Wilco's Greatest Album

[rockysigman]

Are we including Mermaid Avenue songs? I think that I will, but only Tweedy/Bennett ones, not Billy Bragg's contributions. Okay, this will be tough beyond the first three, but I'll do my best...

1) Misunderstood
2) Via Chicago
3) Poor Places
4) Rhythm (Car's Can't Escape)
5) Remember the Mountain Bed
6) Sunken Treasure
7) Hummingbird
8) The Lonely 1
9) Ashes of American Flags
10) Passenger Side

Honorable mentions to "Jesus, Etc.", "Blasting Fonda", "California Stars", "Wishful Thinking", "Spiders (Kidsmoke)", "Bob Dylan's 49th Beard", "Hesitating Beauty" and a whole ton of others. I really love this band.

[rockysigman]

So we have three in common? That's not bad.

I might also add that Wilco has a ton of great songs that never made it onto any of their proper studio albums: "Cars Can't Escape", "Blasting Fonda", "Panthers", "Kicking Television", "The High Heat", "Alone (Shakin' Sugar)", "Venus Stopped the Train", "Won't Let You Down", plus a lot more. And all the ones that were deemed unworthy of Wilco and ended up on Loose Fur or Golden Smog records...

[Kensterberg]

I don't see any problem including Mermaid Ave. songs ... I almost put Airline to Heaven in mine, it would certainly make the honorable mentions. And in the same vein, that "where the hell did he pull that out from?" cover of If All Men Are Truly Brothers from the Kicking Television disc is in-fucking-credible. That song makes me really excited to hear what their next studio LP is gonna sound like, as that it probably the most confident and fully realized vocal Tweedy has ever recorded.

Love that song ... love this band. Easily my favorite new group from the post-Nirvana era. Even with all my bitching about AGIB, they're easily the best American band since Pearl Jam, and one of the few acts still recording where I get excited about new releases.

[Kensterberg]

I like Panthers a lot myself. I like Kicking Television, too, but not enough to put it in my top ten.

[rockysigman]

Yeah, I was pretty surprised that he could pull off the vocal on "Comment". If I'd heard the original first, I would have thought there was no way that Tweedy could sing that, but he nails it, IMO.

I have an mp3 of Tweedy performing "Panthers" from several years ago, and based on that I never would have imagined how it ended up once they put it through the studio ringer.

[Kensterberg]

I think I count four common tracks: Ashes of American Flags, Misunderstood, Sunken Treasure, and Passenger Side.

Wonder what everyone else's top ten Wilco tracks will look like?

[rockysigman]

My counting skills leave some to be desired.

[frag]

Torn between Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born.
I was absolutely wild about AGIB for a long time after it came out. I think YHF is a far better album, but the timing of AGIB along with the context in which I heard it...just floored me.
Those two, along with Summerteeth are just all-over fabulous albums, though...in my opinion, of course.
Albums:
1. A Ghost is Born / Yankeey Hotel Foxtrot (just can't decide between the two)
2. Summerteeth
3. Being There
4. A.M.

Include Mermaid Ave. I and II and they'd both probably fall in between Being There and A.M.

Songs:
1. Jesus, Etc.
2. Theologians
3. Company in My Back
4. Via Chicago
5. I am Trying to Break Your Heart
6. At Least That's What You Said
7. Sunken Treasure
8. How to Fight Loneliness
9. I'm the Man Who Loves You
10. She's a Jar

As expected, those were some very tough deicisions...had to snub a lot of great songs, sadly.

Definitely one of those bands that I have a lot of trouble sounding like. Well, no trouble, actually...I guess I find it hard to not sound like 'em. After A Ghost is Born came out, it was really bad. Tweedy, in particular, I draw a lot from. I have the same problem with Malkmus and Pavement, in general. Just way too influential for me, sometimes. On second thought, Springsteen and Costello have a similar effect. Oh well...better to be influenced by greatness than mediocrity.

[frag]

Excellent song choices by everyone so far, by the way. Like Rocky said, I really love this band.

and

pretty sure some, if not most of us, can thank Mr. Holzman for that

[rockysigman]

Yep. It was a combination of Ken Holzman and Bob Ferdman that got me into Wilco. Those two talked about them so much back in the day that I just had to check 'em out.

So...uh...thanks Ken! And also thanks to Bob, wherever you are.

[rockysigman]

I miss Ferdman.

[Kensterberg]

Yeah, i have to blame Ferdman for my Wilco interest. Before Summerteeth came out, Bob basically guaranteed that I'd like Being There if I bought it ... might have been one of those "I'll send you the fifteen bucks if you don't love this album" kind of things. So I bought it ... and was just floored. I don't think I'd made it through the first disc before I started posting saying how great it was. Turns out I'd heard "Outtasite" on the radio a bunch in law school, just never caught you the band was.

And like Frag, it was a case of the perfect record at the perfect time. Hearing "Misunderstood" and "Sunken Treasure" at such a turbulent point in my own life was just ideal ... So you all can blame Ferdman, and the fact that I was also "maimed by rock and roll" and couldn't help talking about it. And talking about it ... and talking about it ...

I miss Ferdman too ... he's still in Chicago, Rocky. Maybe you can run into him at a show or something ...

[rockysigman]

kenholzman said:

I miss Ferdman too ... he's still in Chicago, Rocky. Maybe you can run into him at a show or something ...

Wouldn't know him if I saw him.

[Galactus]

rockysigman said:

Which songs do you think have crap lyrics on YHF? I'd certainly say that a couple of them aren't as great as some others (I would never argue that "Pot Kettle Black" or "Kamera" are as solid lyrically as "Ashes of American Flags" or "Poor Places", but I wouldn't say they're bad at all). On YHF there's a whole lot more abstraction in the lyrics than in earlier efforts, so sometimes its a little tough to tell if the meaning is just so dense that it's hard to understand, or if perhaps it's just completely meaningless, but there's nothing on there that makes me cringe the way that certain lines on A.M. do. Maybe I'm giving him a little too much credit for abstraction rather than just meaninglessness, I don't know.

Alot of bands that use abstract lyrics still seem to almost have a meaning but alot of the songs on YHF (I'm Trying To Break Your Heart & I'm The Man Who Love You for example) just sound like he couldn't think of any better lyrics...to me anyway. There aren't too many that are cringeworthy but only a few of them have "good" lyrics. It just strikes me as the album with the worst lyrics.

[Weeping_Guitar]

rockysigman said:

And to say nothing of the album's true masterpiece, "Poor Places".

Yeah, I know that "Poor Places" being the best song on the album is not a popular opinion, but I stand by it. My #3 Wilco song I think.

Um, you mean coupled with "Reservations". Yes, I have a fetish for those songs together which I pull out from time to time, but I can't imagine them apart.