Next up in the Top 5 for 2007 - Wilco’s latest, Sky Blue Sky.
I was initially a bit disappointed with this album - it seemed a bit too laid-back, not to sure of itself. Over the last few months though, those qualities have really endeared the album to me - it’s shaky, not quite sure of itself, but not afraid of just going with that rather than trying to ignore it.
At the end of the video linked below, Jeff Tweedy (Wilco’s songwriter) describes the album as him talking directly to his wife, which seems pretty apt - most of the songs are straightforwardly about relationships. But whereas on earlier albums, Tweedy’s problems would be masked with poetry and strange sounds, everything is direct here, both in the words and the instrumentation.
This is also the first Wilco album to feature the new seven-man lineup (which has been touring together since 2004’s A Ghost Is Born). The band is definitely tight, and that’s one of the real pleasures of the albums - hearing songs that feel like there’s a push-and-pull going on between seven people in a room, rather than the more methodical production of the previous albums.
Having said that, the album does get a bit monotone, and lulls seriously in the middle after the strong opening trio of ‘Either Way’ / ‘You Are My Face’ / ‘Impossible Germany’. The album does end strongly, with ‘Walken’, and maybe Wilco’s most hopeful song ever: ‘What Light’.
Here’s Wilco in the studio performing ‘Impossible Germany’. I love the way this song starts straightforwardly with a few verses, then breaks into an incredible guitar solo from Nels Cline:
I was initially a bit disappointed with this album - it seemed a bit too laid-back, not to sure of itself. Over the last few months though, those qualities have really endeared the album to me - it’s shaky, not quite sure of itself, but not afraid of just going with that rather than trying to ignore it.
At the end of the video linked below, Jeff Tweedy (Wilco’s songwriter) describes the album as him talking directly to his wife, which seems pretty apt - most of the songs are straightforwardly about relationships. But whereas on earlier albums, Tweedy’s problems would be masked with poetry and strange sounds, everything is direct here, both in the words and the instrumentation.
This is also the first Wilco album to feature the new seven-man lineup (which has been touring together since 2004’s A Ghost Is Born). The band is definitely tight, and that’s one of the real pleasures of the albums - hearing songs that feel like there’s a push-and-pull going on between seven people in a room, rather than the more methodical production of the previous albums.
Having said that, the album does get a bit monotone, and lulls seriously in the middle after the strong opening trio of ‘Either Way’ / ‘You Are My Face’ / ‘Impossible Germany’. The album does end strongly, with ‘Walken’, and maybe Wilco’s most hopeful song ever: ‘What Light’.
Here’s Wilco in the studio performing ‘Impossible Germany’. I love the way this song starts straightforwardly with a few verses, then breaks into an incredible guitar solo from Nels Cline:
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