Wilco - Blue Sky Blue

[Zero]

OK - I'll confess. I am totally in love with the new Wilco album. Now, I liked Wilco (I even liked the pre-Wilco band Uncle Tupelo, that eventually split to become Wilco and Son Volt). But I'll admit that the last Wilco album, A Ghost is Born really left me cold. It was the classic - too artsy, too difficult. Plus, whoever their new guitarist is sucks ass- all noodley avant garde jazz crap and, since Ghost had not musical structure it left this exploratory guitar out there on the front burner to annoy the shit out of me.

So, for whatever reason, I grabbed the new album off the shelf - perhaps because I'd read that the lead singer of Wilco had just got out of rehab and I had sympathies with that. But, whatever the reason Blue SKy Blue is the only thing I've listened to in the past week. Amazing, stupendous, superlatives escape me. This is the kind of album that will become a classic in the way the Sgt. Peppers or Highway 61 Revisited have become definitive albums.

Heartfelt and sincere, this album is filled with the kind of emotional yearnings, pain and regret that every addict feels while in recovery. It is also anchored by great lyrics and - thank god - clearly developed and tight pop/country songs with all the right hooks that keep the occassionally wandering guitar in check.

I won't say anymore - for fear of sounding sappy - but I will say if you like rock, alternative country, good songwriting, smart lyrics, etc. then you will love this album.

[Roderick Usher]

I'll have to pick it up. I loved Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and dug the old Uncle Tupelo records.

Thanks for the tip