Wilco: Wilco (The Album) (Nonesuch)

Wilco (The Album) is very good. "Wilco (The Song)," the obvious lead single, is ironic in concept only, and demonstrates the band’s knack for writing short, straight-forward pop songs. Though I no longer pity or believe Jeff Tweedy when he sings about addiction and martyrdom, his insular sincerity on record is admirable; whatever is said about him as a human, at least his songs sound honest. "I’ll Fight" is an amalgamation of traditional country instrumentation and modern song structure as solid as anything in the band’s entire catalog. "Bull Black Nova" is dissonant yet accessible rock’n’roll reminiscent of “I’m a Wheel.” Lyrically and musically, Wilco is the sharpest they’ve been since 2002’s unanimously-praised Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The two studio albums that followed, 2004’s A Ghost is Born and 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, found the group deconstructing the Foxtrot formula with subpar results; Ghost was too meandering and experimental, Sky was emotionless and boring. With Wilco, Tweedy sought to recreate Foxtrot from a matured perspective; the resulting record is refined without being purely derivative.

The rest of this article is a response to Mike Powell’s Village Voice article "Wilco: The Review", wherein he describes Wilco as "The Band That Rocks, Within Reason." He proclaims that the band is boring and safe, that their albums are "music for white people to relax to." These are accurate claims about Wilco; Powell uses them in support of his thesis that Wilco is destroying everything "elemental, passionate, and reverentially stupid about rock ‘n’ roll." After this essay, analyzing the musical and lyrical content of Wilco seems silly and irrelevant. Dialogue inspired by the record seemingly should focus, not on the songs, but on the band.

Wilco (The Album) is Wilco’s seventh studio album. While self-titling an album may or may not have meaning, in this case it could point to this album being Tweedy’s definitive statement on the band. If Powell is right in his assessment of the group, then Tweedy is right in his creative choices on the record. A band like Wilco -- artistic within reason -- should not release an ambitious eponymous album; such an album would misrepresent the band. Rather, the record should expound upon and embrace the Wilco niche, the hazy middle-ground between experimental indie and dad-rock.

Jeff Tweedy is neither Daughtry nor Vanilli; he is a seasoned songwriter complacent in his middle-age. Many great musicians die young, and those that age often retire or do not recapture their edge until their mortality looms. The new Wilco sounds like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with less jerk-off noodling and ambient texturing. With only one song over five minutes, Wilco is the band’s most concise and solid offering, a sincere, modest little album with no surprises or self-indulgence. The experimental pretension of Wilco climaxed with A Ghost is Born, most explicitly on "Less Than You Think," an electro-cacophonous mess Tweedy described as “the track that everyone will hate.” Ghost-era Wilco consciously pissed off their fans by releasing challenging, pretentious material; eponymous-era Wilco has matured -- for better or worse -- into a band content with recycling and polishing ideas. Can we fault them for falling into the laurels of middle-age?

Historically, rock ‘n’ roll is "reverentially stupid" because it is a lifestyle that indulges temptation. Tweedy is now content playing the sober middle-age guy who happens to write very good songs. He does not feel the need to buck pretension (Ghost) or bury his head in the sand (Sky). He has matured into an artist content with giving his fans exactly what they want, another Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Because this is not a stupid move for a 41-year-old musician with a wife and two kids, Wilco is by definition not a rock ‘n’ roll band. If Wilco is a rock band, however, and if Tweedy is resting on his laurels, then he has given into the complacent temptation of middle-age, and thus represents the "reverent stupidity" of rock ‘n’ roll.

Tweedy’s indulgence is not sex or drugs, it is being a boring family man. If rock is selfish, then I’m glad Wilco at least recycles and polishes their definitive album; I much prefer a new record to live albums or greatest hits compilations. Why not let Wilco refine the Foxtrot formula and see where it leads?

Tweedy could disappear into a suburb and never make another album; I hope that doesn’t happen. If rock ‘n’ roll is destroyed by Wilco -- which seems impossible -- then something inevitably will take its place, will fill its niche as a style. Perhaps Wilco is what happens when rock ‘n’ roll ages and gets tired, and sleepwalks through solid releases. Perhaps Wilco has simply outgrown rock ‘n’ roll. Regardless, Wilco are like-it-or-not purveyors of American rock ‘n’ roll. Wilco (The Album) is the band’s new record, and it is very good. - Adam Kritzer

Mr. Kritzer travels the globe -- or at least NYC -- looking for revelatory moments of musical bliss.