I keep hearing aboutthis group. They sort of dance on the fringes of real popularity; one of those groups that “insiders” rave abut, and nobody else gives a shit. Any fan want to enlighten me on what their style is, where they’re from, why they’re popular, etc?
If having a good-looking lead singer is needed for mainstream appeal, I think I know what’s holding them back.
It’s kind of like soft rock. Mostly acoustic stuff. I think they’re okay, but it seems their only real fans are pretentious music snobs.
Nelson Muntz
Ha-Ha!!!
Well, both Rolling Stone & Spin have been sucking Wilco’s dick quite a lot, and they haven’t been getting any airplay on rock/alternative radio, so that pretty much leaves the nowhereness that is “college radio.”
Who was the last band to hit the big time out of college radio anyway, R.E.M. That was what, 1983, 84? yeah, that pony’s real dead.
Wilco will end up being like The Lemonheads, hopefully without the egomaniacal lead singer thing that the Lemonheads had with Evan Dando.
Speaking of Evan, has he killed himself with a heroin overdose yet?
um… bands that have hit it big out of college radio (just off the top of my head):
Talking Heads
REM
U2
the Friggin Police
Nirvana
the Red Hot Chili Peppers
No Doubt
The White Stripes
Rollins (ala Black Flag)
Rage Against the Machine
Smashing Pumpkins
Also for the record, Jeff Tweedy the ugly mug to whom you werereferring was half of Uncle Tupelo from 1987 to 1992 and they were critical darlings back then too. Infact, the four (six if you count the Mermaid Avenue albums with Billy Bragg) albums that wilco has released have all been rather well recieved, and yes, as you can tell, we are a fairly loyal and not tiny fanbase. Just becuse something doesn’t get much commerical airplay (becasue commerical radio SUCKS), don’t relegate it to the dustbins before you do a little homework.
They’re hardly acoustic, btw, mostly a solid rock band that used to do “alt-country” and now mostly do a unique hybrid of experimental and classic rock with a lot of electric instruments, analogue synths, a full band, and the occasion horn section.
like what you want, but you might actually listen to something before you label it and the people who like it. And try informing your opinion with a little reality before you articulate it for the rest of us.
CJ
Hey, now!
Wilco came out of the alt.country/No Depression movement. Jeff Tweedy, late of Uncle Tupelo, is the lead singer/songwriter/guitarist, and I’m having trouble imagining him doing the egomaniacal lead singer bit. And I know people who think he’s cute. Put a guitar in someone’s hands…
Anyhow, their music has gotten progressively less country-rock and more pop over the years. Their next-to-last album, Summerteeth, turned them into critics’ darlings (hence the music snob faction), and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, this year’s follow-up, is wowing them as well. I think one reason they’re getting so much press is that their label dumped them just before YHF was ready for release. They bought the album back and took it to a smaller label, causing the indie snobs to swoon further.
But they’re GOOD, dammit.
That’ll teach ME to type slowly, won’t it? Hi, Bad Hat - wanna compare notes? 
Another Wilco fan here. I have actually been a fan since the Uncle Tupelo days–in fact, I was working in college radio when they were getting their biggest exposure. Their album Being There is simply a must have for music fans, IMO. It’s a two-disc release that explores just about every nook & cranny of pop music. Listeners of “commercial alternative” or “modern rock” radio may even have heard some of it: It spawned a minor hit with “Outtasight (Outta Mind),” a great little rocker with a terrific hook. (The song is done as a slower, acoustic version later on the album and retitled “Outta Mind (Outta Sight).”) Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a terrific album as well.
Tweedy’s Uncle Tupelo partner, Jay Farrar, is also very active. He’s released three albums with his band Son Volt (whose 1995 album Trace and its hit single “Drown” were among the best of that year), and has released two solo albums in the last two years as well.
I’d prefer that you didn’t care. We pretentious music snobs get surly when our fringe idols develop mainstream appeal.
Billy, well said.
are you going to the shows next weekend?
I got tix for both nights. Cannot wait. I expect at very least the atmopsphere will be awesome, like a homecoming rally for the conquering heroes.
CJ
I’m headed up to Wisc. that weekend for The Other Ones and links. I’m sure it will be fun, CJ, but still I’m envying you. I think your prediction is spot on.
Saw Tweedy last month at the Abbey Pub. I left drenched with sweat, SB DAT in hand, completely blissed out.
I like Son Volt, but Wilco isn’t quite my type of music. I’ve never listened to any Uncle Tupelo. Anybody have any suggestions as to what I should listen to in order to get a feel for Uncle Tupelo and maybe change my mind about Wilco?
As another Wilco fan, I feel the need to chime in as well. While I fully agree with pldennison about the briliance of Being There, I would also suggest both of the Mermaid Avenue albums. They are collaborations with Billy Bragg and Woody Guthrie’s family. The lyrics of the songs were all written by Woody Guthrie and Wilco and Billy Bragg put them to music. Each song is an amazing look back into a different age. Many of the songs are political but there are a few that deal with baseball, movies, religion, etc. On Mermaid Avenue Vol. I there is a song called California Stars which is just amazing-one of my all time favorites.
BTW, I don’t know if anybody saw them on Austin City Limits but they were awesome.
Well racinchikki, theres a new anthology of the Best of Uncle Tupelo thats pretty easily available. Its an excellent intro.
