Wilco - Star Wars

I'm really loving it, which is something I never thought I'd say about a Wilco album ever again.

fuck wilco forever for not sullying george lucas's masterpiece with their nonsense.

http://mynewsla.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Wilco_StarWars.jpg

Nels bearing a slight resemblance to sultry older woman on my bus in that photo.

first impression: messy. noisy. loud. kind of boring. reminds me of the jon spencer blues explosion album one of my co-workers played for me fifteen years ago that i didn't like very much. favorite track probably "gari".

wilco

some talk about it here

i hate the title. reminds me of that latter day weezer album "hurley". i say this as a wilco fan

i have been giving this album a test run but has done nothing for me. as most of [you know i loved sky Blue sky and like a about half of Wilco (The Album) but since then it has been really hard for me to keep my interest in Wilco.

Yeah it's weird cuz those you mention did nothing for me and I like this one

nothing bad on it, i especially like the first few tracks and "magnetized" is prob my favorite

was not expecting to completely fall in love with this one on revisit. the wilco record you'd find in someone's weed drawer

Bookends the star again (EKF and More as one track) but You Satellite also v cool iirc

"random name generator" is actually my favorite here, it stomps

Again, don't listen to any of their new/more recent stuff, for no good reason, since as Brad has underscored by afaict reviving every Wilco thread (is there an "AM" thread?) it's all pretty good, but I remember when they premiered this (in its entirety?) at Pitchfork and it killed.

"random name generator" is actually my favorite here, it stomps

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Wednesday, February 2, 2022 10:08 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm, this is the one that's stuck with me from this record

Oh yeah that's good too

I think part of the problem (which is not really a problem) is that after the Bennett-fueled studio experiments of Summerteeth and YHF, the band soon settled into a killer line-up of creative players that nonetheless understood its collective role as Tweedy's support. The result is a not necessarily cautious but definitely conservative recording approach, which may explain why the band remains so exciting live, if that makes any sense. Like, Nels and Glenn alone boast boundless creativity and chops, but they always seem kind of session-guy constrained on record, even when things get relatively weird. Whereas live the band sounds more like a band, imo.

It's also possible that Tweedy is just a boring producer, and someone outside their circle might get better results. Hell, I know it's totally not his fault, but look at what a difference it made for Low, whose Tweedy produced album was the band's (er) low, only to leap back not just to life to but new heights with just a different dude behind the boards.

Random Name + The Joke Explained is one of my favorite one-two punches in music!

Excellent from start to finish, their best since A Ghost Is Born IMO

I’ve mentioned it before on here, but this is the album that made me think… Maybe I’m a Wilco fan(?) (And then Schmilco made me go: Damn, I AM a Wilco fan! But then nothing before or since, sadly)

The only slight knock on this one is a few droopy songs; one in the middle, and one right at the end. A droopy album closer is always a slight bummer!

xxxp I would probably agree. I also get the feeling after A Ghost Is Born the band might've been a little tired of tinkering with their records so much and decided to take a simpler and possibly less tiring approach in making them. It's possible that proved comfortable enough that they kind of fell back on that more often than not.

Morrisip and I in agreement shocker

I know it's totally not his fault, but look at what a difference it made for Low, whose Tweedy produced album was the band's (er) low, only to leap back not just to life to but new heights with just a different dude behind the boards.

I've said this before but it's just the songs. it's a fine recording. would those same songs have sounded better recorded by Albini like Things We Lost in the Fire? because I guarantee he just set up mics and had them play, probably not much different than Tweedy.

I really feel like ppl put too much blame/give too much credit to producers

xp Do we normally disagree(??)

this is really a pretty good album & maybe a bit underrated generally. "more", "random name generator", "you satellite" and "magnetized" are all great and the rest is solid if low-stakes.

the band might've been a little tired of tinkering with their records so much and decided to take a simpler and possibly less tiring approach in making them.

this was the case on sky blue sky, where tweedy was bored of the studio approach and wanted to capture the sound of his new fantastic live band with minimal overdubs. it's varied from then on, though they've never returned to summerteeth through to agib level studio tinkering for a whole album. there's moments like "art of almost" obviously which is probably the absolute furthest they've gone there

i don't think tweedy is really to blame for the invisible way being one of low's weaker albums. they've said that the acoustic direction wasn't tweedy's idea or anything, just a result of him having a lot of great-sounding acoustic instruments at wilco's studio which inspired them to move in that direction.

Oh, absolutely, the band is always ultimately to blame, and they wanted him. Just saying (as discussed on the Low thread), "Invisible Way" is pretty much the closest thing Low has released to a disappointment, was preceded by pretty much nothing but great albums, and succeeded by not just three of the band's best but possibly their creative peaks as well. It it Tweedy's fault? Is it just a coincidence? Eh, who knows. But I do know that Wilco's albums would be more interesting if they hired, say, BJ Burton. Probably not Albini, though, or Fridmann, though who knows what they'd get out of the group. I'd love to hear them with someone like a country producer, like Frank Lidell, or Dave Cobb, someone who might take both of them a little out of their respective comfort zones.

i figure if o'rourke hadn't moved to japan then he would have ended up producing another wilco album at some point, which would have surely helped encourage everyone's more experimental tendencies. there's apparently a nearly complete third loose fur album that was recorded when wilco toured japan in 2016, but it sounds like it's remained unfinished & unreleased because they haven't been back to japan since then to finish it off.