Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
|
List Price: Our Price: $8.76 You Save: $10.22 (54%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.39 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Free Music Review: "I know I would die if I could come back new"
Hit: 5 Stars
A word of warning: 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' is not easy to like. It's the kind of album that takes at least 2 full listens to grow on you and it demands your full attention. But if you give it a chance, it will almost definitely cement a place as one of your favorite albums.
A few things seem off-kilter on first listen. The main thing to me were the lyrics. They simply make no sense some of the time. From "I'm Am Trying to Break Your Heart"
"I wanna hold you in the Bible-black predawn
You're quite a quiet domino, bury me now
Take off your bandaid cause I don't believe in touchdowns
What was I thinking when I said hello."
That's probably the most nonsensical lyric on the album (most of the lyrics aren't that "out there" and plenty of them make normal sense). However, after the first couple listens you come to realize it's not really about the literal meaning of the lyrics, it's more about cool turns of phrase, the vague feeling the odd lyrics can give you, and it's more about how the lyrics are sung that give them meaning. For instance the chorus to "Jesus Etc."
"Tall buildings shake
voices escape singing sad sad songs
tuned to chords
strummed down your cheeks
bitter melodies, turning your orbit around"
makes little sense taken literally but is so catchy and the lyrics are amazing when you hear them sung.
Musically the songs on 'YHF' are complex, brilliant, and original. "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" has a repeating drum fill that works in the song as if it were a great guitar riff. The violins on "Jesus Etc." make the song, I especially like the "plucking" violin technique used in one verse. Alot of the songs build up from sparse openings with just a single instrument to a geniusly layered "wall of sound". Often towards the end or in the middle of a song a catchy acoustic guitar fill will come out of nowhere and hit you just right, or a piano will start playing a catchy fill and keep building and building like the end of "Poor Places". Some of the feedback drenched guitar and other unusual and original "noise" can be off-putting at first, but most of it is used really sparingly and fits in perfectly with the songs.
'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' almost never got made, as documented in the bands recent film, and what a shame that would have been. We would have all missed out on a classic album. If you haven't already picked this up, don't hesitate any longer. If you're looking for comparisons, all I can say is try and imagine Bob Dylan or Neil Young collaborating with a guitarist from someone like Sonic Youth.
Free Music Review: An album in the truest sense of the word.
Hit: 5 Stars
In talking to fellow Wilco fans, I've noticed something that I don't often see in fans of other bands - an excitement about change. And let's face it - Wilco's sound has definitely benefitted from a lack of permanent grounding, and YHF takes the biggest steps from the often-repeated stories of Uncle Tupelo this and alt-country that and all the other hogwash.So we can talk about labels and history and the like, but I'll leave that to the music critics. The history only matters if you're already a Wilco fan, and if you're like most Wilco fans, the change from the past isn't even that big a deal. The question is, what merit does this record have on its own?
YHF is an album for our times - the human spirit confronted with the modern world is one way you can look at both the songwriting themes and the sounds employed in this album. Put headphones on to hear the organic, typical instruments doing battle with the swirling noise and layered arrangements; this added "noise" is not an afterthought, but a carefully mastered part of the album's whole sound. The feeling you get listening to the way sound is arranged should be a clear indication that there is something deeper going on here, whether or not you're a fan of the noisiness that Jim O'Rourke brings to the table (and even though I usually don't care for this style, I am instinctively drawn to, and pleased by, its execution in YHF).
On top of this is Jeff Tweedy's touching songwriting. This is an album to read along to (or sing if you're luckier than I am), so keep the liner notes handy. Tweedy sings songs about the same love, unpredictable and wonderful and painful, in a strange world that is either always changing or always the same. Honestly, I don't know and I'm not going to try any harder than that to say what Tweedy says so much better with lyrics like, "tall buildings shake, / voices escape, singing sad sad songs / tuned to chords strung down your cheeks, / & bitter melodies, turning your orbit around." As he sings this in Jesus, Etc, Tweedy continues to talk about the night sky, and at the same time violins sweep through the air in a jagged, computer-challenged way that feels like the night sky is falling apart.
That's just one of thousands of intangible beauties that this album has, combining music and sound and word and thought (pardon if I sound like a hippie) into a truly special album, one that is reborn upon each listen. I have had this album for months thanks to the Internet, but nothing could have prepared me for my first CD listen, w/ liner notes, on headphones. It was an experience I'll never forget. Buy this album.
Free Music Review: Not your older brother's Wilco...
Hit: 5 Stars
Once every couple of years, an album comes along that almost-automatically merits consideration as a "Classic" in its genre... I offer you Radiohead's "OK Computer", Lauryn Hill's "Miseducation of...", and (on the ever-growing World stage) Natacha Atlas' Transglobal Underground-fueled "Ayeshteni" as evidence for this trend. 2002's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot", by Wilco, is the latest album to merit inclusion in the "instant landmark" category. Jeff Tweedy's band has made a record so jaw-droppingly complete, eclectic and satisfying that it would make both Harry Smith and Brian Eno proud. Though often described as a "Hillbilly OK Computer", YHF goes farther, muuuuch farther beyond mere pigeonhole-ization. This is a record of a uniquely sobered sensibility... the studious innocence of Uncle Tupelo's early recordings and "Being There's" sense of wide-eyed optimism are both gone. In their stead, we find a narrator than can, alternately, drink you under the table ("I Am Trying to Break Your Heart"), celebrate Rock 'N Roll without sounding trite ("Heavy Metal Drummer"), and be patriotic without being obtuse or jingoistic ("Ashes of American Flags"). One has to feel somewhat sorry for Jay Farrar... on the same year he releases a sensational solo effort ("Sebastopol"), and in which Uncle Tupelo's greatest-hits compilation comes out, Tweedy outdoes him, again, though this time more severely than ever before.As for several pundits' charge that this record tries hard to be pretentious and "artsy", I will, actually, heartily agree with whoever states that claim... Nevertheless, I strain to remember any album consistently placed in most critics' "Best of All Time" shortlist, which did not initially strive to be "important": "Sgt. Pepper's", "Pet Sounds", "Highway 61", "Born to Run", "Nevermind", etc. ALL were clearly about their respective creators' attempts at critical respectability and, ultimately, historical weight. Tweedy can hardly be faulted for doing the same, particularly in an era of such fluffy, unimportant sonic trifle, courtesy of a conference room-ful of three-piece Swedish suits who write music for thirty-plus men posing as "boy" bands, and for bleached blondes with no vocal talent other than aping faux-R & B mellismas.