As far as the Wilco/Sun Volt divide, its totally a taste thing. Sun Volt are very adamantly “alt-country”, still doing very jangly countrified rock, while Tweedy and wilco have gradually
expressed an intrest in kinda leaving that whole scene behind. To be sure they still have a pronounced twang from time to time, but as early as “being There” and particualrly on the last two albums, they’ve expressed a lot more interest in experimenting, both with arty Chicago style post pop (with help from production by Jim O’Rourke) and other very non-country pop forms: brian wilson style harmonies and arangements, and a greatly expanded use of keyboards and samples to create both classic retro-ish and really noisy, out there soundscapes.
They are one of the few bands in the world who manage to convincingly sound simultaneously avant-guard and genuinely reminiscent of 70’s stoner rock and AM radio pop, sometimes all within the same song.
I don’t think it would be completely unreasonable to characterize the Uncle Tupelo split as being similar to the Beatles split. Jeff being the restless Lennon, wanting to branch out in more experimental (sometimes- admittedly- self indulgent) directions, with Farrar and Sun Volt as McCartney, enamored with more conventional (not-that-theres-anything-wrong-with-that) tradfitional songwriting that fell within a distinct formula.
Tweedy actually said in a recent interview that he was done with “alt -country” but that he wished Ryan Adams the best of luck carrying the torch. heh!
CJ
Arty pretensious music snob-isms aside:
every single song on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot either rocks large or is absolutely gorgeous. The recording is great, the music is tight, the melodies are amazing and Tweedy is writing the best lyrics (for the most part) of his career.
Its is an amazingly good album, and I HATE hype.
the track “Jesus, etc” is worth the cost alone, as an example of everything the albums does right. best of the year so far.
Geez, what’s with the hostility in the OP and the next couple posts? I didn’t know it was such a damnable offense to keep making records even though you aren’t wildly popular and stunningly beautiful.
Hazel, I was saying that from what I have observed, the real fans of Wilco trace the band back to what instruments they played in middle school band. Well, not that far, but they know all of the side projects and names of everyone in the band and who they played with before. It seems to me that knowing that fluff is required before you listen to the actual music. And because I haven’t heard anything else that they have produced, I must not be getting the gestalt feel of the music.
It’s not my kind of music. Too sappy 
Also, for those of you in the Pro-Wilco camp… theres a movie out in limited release called I am trying to break your heart. a documentary about the making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
They set out to just chronicle the recording process, but what they ended up capturing was a rock and roll story so bizarre, tense and ultimately cathartic and vindicating that if someone made it up and pitched it to hollywood, it would have been laughed at for being too far fetched.
Haven’t caught the movie myself yet, but i’ve seen clips, and a number of friends LOVE it, and even the most artless documentation of the events that went down during the creation of this album would make for a pretty gripping movie. Check it out.
Also for those of you that have cable, the “Ovation” network regularly shows a documentary called Man in the Sand, which is a stort of Billy Bragg’s quest to bring the Mermaid Avenue project to fruition.
Its a beautiful film, filed with typical recording studio fights and discussions, some amazing live and alternate versions of songs AND a ton of biography on Woodie Guthrie himself, as told my his daughter Nora. Its really moving and beautiful, a wonderful portrait of a number of great artists collaborating at the top of thier game. I can’t reccommend the movie highly enough.
cj
Due respect red_dragon, but what you said was that
A) they are soft and acoustic, which is demonstrably not true, (with exceptions, like any band they have thier ballads, but mostly they rock)
and
B) you caracterized thier “only real fans” as being “pretensious music snobs”. I like them, i know the geneology, not becasue i am obsessed with what instrument anybody played in midle school, but becasue i’ve found that learning out about the history or bands (and art in general) is the most interesting way i am aware of to find MORE music that i like.
You like Wilcos sound? check out other things Jim Orourke has produced. you like Uncle Tupelo? Perhaps you’ll like sun volt or Wilco, or Jay Bennet’s solo album.
How would you have us rock snobs find our music? MTV? the f&%king radio? And if you think i’ve bought an issue of Spin or Rolling Stone to inform me what i should think is cool, you’re waaay off base. please. Its about community and family and heritage, on a local level and on an artistic one. I get my music from my friends, from going out and seeing things and making up my own mind, and from spending some time investigating the artists i admire, and who they admire and with whom they collaborate.
In short, calling us “pretensious music snobs” is tacky, juvenile and totally uninformed. And it has, to the best of my knowledge, nothing to do with the spirit of fighting ignorance.
I could absolutely give two shits about this new metal bullshit all over “alternative radio” (a joke in and of itself), but i would never wander into a thread about Limp Linkin Korn Puddle of No Talent Assclowns and take a dump in the living room, so to speak. And its not for lack of opinions about the genre, I’ve actually heard that music- its hard to avoid, sadly. Its just, well why bother? Why make such a obnoxiously sweeping generalization about a group of people who like a pop band? why piss me off?
cj
Critical darling or not, Summer Teeth is simply one of the best pop albums of all time. The first time you hear it, it’s sounds light and glossy, but repeated listens show it to be anything but.
The latest one still hasn’t kicked in for me, but I’ll give it more chances based on the band’s history.
Purd…
listen to “Jesus etc” and “Pot kettle black” for the highlights (IMHO), then work into the odder stuff like “Radio cure” and “I am tryingto break your heart”. Keep giving it a shot i personally love it, and think its better than Summerteeth.
Then again, i know a lot of folks who agree with you.