Wilco - Dark Side of the (Pink) Moon

Poor Wilco. Can't catch a break. Now they're having to apologize and explain about the VW commercials? Personally I think the whole authenticity trap has been turned on its head and there's really no such thing as "selling out" any more. These days, a well done commercial is a much better way to discover new music than the radio is. And it's lead to all sorts of good things from the Nick Drake revival to Royksopp doing Geico Caveman commercials.

Pitchfork quotes Wilco:

"With the commercial radio airplay route getting more difficult for many bands," wrote the Chicago sextet on its official website, "we see this as another way to get the music out there."

They continued: "And we feel okay about VWs. Several of us even drive them."

Fine, good. VWs are sort of OK, although my sister had one and it ended up being a headache. I prefer Hondas but whatever. Of course the Pitchfork reporter can't let the moment pass without getting all snide:

So, there you have it. Life goes on, people buy cars, dads continue to rock Sky Blue Sky, and Wilco kick off their tour next week.

Dad. rock. I shouldn't let it bug me, but bug me it does.

Wilco - "Sky Blue Sky"

For a second there, I was willing to concede that Wilco kind-of sucked. I had listened to the new album a couple of times online and it wasn't doing anything for me. Blame it on the really weak Quicktime stream.

Coming out of my Bose iPod speakers, Sky Blue Sky sounds fantastic. Grand, soaring, melancholy, hopeful, soulful. This is a record that makes a virtue out of straightforwardness. Gone are the self-consciousness, the laptop bleeps and the abstract poetry, and in their place is an album of great depth and maturity. These are the songs of someone who has lived a little, and is coming to grips with what life is really about. Its about what things look like when you're no longer the wunderkind, or the poseur, or the hipster, but just another guy living a life.

If that sounds like dad rock, well so be it. Tweedy's a dad, and so am I. But more importantly, by invoking 70s rock as a template for a new kind of alt-alt-country, Wilco is going to a time when our first generation of rock stars were no longer teen idols but full fledged adults with spouses and children and divorces and grown-up problems. Think of the post-Fab Five Beatles, or post-Garfunkel Paul Simon, or post-breakup Fleetwood Mac.

Musically, Tweedy has found nice ways of sliding subtle minor notes and vocal shifts into his otherwise customary major chord song structures, and Nels Cline's guitar work is ear-catching and guitar-god-esque without being a parody of shredders past. Instead he fits the solos to the music and restores the 70s era guitar solo to its rightful place as an indispensable emotional and musical expression.

All in all: as good a record as I hoped for, and the right record from Wilco at the right time in their career.

Record Reviews at the New York Times

Good stuff at the Times today.

Jon Pareles likes the new Wilco more than most:

The production is straightforward, but the song structures aren’t; that’s where Wilco’s idiosyncrasies still hide out. The tunes amble into instrumental interludes that stack riffs into steely patterns or let Wilco’s lead guitarist, Nels Cline, slice through the calm surfaces. Wilco’s new music is contemplative, stripping away past distractions, but it’s far from placid.

I'm still willing to give this one a chance, but the prospects seem slim, and more than a few diehard Wilco fans have already sworn off the new direction Tweedy's taken the band.

Meanwhile, Nate Chinen revels in the new Rufus Wainwright:

Who else but Mr. Wainwright could come up with a peppy lament for a former paramour with the title “Between My Legs”? Who else would have the British actress Sian Phillips rasp a villainous recitation on that track, over a chromatic horn part lifted from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera” theme? And who else would memorialize a brief meeting with a fellow singer (Brandon Flowers, the lead singer of the Killers) by composing a waltz with lines like “Your face has the Marlon Brando Club calling”?

If the answers are obvious, the music somehow isn’t. Remarkably, Mr. Wainwright infuses “Release the Stars” with enough honest emotion to overcome the grandiosity, or at least undercut it a bit.

I've just listened to Release the Stars and it is indeed a surprising and exuberant piece of music. All of the best parts of Poses and the Want records show up in unexpected new incarnations with no filler.

Down With Wilco

The results are in and once again we have a much anticipated record fizzling out.

Pitchfork give Sky Blue Sky a miserable 5.2 and writes that the album:

nakedly exposes the dad-rock gene Wilco has always carried but courageously attempted to disguise. Never has the band sounded more passive, from the direct and domestic nature of Tweedy's lyrics, to the soft-rock-plus-solos format (already hinted at on Ghost's "At Least That's What You Said" and "Hell Is Chrome") that most of its songs adhere to. The lackluster spirit even pervades the song titles: "Shake It Off" is probably most accurate (not to mention the album's worst track), but "On and On and On" and "Please Be Patient With Me" are both strong alternatives.

Meanwhile, Stylus takes a much more leisurely attitude to the record, giving it a B- and stating:

save the fifteen bucks, because these will sound great once you’ve dropped thirty on Ticketmaster. And that’s where the real frustration of Sky Blue Sky really sinks in: Kicking Television presented Wilco Mk. II in all of its key-trilling, fretboard-smoking glory, while the songs here demand undivided attention that is rewarded less often than we’ve come to expect. And yet, just about everything on Sky Blue Sky, even soft-shoe skiffles like the title track, will likely sound better live. Typical is “Impossible Germany,” which has a triple-pronged axe coda that’s meant for open-air arena fairgrounds, but to get to that point, there’s a lazy, borderline mindless tune resting among guitar notes that flicker like brief fits of wakefulness during a daytime nap.

This is probably true considering how weak A Ghost Is Born sounded until you heard it live (as I did at Red Rocks, and later on Kicking Television). So the consensus is: skip the lp and buy your concert tickets today.

Listen to Wilco Now!

Wilco is streaming the new album Sky Blue Sky on their site. The much anticipated album features a return to the strong song writing of Summerteeth with the unbelievable guitar work fans have heard on recent tours. It is out on May 15.