I don’t know if these bands are popular enough for this to be a worthwhile debate here, but I thought I’d give it the old college try. It seems to be a major point of contention between some folks on these internets:
The background is this: Uncle Tupelo consisted of Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar and some drummer. Coming out of Belleville, IL – what do you know, I live a mile away! – in the late 80s, these guys pretty much invented alt-country and are now legendary. Mid-90s, they split; Jeff starting Wilco, and Jay fronting Son Volt.
Personally, I rank Uncle Tupelo first (obviously), then Son Volt slightly ahead of Wilco by virtue of consistency and volume of awesomeness. Wilco – and Jeff Tweedy’s music in general – has flashes of brilliance and a lot of failures. Jay is always great, but his highs aren’t as high as Jeff’s. My impression is one of Jay being the hard worker, and Jeff being the tortured genius type.
So how’s the Doping community feel about this grievously important topic?
I think Wilco is just one long, continuous line of brilliance from I Must be High to On and On and On with moments of complete and utter greatness–I rank the entirety of A Ghost is Born as complete and utter greatness. Oh, and most of Mermaid Ave Vol 1. And all of their live shows.
But then, I was introduced to Wilco with A Ghost is Born, and instead of being annoyed by their changing sound, I’m thrilled to my toes that each album is a different sound and tone, and even story. I find that people who have followed Tweedy’s career since the Uncle Tupelo days tend to rank the bands like the OP, and tend to really dislike A Ghost is Born. I’m not really sure why this is the case. Maybe it’s because somebody with a background in the alt-country scene continues to expect alt-country, and I didn’t even know who Wilco was when I first heard them. I never even heard of Uncle Tupelo until about a year after I started collecting Wilco albums.
So ultimately, I rank Wilco before every band in the world, save The Beatles, with Uncle Tupelo in the top 5, and Sun Volt in the top 10. (If you ever come to Utah, you’ll know me. I’ll be the girl with the Wilco vanity plates…)
Actually, the little of Sun Volt I’ve listened to I didn’t like because of Jay’s voice.
I bought an Uncle Tupelo tape (heh, guess that dates me) on a recommendation and don’t recall I made it all the way through. Not compelling.
I loved everything on AM from the beginning and listened to it over and over. Instant fanatical fandom of Wilco.
And, I’ll be honest, I love Wilco so much that I don’t really give Sun Volt or Jay Farrar an honest shake because how could somebody treat my Jeff poorly!! Yeah, it’s a Teen Beat level of maturity on my part.
I’ve got discs from all three, and Wilco is by far my favorite. I find both Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt to be kind of monotonous, and Jay Farrar’s whiny voice grates on me at times. I like a few Son Volt songs quite a lot (“Tear Stained Eye” for example), but Wilco is just far better - especially in its latest incarnation with Nels Cline on guitar. He’s brought a whole new dimension to their music.
If you limited the choices to early Wilco vs early Son Volt, it’s much closer. But it always seemed to me that once Uncle Tupelo broke up, Jay Farrar just continued on making songs like that, while Jeff Tweedy grew as a musician and his band mutated over time and got better and better. Wilco is now one of the best bands in America, IMO.
“Sky Blue Sky” is a brilliant CD, and even though it was quite successful I think it’s under-rated. It was my favorite CD from last year.
The feedback doesn’t bother me, actually. If I’m listening to it in my car, I’ll skip to The Late Greats, but if I just have it going on my mp3 player or something, I generally let it play. Of course, I think Tweedy was being oddly self-indulgent with it, but hey, I can forgive him for it.