In this corner, we have Chris Mollica, devoted Wilco fan, lover of their eighth album, The Whole Love. And in the other corner we have Brandon Hall, lover of sports analogies, fan of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, like just about everyone else, who calls The Whole Love “country rock on Prozac,” before proceeding to say much much meaner things about the album. Fight!
Wilco – “The Art of Almost”
From: Chris Mollica
To: Brandon Hall
Brandon,
Jeff Tweedy is smarter than us. I just want to get that out of the way. He’s smarter than us and I love him for it. This man argues for track order. This is a man that put a song on an album knowing that most of its listeners would choose to skip it (That album won a Grammy by the way. I don’t really know what that speaks to, but that’s an entirely separate conversation). Those first few seconds of The Whole Love, the eighth studio album from American rock troubadours Wilco, sets you up to think something very weird is about to happen. Undoubtably, Wilco fans will have a gut reaction. “Foxtrot,” they’ll whisper softly, lovingly under their breaths. Jeff Tweedy knows this. From his castle in the skies, Jeff Tweedy keeps his finger on the pulse of perception, musical invention and sincerity.
Whew. That felt good.
Having said that, I hated Wilco’s last album, Wilco (The Album), which contained Wilco (The Song). See what it made me do? Not that I don’t enjoy Wilco (The Album). Yeah, I listened to it the other day and enjoyed the crap out of it, but it knew I would. It was the Wilco sound all wrapped around lovely little love songs and notes of isolation. But it never connected, just amused and teased and was smarter than me. For me, Jeff Tweedy is best when I feel like the song and music is an extension of himself. It knows what we think we’re going to hear, spins it around so we don’t know where it’s coming from and then strikes us right in the gut. I look at Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Sky Blue Sky for those kind of songs. So what if I told you Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Sky Blue Sky walked into a dark alley…and became friends? The Whole Love is heavy, dense and not as easily accessible as some of Wilco’s past catalogue, but it promises so much more. This is a man, more than forty years in, family, success and turbulent past, trying to reconcile that his will not be an easy definition.
Brandon, I like this album. Heck, I love it. There’s a ton I want to talk about, dissect, celebrate, but I’ll toss it your way. Honestly, I’m not sure where you stand on the World o’ Tweedy, so I’m dying to know what you thought. What stands out to you? Do you feel that Tweedy can do everything better than those little upstarts Girls? Are you just going to tell me to listen to a different album?
“Maybe you noticed I’m unashamed of anything that I’ve done.”
Chris
From: Brandon Hall
To: Chris Mollica
No, I’m not going to tell you to listen to a different album. At least not yet. At least not a Wilco album. You’re going to have to be the resident Wilco expert in this dialectic. I worked out a lot of sports metaphors for discussing Wilco and The Whole Love in particular, but since you’re not much of a sports guy, I realized such allusions would fall on deaf ears. However, you do know who Michael Jordan is, yes? He was kind of hard to miss in the 90s. I grew up a Chicago Bulls fan, or so I thought. But after Jordan and Pippen stopped playing for them, I kind of stopped caring about the team. See, I wasn’t a Bulls fan, I was a Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen fan. Similarly, when David Ruffin left the Temptations, I stopped caring about the Temptations. (Just kidding! I was still a long way from being born in 1968.) However, when Jay Bennett left Wilco, I stopped getting any fulfillment from them. I wouldn’t exactly call myself a Jay Bennett fan, but I am absolutely a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot fan. As for Wilco, well, a certain lineup under that moniker made Foxtrot, and that lineup no longer exists. In fact, The Whole Love is the third album recorded with the same members since Sky Blue Sky – the longest such stretch for the band named Wilco, but the team colors just don’t do it for me anymore. I doubt that I would like Jay Bennett without Jeff Tweedy, but I’m not that excited about Jeff Tweedy without Jay Bennett, I’ll tell you that.
