Ever-changing Wilco a picture of versatility
Chicago stars to help close Festival at Sandpoint
Wilco performs Saturday night at the Festival at Sandpoint.
Wilco has never made the same album twice.
The Chicago band fronted by songwriter Jeff Tweedy is constantly reinventing itself: They’re alt-country one day, experimental rock the next. Sometimes they’re folky; other times, they’re kind of poppy. It’s hard to pin them down.
And they’re still delivering surprises. The band recently released its ninth studio album, cheekily titled “Star Wars,” for free on its website without any previous fanfare, and it’s their most playful, unpredictable LP in years.
Since Wilco is helping close out the Festival at Sandpoint this weekend, I was inspired to go back and listen to the band’s entire discography. I’ve pulled a key track from each of their studio albums to illustrate their versatility and skill; consider it a Wilco primer.
“Box Full of Letters” on “A.M.” (1995) – Wilco was formed following the breakup of Tweedy’s alt-country project Uncle Tupelo, and the band’s debut LP is straight-ahead country rock. It’s since been dismissed by Tweedy – his ego was also bruised because Son Volt, his Uncle Tupelo band mate Jay Farrar’s new group, was getting better reviews at the time – but it still features some standout tracks. “Box Full of Letters” was the band’s first single, and although it hardly ranks among their best work, it certainly suggests promise.
“Outtasite (Outta Mind)”/ “Outta Mind (Outta Sight)” on “Being There” (1996) – A year after “A.M.,” Wilco began coloring outside the lines on their ambitious sophomore album. This double LP features two different arrangements of the same song (note the flip-flopped titles) on each of its discs – one’s a rollicking rocker, the other’s an ambling country tune. Both versions work on their own terms, and that stylistic juggling act illustrates how Wilco is able to operate simultaneously on different planes.
“Via Chicago” on “Summerteeth” (1999) – On an album of pop songs tinged with darkness, “Via Chicago” is by far the darkest: It opens with some foreboding lyrics (“I dreamed about killing you again last night”) and never lightens up. The song also represents the band’s most blatant stab at experimentation yet, with its strange, lilting background vocals and off-kilter drum fills, and that would continue through their next couple of records.
“Jesus Etc.” on “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (2001) – Abandoned by their label and separated from founding member Jay Bennett, Wilco had an unexpected breakout success with “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” It’s difficult to pick just one song off the record, but this one, positioned right in the middle of the track list, is a particular standout. It’s at this point that Wilco became not just critical darlings but indie rock stars, and “Jesus Etc.” shows the band definitively shaking off its country rock roots.
“Spiders (Kidsmoke)” on “A Ghost Is Born” (2004) – Even stranger and more outwardly experimental than its predecessor, “A Ghost Is Born” was released shortly after Tweedy left rehab for a painkiller addiction. “Spiders” is one of the album’s two sprawling curiosities – the other is the polarizing 15-minute noise epic “Less Than You Think” – a wiry, jittery song that bubbles over into a rousing guitar-heavy climax. Even better is the version that shows up on the band’s live album “Kicking Television.”
“Hate It Here” on “Sky Blue Sky” (2007) – After working through his depression and anxieties on “A Ghost Is Born,” Tweedy settles into agreeable folk rock mode for album six. This collection of songs muses on domestic life and Tweedy’s difficulty with settling into it, and on “Hate It Here,” he tries to distract his troubled mind with a laundry list of household chores (“What am I gonna do when I run out of shirts to fold?” he wonders). It’s a portrait of a famously insecure artist poking fun at his own insecurities.
“You and I” on “Wilco (The Album)” (2009) – Considering this self-titled album opens with a similarly self-titled song ensuring that “Wilco will love you, baby,” you can tell Tweedy has lightened up considerably. The gentle ballad “You and I,” a duet with singer-songwriter Feist, seems to neatly sum up the entire record: There’s still a sense of brooding and a twinge of melancholy here, but it’s also grudgingly optimistic: “I think we can take it / All the good with the bad.”
“Art of Almost” on “The Whole Love” (2011) – Wilco’s eighth album announces its strangeness right from the get-go, with this trippy, twisty number that boasts blippy electronic elements (they almost seem to be channeling Radiohead) and a lot of obvious studio trickery. “Art of Almost” has the sound of a band trying to regain its footing after a period of stylistic rebirth, and while it doesn’t possess the fearless innovation of anything on “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” it serves as a perfect set-up to the weirdness that is “Star Wars.”