Wouldn't you just HATE to be that poor sap from Wilco's former record company who told Tweedy and co. to take a walk... with this master-piece in tow?!?!?!
Free Music Review: 40 years from now we'll still be listening to this.
Hit: 5 Stars
That line above is probably the highest praise I can think of for Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Though the previous Summerteeth was a strong record, YHF finally firmly pushes Jeff Tweedy out of the former Uncle Tupelo's shadow to become an excellent artist in his own right.
YHF takes Wilco's alt-country/acoustic pop/folk sound and injects electronics and studio experimentation, somewhat like Radiohead's own masterpiece OK Computer. The result is a truly beautiful and seamless album. Its experimentation (expanses of white noise acting as segues, bleepy synths) is coated with pop sensibility without sounding like a compromise, and the more adventurous tracks like Trying To Break Your Heart and Poor Places are balanced by top-drawer pop on the order of Pot Kettle Black, War On War, and Kamera. The lyrics are truly stirring, left-of-center gems, embodied by the mellow yet evocative voice of Tweedy.
The mood is melancholic and lovelorn, most of the tracks conveying longing, sadness, and regret (with the exception of Heavy Metal Drummer, a perfect anthem that's a little out of place on this album). Yet there is always an undercurrent of hope, something that keeps the album from becoming dour even at its most somber. For example, Radio Cure's slurred vocals and softly strummed guitars give way to a truly gorgeous chorus backed by chiming synths--it totally makes the song. On another note, I'm sure this is a tired sentiment, but I can't think of a more emblematic post-9/11 song than Jesus etc. ("tall buildings shake/voices escape singing sad, sad songs"). That track makes excellent use of violins as well, something hard to do in a song of this nature without sounding sappy or maudlin.
Of course everybody has commented on the beautiful opener I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (love the shuffling drumline on that one), but almost none of the reviews have mentioned the closer Reservations, which is spectacular in its own right. It begins with an uplifting piano melody and Jeff intoning and then repeating some of the most touching lyrics I've ever heard ("I've got reservations.../about so many things/but not about you"). As the song continues, his voice eventually cuts away, leaving the melody to slowly decay into an almost post-rock soundscape. It's incredible.
Ignore the negative reviews crying about the "noise" (methinks these folks would have a hissy fit over Sonic Youth) or the "I don't get it's." Disregard the major-label soap opera. If you want a tuneful, tender and ageless album YHF cannot afford to be missed.
Free Music Review: 9/11...
Hit: 5 Stars
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is such an emotional experience for me because it is the only real artistic connection that I have to 9/11. Of course, Wilco wrote the album before 9/11, but the album's lyrics, sonic juxtaposition of chaotic distortion and rootsy beauty, and distinctly American themes resonate so powerfully in my mind that I can't help but connect myself to 9/11 when I listen to the album. Even the cover art of twin towers (albeit of a Chicago landmark) seems in recognition of 9/11.
The first song that I really correlated to 9/11 is "Jesus, Etc." The chorus goes, "Tall buildings shake/Voices escape singing sad sad songs/tuned to chords/Strung down your cheeks/Bitter melodies turning your orbit around." Beautiful, harmonized violins contribute a truly haunting mood. The bridge goes, "Skyscrapers are scraping together/Your voice is smoking." The central idea of the song is beautifully redemptive without being schmaltzy or cliche. "Our love, our love is all we have/Our love is all god's money/Every one is a burning sun." Isn't that true? At the end of the day, our love really is all we have...
"Ashes of American Flags" is about disgust at American consumerism, which I felt completely after 9/11 as our government and economy utilized the tragedy for profit. "I wonder why we listen to poets when nobody gives a f***/How hot and sorrowful, the machine begs for luck...I would like to salute/the ashes of American flags/And all the fallen leaves/filling up shopping bags." That's how I felt, and singer, Jeff Tweedy touches on the same theme of cultural disenchantment in "Radio Cure," as he expresses confusion at "radio cures" and "electronic surgical wars."
When our President used 9/11 to justify a misguded war, the song "War on War" is utterly powerful and relevant.
Of course, these are only a handful of songs on the album. But Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, as a whole, has a rootsy, acoustic feel to it that, coupled with the (unintentionally) 9/11-themed songs, conjure feelings of American values and patriotism. On two of the most upbeat songs, "I'm the Man who loves You" and "Heavy Metal Drummer," the instrumentation and down-home charm that Tweedy brings is indicative of Wilco's roots as an alt-country band. This album makes me proud to be an American in an odd way. It's contemplative and well-written, and most importantly, (I interpret it as) as an unpretentious but nuanced testament to America, love, and the respect that tragedy deserves. Jeff Tweedy, you are a poet, and I do give a f***.