Also, I take offense to the assertion that Jeff Tweedy is smarter than me. Speak for yourself! I can’t write a catchy song to save my life but I bet I could muse circles around him on the CERN Hadron Collider, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, or the rules and strictures of Eschaton as perpetrated at the Enfield Tennis Academy.
Which song and which Grammy-winning album are you speaking of? Also – all musicians argue for track order! Sequencing is important as shit. You don’t put your mixes together all haphazardly, either.
Honestly, I think this album is guilty of false advertising. That glitchy whir that kicks off album opener and standout, “Art of Almost” writes checks that are never cashed for a return to boundary-pushing experimental alt-country rock Yankee Hotel Foxtrot glory. That song is awesome, with each of the band members struggling for air in a collapsed and suffocating box – their practice loft, specifically. The song is dangerous and ominous, it clatters beneath Tweedy’s liquid melody and the stunningly well-textured billowing strings. That song kicks 40 monkey asses. 40!
The rest of the album, on the other hand, with a few exceptions, is like country rock on Prozac. No highs. No lows. No real, visceral emotion; certainly none of the cutting cruelty or heartbreak that was so prevalent in early Wilco. Just pure MOR meh. I wouldn’t say this band is bored, but they certainly seem too damn comfortable. And I understand that comfort is an amazingly valuable luxury that all humans should seek, but it makes for shitty art, truth be told. Tweedy hated Bennett and probably vice versa. The documentary about the making of Foxtrot, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, is an amazing movie and highlights the poisonous and fatal chasm between the two, but goddamn, weren’t they able to create something great?
So now Tweedy’s comfortable. His band has a solid lineup. Everyone gets along. He’s clean and sober. That’s swell. The result is a song like “Dawned on Me” which sounds for all the world like a Monkees track. Or maybe the Brady Bunch. I can’t listen to it without envisioning all the Wilco boys on stage in bright polyester suits grinning ear to ear while stepping out their little coordinated dance moves.
I will say, though, that the album does end with another show stopper, though not at all in the way it started. The twelve-minute “One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend)” is so simple and subdued that you wouldn’t think it could or should last much longer than three minutes, but in all honesty, if it were twenty-four minutes, I wouldn’t complain. I can’t think of a better testament to the confidence and prowess of this band than the fact that they can turn such a little, understated folksy number into such a gripping, beautiful epic that never tires and never grows stale. It does what only the best Wilco songs have ever done – it’s honest, straight-forward, and expansive; it sneaks up on you when you’re not looking and tries to break your heart.
So, tell me Chris. Aside from the bookends, why should I like this album? What are you hearing that I’m not?
“Oh, you won’t set the kids on fire. Oh, then I might,”
Brandon
Wilco – “I Might”
From: Chris Mollica
To: Brandon Hall
“A circle needs a center. Well, he was going to be the center. I wasn’t going to be the center.” – Jay Bennett
All right, you got me. I don’t go for sports. I’m violently playful sometimes. I use text messages to send not-so-subtle verbal jabs. I’m also an obsessive researcher and consumer of knowledge (rememberer of some). They always warn you not to bring a knife to a gun fight. What they neglected to add was, “Especially when the guy bringing the gun searched the internet for the weapon best suited to both disarm a man and kill him.”
As I said before, this isn’t the easiest album to get into. For all it’s buzzes and whirs, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has many a fan who love that album but know little else of Wilco’s catalogue. Venture far outside the safety of the Marina City towers and you might be off-put by the poppy sensibility of Summerteeth or the rambling twang of AM. You, Brandon, a fan of buzzes and whirs, you might even dislike the Grammy winning A Ghost is Born which contains a fifteen minute song, their longest, which was formed by each band member picking a drone they enjoyed and placing them on top of each other. It’s indulgent, a little ridiculous and seems to dip a little too far into “experiment for experiment’s sake” for me. So, Jay Bennet was asked to leave. Good riddance. Honestly, art doesn’t NEED poison. Sometimes it does rely on it. Sometimes it helps improve the thing it latched onto until the irritation grows too great. I watched I Am Trying to Break Your Heart and it was fantastic. It however painted Jay as a man (rest his soul) who desired top billing. Like that Pippen* character you said played with, who was it, Michael Jordan? Wilco’s The Whole Love knows its past, but holds no grudges. It’s moving forward.
