i've never heard wilco

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IWasBored

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i've heard OF wilco, but i'm pretty sure i've never actually heard any music. like the postal service, they're one of those bands i've written off as being crap based on the sheer number of "i'm sooo indie even though i listen to mainstream 'indie' music" college kids that hail them to be the greatest thing since the CD.

1. what might i have heard? is there something they play often/occasionally on the radio that i might have somehow heard, despite not listening to commercial radio for 3 years?
2. and what can you reccomend me? yes the majority of the music i like it loud punk rock kind of stuff, but don't give me a list that leaves out really quiet songs.
 
I have their album A Ghost is Born. I think it's okay but nothing too special. There are a lot of huge Wilco fans about but I didn't really get into them that much.
 
I've never listened to Wilco for any indie reasons, they just seem to make albums out of the sheer joy of playing music. Not that the sounds are necessarily happy, they just seem to love music. It is some quality that is lacking in 99% of bands out there that I just can't explain.

Anyway, in terms of songs, they have never really had any hits, the closest would be Box Full of Letters from AM and Heavy Metal Drummer from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

They have to be experienced by the album, but do not start with the newest one (Ghost is Born). Being There is exceptionally good. It reminds me of Exile on Main Street but rooted in country more than blues or R&B. And I am not a country fan.

Summerteeth is a much more lush album, with a lot of Beatles and Beach Boys sounding songs.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is more experimental and a breakthrough of sorts but I do not think it is as good as the previous two. Not as much of that sheer joy quality I was talking about.
 
Wilco have never had a radio hit. Sheer crap? More like sheer brilliance. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has now become one of my top 5 albums of all time. Whenever it's in my car, I tend to leave it there for a week or so. It's so wonderful to get lost in, and when it's over, I have to hear it again.

:dork:

I love all their albums, but if I had to rank them...

1. YHF
2. Being There
3. Summerteeth--A Ghost is Born (it's a tie!)
4. A.M.
 
IWB > go here and listen to a live show:

http://www.wilcoworld.net/roadcase/index.html#

Wilco are the best band in America, imo, and one of my top 3 favorite bands, the other two being U2 and Radiohead. They are brilliant live and Jeff Tweedy is a songwriter's songwriter--just sheer poetry at times. Everyone has their favorite records--there's the before Yankee Hotel Foxtrot camp and the post YHF camp, kinda like before Joshua Tree and after. I'm in the post camp but I love every one of their records. When I saw them live last year they raised the bar for me for what a live show is supposed to be. They are absolutely incredible versatile musicians that play in a way that give me goosebumps. One minute they can be achingly gorgeous and sensitive and the next they completely rock out and blow my mind. I am in love with them
 
Yeah, there's a lot of heart, soul, sincerity and integrity in Wilco. :heart:

I totally agree with you LadyLemon about YHF. I have to hear it over and over and over....I think it's their masterpiece.
 
Being There is my fave of thiers, but Id say YHF is the place to start if I was you IWB. If not there, go back to Uncle Tupelo and get into the alt/country side of things.
UT was Tweedy of Wilco and Farrar of Son Volt and now solo.
Anyway, Wilco is the best thing going right now for my dollar.
I am trying to break your heart was the best music/band movie ive seen and although many didnt care for Ghost, I thought it was excellent.
Good luck
 
a blurb from a review of the Fillmore show that you can hear on their website:

...Without Tweedy’s charming antics, however, this show would have still been more than fantastically spectacular. Not only could the two-hour plus set speak for itself, it could write and publish a 60 page mandate for global domination. Opening the spectacle was the crème de le crème "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart." Each member drove the ornate textures of this piece to a beautiful insanity, regardless if it was the simple strum of the acoustic guitar or the culminating explosion of synthesizers.
...
Nothing else could properly explain the level of A game they had reached by the finishing set better than the cover of Blue Oyster Cult’s "Don’t Fear the Reaper," which was so out of place that it somehow felt perfect. Of course, a very shy cowbell player accompanied the band in the outing, inducing a drug like state of pleasure. Wilco left the stage, one which they have played at enough times to be considered a home by now, and the crowd walked out with smiles as big as Tweedy’s. Disneyland be warned; this tour could put you out of business.


