Wilco (The Album)

Performer: Wilco
Engineer: TJ Doherty; Jordan Stone; Jim Scott; TJ Doherty; Jason Tobias; Jordan Stone; Jim Scott
Producer: Jim Scott; Jim Scott
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Wilco: Nels Cline (guitar); Glenn Kotche, Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Mikael Jorgensen, Pat Sansone. Personnel: Leslie Feist (vocals); Max Crawford (trumpet). Audio Mixers: Jim Scott; Kevin Dean. Audio Remasterer: Bob Ludwig. Recording information: Roundhead Studios, Auckland, New Zealand; The Loft, Chicago, IL. Photographer: Autumn DeWilde. Though many fans suspected that Wilco's self-titled seventh studio album would mark a return to the wild cut-and-paste experimentalism of YANKEE FOXTROT HOTEL, the record was in fact more of a piece with its traditional-sounding 2007 predecessor, SKY BLUE SKY. Heavily influenced by `60s and `70s pop music, songs like "Sunny Feeling" and "You Never Know" sounded as if the band might have been finally attempting to score the elusive hit single. Beginning with a powerful riff reminiscent of the Kinks' "Picture Book," the disc is all strummy guitars, tinkling keyboards, big choruses, George Harrison-style slide guitar, and stacked harmony vocals, conjuring aural images of bands such as Love, Wings, and Badfinger. Throughout, the songwriting is tight and focused, making WILCO one of the most instantly accessible albums in the Chicago-based group's catalog.

Rolling Stone (p.80) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[A] triumph of determined simplicitiy....What is most striking about the restraint here is the elegance and defiance packed inside." Spin (p.79) - "WILCO, the band's seventh studio effort, treats verse-chorus-verse basics like holy truths....And it's fantastic." Alternative Press (p.115) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Wilco continue to reign in their experimental fuzz, focusing more on pretty melodies, upbeat toe-tappers and sweet acoustic numbers for their seventh full-length." Dirty Linen (p.57) - "There's a lucidity to the sound and a sense of mix-and-match variety that haven't been heard since YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT..." Billboard (p.34) - "Windows-down anthemic pop like 'You Never Know' sits alongside the tense, textural rocker 'One Wing' and the dark, pulsating murder-escape drama 'Bull Black Nova.'" Paste (magazine) (p.54) - "The album is full of thoughtful, artfully crafted lyrics wrapped in memorable hooks that should stand the test of time." Record Collector (magazine) (p.98) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "'Bull Black Nova,' something of a 'Spiders' retooling, is pleasingly motorik..."

When pioneering alt-country band Uncle Tupelo split in the mid-1990s, they broke off into two camps. Jay Farrar started the rootsy, twangy (if lyrically elliptical) Son Volt. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Jeff Tweedy, who co-led the band with Farrar, established himself anew with Wilco. Though Wilco initially offered country-influenced rock not unlike that of Tweedy's former outfit, they quickly progressed through the Stones-meet-Big Star shambling two-disc epic BEING THERE, the Beach Boys/Beatles-influenced pop of SUMMER TEETH, and the screwy, art-damaged, Jim O'Rourke-produced YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT, whose release was notoriously delayed due to label apathy, though the album was eventually hailed as the group's masterpiece.

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