“I’m more interested in making music with people I can share with than give things to.” – Jeff Tweedy
Wilco (The Band) as they appear on The Whole Love is a beautiful, harmonious, f-ing talented circle. It’s the sound of six musicians each stretching their chops and creating layered musical landscapes to live in. I stand by the assertion that “The Art of Almost” was placed right there at the top to blur expectations. What follows isn’t the “MOR meh” you assume it to be. It takes time though, and a careful ear. You need to listen. Each song isn’t only a different shade of Wilco’s past but music itself. Listen for that wonderful agitated guitar riff in “Born Alone” as Tweedy’s voice plays with what seems to be utter nonsense till he blares out, whole heartedly, “I was born to die alone!” This is a man who is assessing all the trials he’s been through, good and bad, choosing where to turn his gaze and settling gregariously on the futility of it all. Take the playful, Paul McCartney-esc, “Capitol City.” That lovely little organ undermining the buoyant piano and bass. Listen to those lyrics, “I wish you were here/ better yet I wish I was there with you.” Does this sound like a comfortable man? Or you, the lover of sad, sad songs, the desolate and stirring “Rising Red Lung.” Tweedy slowly unveils his own discovery of peace over delicately picked strings and the slow sway of a slide guitar. This is art, man. If I could lend you my ears, I would. They are in love with this!
You say comfort. I say bullshit. If this is the condition prozac leaves you in, remind me never to rely on prozac. Tweedy, a gifted songwriter, is tossing sun/moon metaphors all over the damn place, showing you that the restlessness you were so in love with hasn’t strayed. Wilco is also now a band that can ape styles in their own style. That’s badass. May I also point out, The Whole Love is the first album to be released on the dBpm label, Wilco’s very own. The Good: No one’s going to mess with Wilco’s music. The Bad: No one’s going to mess with Wilco’s music. Experimentation and play will happen without any outside forces, loft withstanding. Wilco is going to make the kind of music they want. There will be no Jay Bennets trying rearrange the sequencing of your beloved Foxtrot. But if that’s not the sort of team you like, you may not be made for Wilco country,
“But I hope I know when it’s passed/ And I hope I’ll know when to show you my…”
Chris
*[Chris tried to link to a Bleacher Report article here about Scottie Pippen saying LeBron James might be the “greatest player of all time” during the semifinals of last year’s NBA playoffs – a tacit diss of his longtime teammate, Michael Jordan. However, there’s no fucking way I’m linking to the worst, most poorly written, muck-raking, amateur-hour gossip rag of a sports blog on my site. Chris can be forgiven – he’s not a sports fan. Just note this for future reference.]
Wilco – “Art of Almost” (Live on Letterman)
From: Brandon Hall
To: Chris Mollica
“’MOR meh’ I assume it to be?” MOR meh I know it to be. MOR meh it is. Aside from a couple songs, this album is pure middle of the road, blasé, play it in the waiting room of the dentist’s office because no one will give a shit, 401K, buy yourself a pair of Keds, peanut butter and jelly, apple pie, Ford Taurus meh.
Art? What is art? “Art” as a label is subjective and I’m not going to sit here and say The Whole Love isn’t art. I will say it’s not always interesting art. It’s occasionally bad art, especially when taking into account some of Tweedy’s nonsensical lyrics, which I’ll get to in a minute. But “art?” Sure. Why not? Anything can be art if you put it in a frame.
But to imply that I, someone who started and has kept up a music website for the better part of the past year, someone who takes months to make a ten-song mix, a DJ and obsessive audiophile, is guilty of not listening carefully enough or somehow lacking in patience seems specious at best – not wrong, necessarily – but suspect.*
You know what more time with this album will not do?
