out better for it in the end.

SAShepherd

A general question for you, Yancey, and any others:

How much does the backstory behind the album affect your perception of the album?

In the case of YHF, does the fact that a band that can consistently sell 250K-500K of each album and produces an album slightly (but not massively) more "challenging" than its last album gets dropped from a label spur critics and others who really care about music to get behind an album, aside from any issues of the quality of the album itself?

Don't get me wrong -- Wilco is one of my favorite bands, and I fully expect YHF to take its place among their other 3 albums as a great album (yes, I include A.M. as a great or at least very good album, though it's obviously different from the others). But I wonder if the critical adulation would be less had we not had the seven-month interruption.

Of course, I also think that, next to U2's ATYCLB, YHF is the album created before Sept. 11th whose listening environment is most affected (for the better) by the terrorist attacks.

Finally, can I just say that I really dig the album design and photos? I'm not from Chicago, but those are some great pictures.

Yancey

I definitely believe that the circumstances of the album's release had a huge effect on its reception. But it's also important to remember that Wilco have a huge critical following to begin with. If I'm not mistaken, Summerteeth, Being There and Mermaid Avenue all received the coveted lead review slot in Rolling Stone.

But yeah, it creates an "us" against "them" mentality. It's a way for critics to say, "Hey, you guys don't listen to me, but you should!" or something like that. For me personally, it has no effect. I heard the album before it had been announced that they had been dropped and I loved it then. And in my review I made a point not to address the sordid tale, which has already taken on a myth-like status.

I think the story is both good and bad for Wilco. People who naturally distrust critics and were already wary of Wilco will now see this as a reason to hate them. They may replace Radiohead as the new critic's darlings that casual folks love to hate. But this has certainly gotten more people to hear their music, if nothing else.

I'm also pretty certain that the band is tired of talking about it. I believe I'm talking to them in the next week or two and I definitely will not ask a single question about it, unless my editor is insistent (which I fear he will be).

But I expect to see a serious backlash against Tweedy & Co. this year. You might even see a renewed interest in Jay Farrar or Jay Bennett as a result. The music-geek crowd (of which I am certainly a part) is fickle and is prone to react strangely to one of their own getting mainstream recognition. Wilco have always gotten mainstream recognition from the press and a decent-sized fanbase, but the fact that this was the second-best selling album at Tower last week is something else entirely.

slop101

Hopefully this will cause out-of-touch, jackass record executives to reevaluate what is comercial and what is not.
If they look at Wilco, they will see the gains in sticking with a band and letting them grow, mature and develop a strong fan base - which will ultimately lead to a better band in the end.
Maybe they'll see the long term benefits of such acts and focus on them more, instead of just throwing everything against the wall and hoping one of them sticks and then abandoning the one's that don't - the ones that get dropped may have been the next Beatles, but we'll never know, because they never had a chance to develop as artists.

Yancey

From Neumu.com

Gdrlv

Well, not quite Top 10, but a helluva good showing, especially considering their last albums never even cracked the top 50. Actually, this makes Yankee Hotel Foxtrot the first top 50 album I've purchased in a long time. Ironically, getting dropped by Reprise was the best thing commercially that ever happened to Wilco. They've gone from being a commercially underappreciated but wonderful band to being the poster child for everything that's wrong with major record labels nowadays.

DJLinus

I was at Barnes & Noble this week and the store was playing "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" over the PA. I loved it! Rarely have I heard a song playing in a store and felt compelled to ask the salesperson who it was. Based on that song alone, I think I'm going to pick this CD up.