and I'm gonna keep on being smart. Now it's time for

My second favorite Wilco album after A Ghost is Born.

Click that link up yonder and you won't have to look far. :)

Milk Music has a cool sound and can come up with cool riffs, but like so many, many, many, many, many in this genre, the songwriting isn't quite up to snuff. (And the singer's occasional spot-on impression of the Violent Femmes singer is, um, distracting.) But not bad. But not great.

Jeff dedicated "Passenger Side" to me, live from the stage, last year.

at random, or was there some reason why you?

Anyway, I really do think AM is slept on. I feel like it has a reputation for being "just good" but there's some really great stuff on that album.

At RANDOM?! Hell no, man, it was specifically for yours truly. It wasn't even on the setlist for that night, but I made it happen.


As John Hiatt told Jeff and the late Jay Bennett when he interviewed them for Wilco's Sessions At West 54th performance, AM is full of hits! :)

this feels like a story... that you're not telling. ;)



Was that that live TV thing that they did that also had SY? I had that taped on VHS back in the day, but no idea whatever happened to that tape.

No, the one you mention is PBS' Soundstage:

I think their entire sound, from vocals to song dynamics, is based directly on Meat Puppets' "New Gods."

Which is ok, because that's one of my favorite songs of all time, and it kicks unholy ass, and not that many bands have gone for that mixture of thrash and twang.

But seriously... Milk Music is way more "New Gods" than they are Violent Femmes.

Check: https://youtu.be/Wm1owFVDELc

Haha. Wilco.

AM is great, but who among us listens to it as much as their later albums? Not I, that's for damn sure.

Not as much no. But I have been on an early Wilco kick this week to switch it up.

It's a damn good album, no question. I think I prefer it to Sky Blue Sky and I definitely prefer it to The Whole Love (really "Art of Almost" is kinda the only song I return to on that album). A.M. is certainly quite widely underappreciated. Iit was eclipsed in the pop culture world by Being There, and then even mores by Summerteeth, and by Yankee Hotel Foxtrot it was off to the fucking races, and most new Wilco listeners from that period probably didn't even fuck with A.M. (or Uncle Tupelo, for that matter).

Their loss. Wankers.

Guided By Voices - August By Cake

Robert Pollards 100th album, and its a double lp with 32 tracks. Gone is the "classic lineup" from the recent reunion, but Doug Gillard is back in the fold and this album is as good as anything Pollard has released.

Regarding Wilco...Schmilco is quiet, understated...but my favorite since A Ghost is Born. Such a great live band.

Schmilco is very good.

I got a ton of shit for suggesting that Schmilco was a more satisfying listen than the most recent Dinosaur Jr. album. Probably from guest, who loves to push my buttons.

A Ghost is Born is the best Wilco album. :eek: :p :fuckyou:

I'm on a pretty huge Wilco trip right now so I'll prob go through every album chronologically and let you know my thoughts then.

So...

AM - I think it's a really solid debut. Honestly, I liked Uncle Tupelo but I wasn't a huge huge fan. For me, their 'greatest hits' package was enough. But I think that AM is an awesome way for the band to start. There's some truly interesting ideas here. "I Must Be High" is a pretty obvious namecheck, and great fucking song. No doubt. But "Should've Been In Love" is probably my favorite song on here. Ugh. Gut-wrenching and so great. As a side note, it's maybe not a surprise I dig this album so much being a big Whiskeytown fan. This is pretty straight-ahead "alternative country" right? Just to note, I didn't hear this album until years after I got into Wilco (I first heard Summerteeth and Murmaid Ave, then Being There in somewhat rapid succession when Summerteeth hit).

Being There - is fucking fantastic. This album really grabbed me when I first heard it. I loved that it was a double album. Ballsy for a sophomore effort - no? Anyone else ever notice that "Misunderstood" resembles Beck's "Steve Threw up"? Anyway, great fucking album. It's a huge huge huge jump up from AM, which is often how Wilco albums work right? "Outta Sight" fucking rocks so hard. That's the first track I heard from this album (of course) but it stuck to me quickly. So much good stuff here, "Red-Eyed And Blue," "Sunken Treasure," "Someone Else's Song,"... this is really just a great album.

I'll keep going as I progress w/ each album. Spoiler: I'm super trite. My favorite Wilco album is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot even if that's obvious. Summerteeth and Being There are close behind. For nostalgia. But like I said, I'll fill you in as I venture my way through their discography again. This is fun.

Also do you guys consider Down With Wilco to be a Wilco album? I've never actually heard that one. I mean... does it sound like a real collaboration or just like Wilco is a backing band like The Cardinals on Willy Nelson's Songbird album

btw I'm a weird place where I've only been listening to Wilco and Ween lately. Two totally different bands...haha.