It will not make “Sunloathe” sound like something other than a Beatles rip-off. More listens don’t suddenly give the song the payoff it sets up with its swelling atmospheric background and chorus of “Ooohs” from the rest of the band. This song calls for a dramatic billowing coda, but instead just fades away, underwhelmingly – a running theme on this album.
More time will not get rid of that damned Monkees sounding organ that makes “I Might,” “Dawned on Me,” and “Standing O” sound derivative of “I’m a Believer” which then calls to mind fucking Smash Mouth and Shrek and now my day is pretty much ruined.
It doesn’t make “Open Mind” not sound clichéd musically, even though Tweedy sings on it, “I still say we’re too old for clichés.” Then don’t record this boring-ass song, dude.
It doesn’t make “Capitol City” not sound like a chintzy, honky-tonk ramble circa 1945 via the Atlantic City Boardwalk. You called it McCartney-esque, which I take to mean “lame.” So I agree with you there.
And one thing that time actually makes much much worse are the god-awful gibber-gabber lyrics polluting many of the albums best sounding songs. Tweedy has suggested in interviews leading up to this album’s release that many of the lyrics were derived from phonetic garble, to borrow a phrase from Pitchfork’s Paul Thompson. No shit. How else can you explain lines in “I Might” like “The Magna Carta’s on a Slim Jim blood, brother?” Where’s an O RLY owl, when you need one?
There we go.
Or take, for example, all of “Born Alone,” which you yourself called “utter nonsense” before trying to make an argument in its defense. There’s no defense for lines like, “Please come closer to the feather smooth lens fry,” or “I have married broken spoke charging smoke wheels.”
Here, allow me to pen some lyrics for Wilco’s next album:
“Porridge punk kicks carburetors from time.”
“Ultimate slay God makes shoes in ocean fires.”
“Shibble shabble scoobie doobie doo.”
You’re welcome, Mr. Tweedy.
And for the record, he’s really not throwing “sun/moon metaphors all over the place.” The celestial bodies make an occasional appearance in a casual manner, but hardly enough to be considered any kind of motif. And even if they were, it neither shows restlessness nor talented song writing. What could be easier than writing about the sun and the moon? At most, it shows a nine-year-old’s proficiency in poetry.
What’s the point, by the way, of “blurring expectations,” as you said (I would say misleading them), by opening the album with “Art of Almost?” What purpose does that serve? To make us think we’re getting an exciting, inventive album, instead of an uninspired, milquetoast one? You make the assertion as if it were some kind of coup, when all it really accomplishes is highlighting how no other song manages to rise up to that level. It actually makes the album worse by comparison.
You asked if the line in “Capitol City” where he sings “I wish you were here / I wish I was there with you,” sounds to me like the words of a “comfortable man.” To that I say it’s a line in a song, a good straightforward, albeit easy line, and doesn’t speak to Tweedy’s state of mind a fraction as much as this entire album taken as a whole. Yes, they are too comfortable. They don’t have anyone in the band or outside of it challenging them. Tweedy has few demons left to fight, within or without. And yes, it makes them boring. Bennett wasn’t a “poison,” he was a catalyst. Poison kills. Catalysts destroy inertia. Good art does need a fight. Making art is a fucking battle. If you’ve ever seen the documentary, It Might Get Loud, Jack White has a great scene where he extols the virtues of playing the shittiest guitar he can find because he believes his music is better when he has to fight for it. He is 100% right.
Jeff Tweedy and the rest of Wilco need a good fucking donnybrook. Otherwise it’s going to be MOR meh from here on out.
“I wonder why strange rhymes overpower me.”
That makes two of us,
Brandon
*[While I understand you were not making a personal attack, it’s so much more fun to take it personally. Fight to the death and all that.]
The Whole Love is out via dBpm.
Get it at:
Insound Vinyl | eMusic | Amazon MP3 & CD
AudioVole 
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