What is it with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot???

*hides*

Ditto Being There. I thought I'd like Wilco after hearing Summerteeth, but having owned both Being There and YHF for about two years and still being unable to recall even a note, let alone song title, from either...

Exactly.

I don't get why it's considered so 'out-there.' It strikes me as
fairly conventional.

Being There and Summerteeth are far far better.

Perhaps you're just jealous because if YOU knew Will Oldham maybe YOU'D get some pussy for a change.

but i love the CONET PROJECT that they took the sample and album name from...

http://www.irdial.com/conet.htm

I've never really gotten into this but "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" has been stuck in my head all day. There was something compelling about dude sounding like he hasn't slept in 3 days until I realized that he sounds like that on pretty much every song.

If I combined the very best stuff on this and Ghost I'd have a stone-dead killer 7-track album on my hands...IATTBYH is most certainly opening proceedings up. It's a fabulous piece of music. And, as Nick Southall's said somewhere, it's all about the deployment of new instrumental/textural layers, for instance the piano loop about halfway through and (in MY opinion) the drum intro at around the 1-minute mark.

the wilco music itself is dreadful edible panties to these ears, really miserble corduroy music

but i love the CONET PROJECT that they took the sample and album name from...

http://www.irdial.com/conet.htm

― bakhtin, Sunday, November 30, 2003 10:47 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark

superpowered ILM post

love this record by the way. maybe not as much as summerteeth, but still love it.

What do you love about it? I'd like to love it too!

this totally passed me by at the time, it was weird.

have never been able to get into it

a few things i love about it: violins on "Jesus etc"; piano on "Poor Places"; the drums throughout ... ummm could tell you about personal circumstances etc. when it came out, but will refrain.

a few things i love about it: existence of the songs "IATTBYH" and "Poor Places" which are flat-out masterpieces both

1) IATTBYH
2) Kamera
3) Spiders (Kidsmoke)
4) Muzzle Of Bees
5) Ashes Of American Flags
6) Heavy Metal Drummer
7) Handshake Drugs (their best song ever imo)
8) Pot Kettle Black
9) Poor Places
10) Less Than You Think
11) The Late Greats

^^^would be unfuckable-with

and no LTYT is not a challop, it is a superb piece of music

I haven't listened to this album since I moved continents. It's very heavily associated with a particular time and place for me, in a good way, and I have this thing where I don't like to re-associate albums with new things, so I sometimes avoid listening to them for a while after the time/place has passed. Is that odd?

But Jesus etc is one of my favourites on the album and I love Heavy Metal Drummer. I like Summerteeth better overall, though.

I can't tell if I dislike the production of the album -- I don't think I do -- or just the sound of the instruments? Like the way they tune their drums and the sorts of amps and guitars they use (stuff the band themselves chose), those are the things I don't like. Everything I hear about production choices for the album really intrigues me. I just don't like the song skeletons all that much.

I think I like songs that may be sophisticated or "adult" or whatever as long as you could tear away all the layers and get to something primal, simple, gut. That sounds so cliche to say but I still feel it. I need something animal in there. And these songs seem very studied to me. I think other Wilco stuff has the more basic level to it, it just eludes me on this one.

i can't remember being as genuinely excited and comprehensively absorbed by a new release as i was with YHF.

it's so daring and unsettling, yet so so listenable and solid. highlights left right and centre, but these days i have a particularly special affinity for 'pot kettle black' and 'ashes of american flags'.

yeah, i mean, i understand that people might go into it expecting some kind of radical sound/avant garde BS/etc, but mainly what sticks with me are the tunes. I think it may have been overpraised at the time for some kind of "breaking down barriers" nonsense, but really, anyone who's listened to "Sister Lovers" or you know, the Beatles, shouldn't be terribly gobsmacked by the more out there/unusual production choices. I just like the playing, the tunes, etc. Don't care if it's a work of genius -- that sorta thing is a red herring anyway.

o.t.m.

yup

their textural choices were bang-on during this and AGIB though, this has gotta be emphasised

Yeah, but I feel like it's mostly just texture. And I'm a big texture guy.

I lie this album and still play it now and again. "Jesus, etc." is my favourite, followed by a few songs like "Ashes of American Flags", "Poor Places", "I Am Trying...". I think the tunes and the textures are equally balanced in terms of their prominence and I love the slightly awkward, slightly ominous, slightly weary mood to most of the songs. Anyway, based on what I just wrote, does anyone think I would like their other albums? The only thing I've heard of them (outside of YHF, obv)is that first Woody Guthrie collab with Billy Bragg and I liked it okay, more than liked it in places.

*like

i think if you like wilco you like wilco period.

btw guys part of the reason i'm trying to get into wilco is i am taking a chick to a wilco concert movie monday night and i only have one of their albums lol

she is n/l fan

afterwards, sing to her "Iiiiiii've got reservations .... for two at a great restaurant."

This record was the beginning of my almost total disinterest in new music.

The opening line on "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart," complete with sleepy drawl, almsot made me turn the stereo off. Some pretty tunes on here, though. "Jesus, Etc" deserves all the praise it gets.

I hate the violin line in Jesus Etc. It seems so goofily theatrical.

ouch