When people my age and older tell me that there are no great bands any more - I always raise bands like The Drive By Truckers, The War on Drugs, Yuck and Wilco.
Wilco rose out of the ashes of the seminal Alternative Country band Uncle Tupelo. A band that even though it only recorded four albums had a music magazine and whole style of americana music named after one of them - No Depression.
Their first album AM seemed a natural progression from Uncle Tupelo - if anything the album seemed a little bit of a stop gap and certainly it seemed that Jeff Tweedy was feeling his way out of the shadows of Jay Farrar the apparently more dominant personality in Uncle Tupelo.
I started listening when their second album Being There was released in 1996 and have been with them ever since. Being There is a great double album that explores the sloppy Country Rock that the Stones can be so good at.
The band then started cropping up everywhere - backing different bands here and there and making the remarkable Mermaid Avenue albums witth Billy Bragg where between them they put music to some old Woody Guthrie Lyrics.
Instead of capitalising after the solid success of that album they veered into a more experimental rock and Beatles style songs on the next album Summerteeth with at the time worse commercial and critical reception.
So Wilco is hardly a new band though and may even have recorded their last album if current rumours are true. Somehow I think they will rise again. After all they have been through a lot worse and survived (even if it was not in one piece).
The lot worse occurred when recording their fourth album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (YHF). It was all captured in the great documentary I am Trying to Break Your Heart. On YHF the band took some of the ideas on Summerteeth and stretched them further. They took a long time recording it and tempers frayed and fuses were short.
When they delivered the album to the label (Warner's reprise) the label rejected the album and demanded changes as they judged it to be too noncommercial. Wilco refused to bow to pressure they had nowhere to go and held their ground.
Eventually the label relented and released them from their contractual obligations and in what is a real rarity also gave the band the masters to the new record. The story then gets interesting as the band then starting leaking songs and the whole album on line and managed to create a real underground internet interest in the album. Magazines started praising the songs and asking whether this album which many were now beginning to call a masterpiece (it's not but it is bloody good) would ever be released. So the band started hawking the album to potential labels and eventually signed with Nonesuch Records. Ironically Nonesuch was also a Warners label so Warners ended up paying twice for the same album.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was a reasonable commercial success and cemented Wilco's position as a leader in alternative and at time experimental Americana Music. The album stands the test of time and it has some great songs on it including Jesus Etc, Kamera, War on War, I'm the Man who loves you and Reservations. Norah Jones' reworked version of Jesus Etc is well worth a listen - perhaps a bit edgier than many people associate with her.
I believe that Wilco has gone on to record better albums - but when I am in the mood this is still the best!
Their first album AM seemed a natural progression from Uncle Tupelo - if anything the album seemed a little bit of a stop gap and certainly it seemed that Jeff Tweedy was feeling his way out of the shadows of Jay Farrar the apparently more dominant personality in Uncle Tupelo.
I started listening when their second album Being There was released in 1996 and have been with them ever since. Being There is a great double album that explores the sloppy Country Rock that the Stones can be so good at.
The band then started cropping up everywhere - backing different bands here and there and making the remarkable Mermaid Avenue albums witth Billy Bragg where between them they put music to some old Woody Guthrie Lyrics.
Instead of capitalising after the solid success of that album they veered into a more experimental rock and Beatles style songs on the next album Summerteeth with at the time worse commercial and critical reception.
So Wilco is hardly a new band though and may even have recorded their last album if current rumours are true. Somehow I think they will rise again. After all they have been through a lot worse and survived (even if it was not in one piece).
The lot worse occurred when recording their fourth album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (YHF). It was all captured in the great documentary I am Trying to Break Your Heart. On YHF the band took some of the ideas on Summerteeth and stretched them further. They took a long time recording it and tempers frayed and fuses were short.When they delivered the album to the label (Warner's reprise) the label rejected the album and demanded changes as they judged it to be too noncommercial. Wilco refused to bow to pressure they had nowhere to go and held their ground.
Eventually the label relented and released them from their contractual obligations and in what is a real rarity also gave the band the masters to the new record. The story then gets interesting as the band then starting leaking songs and the whole album on line and managed to create a real underground internet interest in the album. Magazines started praising the songs and asking whether this album which many were now beginning to call a masterpiece (it's not but it is bloody good) would ever be released. So the band started hawking the album to potential labels and eventually signed with Nonesuch Records. Ironically Nonesuch was also a Warners label so Warners ended up paying twice for the same album.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was a reasonable commercial success and cemented Wilco's position as a leader in alternative and at time experimental Americana Music. The album stands the test of time and it has some great songs on it including Jesus Etc, Kamera, War on War, I'm the Man who loves you and Reservations. Norah Jones' reworked version of Jesus Etc is well worth a listen - perhaps a bit edgier than many people associate with her.
I believe that Wilco has gone on to record better albums - but when I am in the mood this is still the best!
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