Elerhino

I'm waiting for my two friends to come back from Wawa with special goodness and have decided to occupy myself.

I was just on xpn.org, looking up listener's choice album of the year for the eponymous station and it was...Sky Blue Sky, that dull Wilco number. Now, let me tell you why this was the most disappointing record of 2007. It's almost never when I write about something that made me feel negative, so think of this as an exercise.

Wilco are one of my favorite bands. Ever. Or they used to be. I'm not so sure anymore. In 2004, they took a turn for the fucking awesome and released A Ghost Is Born, my soundtrack to a hundred bus rides and at least as many long nights. It was noisy, subdued, chaotic, tuneful, beautiful and harsh over the course of 70 minutes. It was the best thing they had done - a louder step ahead of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot's quieter experimentation. So you'd think that a logical move would be to build on that exploratory momentum. Well, Jeff Tweedy went to rehab and no longer could his depression and drug addiction fuel his torturedly great songwriting. Kind of a good thing, but not so much. Sky Blue Sky, Ghost's much anticipated follow-up and possible sonic bretheren...that wasn't. The lyrics are irritatingly repetitive and mindless ("maybe the sun will shine today/the clouds will roll away..." obviously the product of some over-Xanaxed post-hop.) The guitar should have been inventive with the addition of free-jazz dude Nels Cline. It's not. Glen Kotche forgot how to play drums. The production is cold. The hooks are dull (try the endless iteration of "What Light".) In truth, it sounds like the Eagles. I fucking hate the Eagles (, man!) So, the new Wilco: unexciting, afraid and Eagles-esque. What, the, hell.