I've been listening to the new Wilco album, conveniently called Wilco (The Album). It's decent. I have a lot of respect for Wilco and I think Jeff Tweedy is an amazing songwriter, but I've never been a huge fan of theirs. I love Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but I haven't really listened to anything else. It's not a judgment, it's just that there are so many other bands I want to listen to that I haven't yet felt compelled to explore Wilco's entire oeuvre. This album seems less experimental and innovative than their other efforts, and instead sees them finding a groove and doing what they do best. It opens with "Wilco (the Song), about how the band will cure your depression, proving that they have a sense of humor about what they are doing.
The album veers between mellow folky alt-country to rocking folky alt-country. My favorite song is "Sonny Feeling," in which Tweedy goes on an old man rant, including the line "She knows nothing of Eminem's suburban gangster flow."
It ends with a line that has been resonating with me:
I’m on my way home from my high school
I’m always contemplating
Why the kids are still cruel
Oh the kids are still cruel
Amen, brother.
So I was listening to that, but then I got sidetracked by Introducing the Minutemen, which I downloaded from Emusic. It's a comp of a lot of there stuff, much of it that I own already, but some of which I hadn't. I had forgotten how amazing they were. There are two songs that have been sticking with me; one is "If Reagan Played Disco," with the line "you can't disco in jackboots,"
It also has some great, noisy changes.
The other is "History Lesson, Part 2," which details their history with punk rock.It contains the immortal line, "Our band could be your life." It's weird to think that d.boon has been dead for 24 years. He always feels like a friend to me. Every time I ride past San Pedro when I go to visit my in-laws in Long Beach, I get a little nostalgic and sad.
No comments:
Post a Comment