If I Had a Music Blog: Wilco will love you, baby.

Wilco - The Whole Love
Released 9/27/11

I entered college right around the time when the internet was on the precipice of becoming a new social medium.  I managed to get through two full years of higher education before the dawn of the Social Network.  We had AIM (oh, AIM), and we had email, most of us.  And there were various enterntainment websites with updated content and chat rooms.  Blogs did not yet exist, at least not in name.  But the inevitable onset of world wide web browsing was at its peak, and so not only could we find and share new music through local and global servers, but we could also finally access thoughts and opinions from around the country within seconds.  A music geek with an ethernet connection in his dorm room was far more dangerous than a kid in a candy store.  Discovering new artists, reading about what the rest of the world was doing... it took some work, but it was all there for the taking.

All this to say that I vividly recall stumbling upon two bands right around the same time that would forever change and shape my music catalogue.   The first was a little known duo from Akron who exactly no one was talking about and who had just released their 2nd album of mostly original music which would take 8 years to make it into nearly every commercial on television and release a Grammy-winning album (The Black Keys, for those playing along at home).  The other was a band who had been kicking around for a few years but had yet to break into any sort of mainstream success, despite being nominated for a Grammy award for Best Contemporary Folk album in 1999.


That band was Wilco.

By 2001, they had built a solid repertoire of carefully crafted, kitchy, catchy folk-pop gems soaked with heartfelt lyrics. They had also just recorded the album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which was set to be released in a pre-9/11 world as a genre-busting epic, the band's humble transition from folk artists to, simply, artists.  It took over a year for the album to finally make it onto the scene, and it was met with just enough critical acclaim for all of us trolling the internet to discover on top ten lists as the next great album that no one was listening to.  So I listened.  And listened, and listened, and listened.  Revisionist history would dictate that everyone was listening to Yankee Hotel and loved Wilco's music and knew they were destined for greatness.  In reality, when they popped up for an outdoor concert on the lawn outside the student center at Penn State in the spring of 2003, there were literally hundreds of fans singing along.  In a week in which I attended a nearly sold-out headlining show in Central Park in the pouring rain, it is hard not to be gleefully astonished by their rise to greatness.  If ever a band deserved to ride the wave to acclaim and success, it is one with Jeff Tweedy at the helm.

I could go on and on about Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but nothing I could say would capture the album as well as the documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, a must-see for any fan of Wilco, or of musicianship in general.  Wilco made a name for themselves with that album.  It is perfectly executed, expertly crafted, soulful and filled with emotions and melodies that will simultaneously break your heart and lift your spirit.  It is as perfect for sunny days as it is rainy days.

Wilco followed this calculated epic with A Ghost is Born: a loose, free, fun album of noise and jams and pop songs that ride the same highs and lows with a little more tongue in their cheeks.  This album was clearly made by a band who felt they had established enough acclaim and respect to try to play around and see what happens.  Jeff Tweedy, the heart and soul of the band, has even admitted that some songs are written merely as a playground for a cool guitar solo, while others are of the more thoughtful and introspective ilk that one should expect from a master craftsman like Tweedy.  Years later, Wilco, The Album expanded on this cheeky attitude, bringing more finely tuned pop songs and ballads to this self-aware, self-referential collection.  Absent from both of these albums were the transitions that made Yankee Hotel Foxtrot a true concept album. While they each brought new elements of design and experimentation, neither was greater than the sum of its parts.

Sky Blue Sky, the album sandwiched in between Ghost and Wilco, was another how-to manual of pop-song perfection.  With a 60's glow and a flare for the harmonic, Wilco remained true to form in bringing new elements to their sound and style.  The Wilco from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was a ghost from the past, but this new band was even more confident in challenging themselves to evolve and expand into new territory.  Sky Blue Sky felt more whole, more meaningful and introspective than some of their other recent work. Listeners were rewarded with another album that was equal parts melancholy and joyful, heartfelt and airy.

After a decade of sonic expansion and success both on the road and in the studio, what's next for Jeff Tweedy and company?  The Whole Love is exactly what we should expect from Wilco at this point, which is to say that it is nothing like what we might expect.  It is incredible that Wilco still has a bag of new tricks to play with, and yet each song surprises and pleases in new ways.  The album is thematic in its intention, each element is unique to itself and yet the songs mesh together seamlessly in a bold, dynamic mix of the highs and lows, bright and dark components that have become seemingly effortless for Wilco to accomplish.

In a strange way, The Whole Love draws parallels to The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Stadium Arcadium, in that each album is a take-it-or-leave-it meditation by a band at the top of its craft.  The latter is a genre-busting tour-de-force for John Frusciante that explores the furthest reaches of a band's ability. (I defy anyone who is surprised by Frusciante's departure following Arcadium to give that album another listen and tell me it wasn't an obvious send-off to a guitarist who was clearly demonstrating mastery of every imaginable skill he could bring to a middle-aged outfit that was struggling to keep up.)  Each song is a new challenge to the band, as in "I wonder what it would sound like if the Chili Peppers were a funk band? An emo band?  A punk band? A modern rock outfit? A wayward commune of troubadours?".

 In a similar vein, Wilco stretches its style on The Whole Love and explores new territory each step along the way.  The first track, 'Art of Almost', finds the band in its most electronic, progressive territory to date: a seven-minute meditation on possibilities which find guitars and synthesizers singing, humming and screeching in a modern-era jam-band kind of way, complete with a driving distorted guitar riff and pushy drum beat with Tweedy's ethereal vocals floating above as it slowly evolves into the most aggressive rock Wilco has yet to put to tape.  This is followed by the stylistic 'I Might', a more Wilco-ish take on the crafty pop song we've learned to associate with the band, complete with Tweedy's signature 'doot-doot'-ing and accompaniment from concert bells.

Listen to: Wilco -  "I Might" 

 The album delves into some predictably quiet acoustic ballads, like 'Black Moon' and 'Rising Red Lung', and swings unexpectedly into psychedelic pop with 'Sunloathe' and 'Capitol City', the latter of which evokes the type of sweetness and strangeness one might expect from Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips.  'Standing O' finds the band at its surf-rock-iest, and the love ballad 'Open Mind' is primed for an acoustic performance by Tweedy on his next solo tour.  Wilco finds more solid ground in 'Dawned on Me' and 'Born Alone', a pair of upbeat radio-ready pop gems with enough 'ooh's and 'aah's and whistling in the chorus to make Rivers Cuomo shake with jealousy.

Watch: Jeff Tweedy - "Dawned on Me" (Acoustic)


The Whole Love ends with One Sunday Morning, a subtle, twelve minute journey filled with heartfelt emotion that sits diametrically opposed to the opener, with acoustic guitars and pianos that swell and feature Tweedy's gentle side.  As ambitiously and loudly as the album opens, it slowly draws to a close with a recursive reflection on life and love.

On The Whole Love, Wilco surprises more often than not.  As many steps forward as the band takes with its upbeat style, the more quiet pieces still lack the depth and resonance of previous outings like that of 'Poor Places' from Yankee Hotel.  Nevertheless, The Whole Love may not be their next masterpiece, but it may very well be their most ambitious album yet.