Down With Wilco is definitely not a Wilco album. It's a Minus 5 album, and good one. But I would never consider it part of their discography.

I'm not really a big Billy Bragg fan. I mean, I have nothing against him but I've never checked out any of his solo albums. I only really know him as the guy who made these Woody Guthrie albums w/ Wilco. But that's fine. Mermaid Avenue was one I heard pretty early in my Wilco love. I first discovered them thanks to Summerteeth and went back to this and Being There quickly. This album is really cool. There's a good mix of Wilco sounding stuff with the other vocalists. But also I think this album helped Wilco think outside the box even more than they had done on Being There. To get outside of comfort zones. There's some pretty weird shit here really. And that's fun. More importantly there are great tracks like the sunny "California Stars," or the soul-crushing heartbreaking beauty of "One By One." This is definitely a great album.

The MA version of "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key" is one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking songs I've ever heard.

Scandal, Best Album

And yet any true Wilco fan should have it, as it is part of Jeff's discography, the way Golden Smog albums are. Three songs are by McCaughey and Tweedy; one of them, "The Family Gardener", is sung by JT, who's also been performing live "Dear Employer (The Reason I Quit)" —a McCaughey-only composition— for years.

Holy shit the new Arca record is OUT y'all.

Listening to this epic track "Saunter" that sounds like Mozart played with switchblades.

Arca - "Saunter" (YouTube)

Listen up friends!

Oh fuck yes, "The Family Gardener" is PEAK TWEEDY. That's my favorite song on the album (just barely edging out "The Old Plantation," which fucking helped define my 2003).

I totally agree that Wilco fans and/or Tweedy fans should goddamn well own Down With Wilco just as they should own Loose Fur's brilliant, perennially underrated self-titled and Born Again in the USA albums ("Elegant Transaction," "Laminated Cat," "Pretty Sparks" ... Fucking gold.) So no worries — we are in the same page there.

I just meant that it's not a Wilco album. I wasn't speaking to its quality at all. I bought that album the day it came out at Cellophane Square in Seattle and didn't stop playing it for a year. Haven't heard it in a while, but I fucking love it, and it owns a bit of my soul.

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to The Soup Nazi again."

Really? Still?

So when you say it's not a Wilco album... Does it sound like Wilco ?

Well, it sounds like The Minus 5. ;):) Which is to say that if you like ornamented classicist rock-pop music you'll most likely dig it, and if you like Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Pet Sounds and those damn Beetles (sic) you'll certainly dig it.

A Ghost Is Born is my favorite Wilco album. Everything potentially great about that band is realized in full there.

Its great that Wilco is a band of discussion here. As a relative newbie to this forum, aside from the O'Rourke connection I've been pleasantly surprised by the Wilco love here.

This weekend its been a much needed Built to Spill binge for me

Sounds like I will dig it then!

Actually, you may have just caught a lucky break from the "Wilco Sucks" crowd!

Yah, dood.

@NR ... if you aren't versed in Minus 5 get yourself versed.

Cult band, but goddamn good. Ornate is right. Peter Buck of REM is a frequent collaborator. See also: Young Fresh Fellows.

Minus 5 and YFL are big in the Pacific Northwest, with Scott McCaughey hailing from Portland and the "band" having connections with other established Northwest acts like the Posies.

Down with Wilco does have moments that sound like Wilco (see the aforementioned "The Family Gardener"), because it was technically a collaboration between the two bands, though not a 50/50 one. It's definitely a Minus 5 record, and definitely not a Wilco one, but it's very worth hearing, whether you think it sounds like Wilco or not.

And of course Scott McCaughey + Pete Buck + Bill Rieflin = The Venus 3, the mighty Robyn Hitchcock's oftentimes backing band!

I had the M5/YFF split album. Quasi versed. Huge Posies fan tho.

No shit.

That crowd is weird. I don't get them.

A Ghost is Born is about as perfect an album for Sonic Youth fans as the '00s had to offer. "Spiders (Kidsmoke)?" Are you kidding me? That song is MADE for folks raised on SY, Can, Velvets, etc.

Fuck the haters!

Fo' sho'

Setting Wilco etc. aside for a moment to return to the question of the thread...

In preparation for the release of Kendrick Lamar's Album IV (which I truly hope is not called "ALBUM"), I have been spending a fuckton of time with Kdot lately, and I'm currently blasting this bad boy:

Kendrick Lamar - Section.80



I don't think I realized it until very recently, but the opening track on this album, "Fuck Your Ethnicity," might just be my favorite Kendrick song ever, weird as that may sound considering what followed. It's just... wow... talk about a fucking proper introduction.

I love Section 80 so much. It rivals Good Kid for me, and my opinion on which is my favorite Kendrick album varies by day.