- The Daily Online Californian, November 18, 2004
 
Elvis Presley said:
Being There is my fave of thiers, but Id say YHF is the place to start if I was you IWB. If not there, go back to Uncle Tupelo and get into the alt/country side of things.
UT was Tweedy of Wilco and Farrar of Son Volt and now solo.
Anyway, Wilco is the best thing going right now for my dollar.
I am trying to break your heart was the best music/band movie ive seen and although many didnt care for Ghost, I thought it was excellent.
Good luck

i agree completely. i love Ghost very, very much, even more than my unborn wife.
 
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is one of the best albums from the last five years. A Ghost Is Born is not bad, but I didn't quite connect to it. Had some good songs though.

I highly recommend YHF though.
 
Dalton said:
Via Chicago is an amazing song.

:up: :up: Maybe one of the most disturbing first lines though. "I dreamed about killing you again last night and it felt alright to me"
 
I've fallen madly in love with Wilco's music. I must have downloaded about 35 Wilco/Jeff Tweedy concerts from EasyTree. I can't get enough.

Tweedy's definitely one of my favorite songwriters.

I never got into them until well after Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out, but I'm really glad I gave them a chance.
 
Dalton said:
Via Chicago is an amazing song.

:heart:

Truly. I love the live version that opens the bonus show on ghost is born.

They are indeed a band to fall madly in love with.
 
alexvilagosh said:
A Ghost Is Born is not bad, but I didn't quite connect to it.

You gotta play blast Spiders on the wide open desert highway, with the top down or sun roof open if possible.
 
i think i might end up buying yankee hotel foxtrot in the very near future.


:up:



(i had heard 'heavy metal drummer' somewhere)
 
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IWB, I think I put some Wilco on the mix I made for you last winter.

:sexywink:

I have a feeling that it was probably "Box Full of Letters" from A.M.
 
:der:

i must find the playlist immediatly...i'm going to feel like a huge ass :lol:
 
the cars, depeche mode, sonic youth, peter schilling, talking heads, buzzcocks, the english beat, romeo void, sleater-kiney, the cure, squeeze, the replacements, luscious jackson, berlin, the smiths, the b-52's, new order, INXS

i don't see any wilco
 
Last night I couldn't sleep so I watched the bonus material on the I am Trying to Break Your Heart DVD. It is just incredible. I agree with Elvis Presley--best band/music documentary I've ever seen. Some of those solo performances of Tweedy remind me of a young Dylan. It also re-confirmed my feeling that the current Wilco line-up is the best yet. Some of the group performances sounded a bit hollow in the documentary compared to the current 6-member band, although obviously they were in transition during the ducumentary.

IWB, if you like Heavy Metal Drummer, you can see the video here--it's taken from the documentary and is excellent.

http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/wilco_1/videos.jhtml
 
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my computer doesn't like vh1 for some reason. i tried to watch something else earlier, and it just keeps telling me i need to update my windows media player. so i updated it, and the media player told me it was as updated as it can be.

i hate computers :grumpy:
 
IWasBored said:
my computer doesn't like vh1 for some reason. i tried to watch something else earlier, and it just keeps telling me i need to update my windows media player. so i updated it, and the media player told me it was as updated as it can be.

i hate computers :grumpy:

I have to use Internet Explorer rather than Mozilla to watch videos on their site so if you're using Mozilla that could be it.
 
joyfulgirl said:


I have to use Internet Explorer rather than Mozilla to watch videos on their site so if you're using Mozilla that could be it.


yep, that's the problem then.

now...where did i put IE...
 
IWasBored said:
:der:

i must find the playlist immediatly...i'm going to feel like a huge ass :lol:


Oh yes, I forgot that I made you more of a New Wave themed mix. Mofo and Yertle were the ones who had the Wilco on theirs...
 
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