Wilco - The Whole Love

I think "I Gotta Feeling" is one of the greatest pop songs of the past decade.

you really honestly think that? I mean dude I am not trying to beef or get into some stupid "YOU LIKE IT BUT I THINK IT SUCKS" thing but just...from a song perspective...that song is terrible! lyrically it's just the most transparent "let's get this played at arenas, arena money is awesome" move - it's like somebody writing a song called "America Loves the Packers" during a playoff run or something, only worse - the chord changes bring zero rhythmically to the table and melodically they're boilerplate recycled eurotrance, there literally isn't one generic trance dude who couldn't have actually put an emotional arc into those changes at least - lyrically it's a total zero - it's like - I guess you can say fairly "if you're into it, the vibe is great" but as a pop song, it is terrible. A badly written, brainless tune. There are good brainless tunes. This isn't one.

i ranked it the 8th greatest pop song of the past decade, so i got clemenza's back on this one: al ship's top 50 pop singles of the 00s -- which is your favorite? (other than SUBG)

Of course that's what I think--if I didn't, then why would I say I would? It was #1 on my year-end that year, and I think it's as great a pop song as "You! Me! Dancing!" or "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" or "Wedding Bell Blues" or fifty zillion other pop songs I love. I mean, I'm hardly the only person to think so--it was #1 for 14 consecutive weeks that summer, and I think even critics generally liked it (top 20 on that year's Pazz & Jop). Before "I Gotta Feeling," I hated most of the Black-Eyed Peas I knew. As far as it being cynical goes, I have no idea where you get that; it came out in the summer of 2009, so it seems clear enough to me that the African-American who wrote it might still be fairly ecstatic over the election of the first African-American president ever--I don't hear cynicism at all, just plain old joy. Lyrically, it is what it is; the lyrics work just fine in the context of the song, and "Mazal tov" is an inspired touch.

All of which is neither here nor there to my original point. If you hate it, fine, pop music's very subjective. But if you hate it, covering it in front of a roomful of people who also hate it so you can bask in each other's superior taste is, to me, pathetic.

IGAF definitely sounds like an ur-pop song

it has a virality

That should read: "most of the Black-Eyed Peas music I knew"; the Black-Eyed Peas themselves, I didn't really have an opinion.

It's no "Surfin' Bird," I'll say that.

I don't see how anyone could play that song on acoustic guitar and sell it. Not Jeff Tweedy, and probably not will.i.am.

Clemenza, where do you stand on "My Humps?"

clemenza don't sweat it -- underrated basically believes that songs with less than totally thought out and articulate lyrics are impossible to enjoy on any level (unless it's metal, then it's all good)

I would probably love "I Gotta Feeling" if it were literally inarticulate, like, totally unintelligible.

the lyrics to IGAF are very charming

clemenza don't sweat it -- underrated basically believes that songs with less than totally thought out and articulate lyrics are impossible to enjoy on any level

no he doesn't. he likes amy grant!

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110813221644/twilightsaga/images/d/dd/Jacob_edward_lmfao_hating_is_bad.jpg

clemenza don't sweat it -- underrated basically believes that songs with less than totally thought out and articulate lyrics are impossible to enjoy on any level (unless it's metal, then it's all good)

yeah I think your delusional idea of what I actually think about stuff is clashing with reality here - "I Gotta Feeling" is just a shitty song is all, my collection's full of pop, metal, CCR, rap & plenty of other stuff with dumb lyrics

i'm not being 'delusional' i'm just taunting you for making the same boring uptight argument here that you just made about "pump up the jam" like a week ago

lol fair enough

but like...I was repping for "pump up the volume" on that thread...not exactly a triumph of lyrical effort

sounds like Tweedy found a way to get high again but is not able to really articulate it through his lyrics.

"My Humps" made me cringe. Before "I Gotta Feeling," the only BEP-related stuff I liked were a couple of Fergie's solo singles; since then, I thought "Check It Out" was great, and I can't think of anything else. But to get it back to Wilco, I've seen both their films, and I came away from the second one really liking Jeff Tweedy as a person. The clip above seems beneath him to me, although I'll grant that there was some (yes, convoluted--I don't quite get it) in-joke context.

I don't require that shit be brainy, free 'n' easy is great. the lyrics to "I Gotta Feeling" aren't not-smart-but-who-cares; they're aggressively stupid. they make me want to apologize to people for having to hear them.

I feel stressed out
I wanna let it go
Lets go way out spaced out
and losing all control

Jesus Christ at least make the verbs agree before you cash that check you total fucking nihilists, is my opinion

CCR has dumb lyrics? Now them's fightin' words...

I Gotta Feeing : pop songs :: flag pin : patriotism imo

I swear I don't see what's so aggressively stupid about the lyrics you quote. "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," literally one of my dozen favourite songs ever the past few years, contains the following:

I want to hold you in the Bible-black predawn
You're quite a quiet domino, bury me now
Take off your Band-Aid because I don't believe in touchdowns
What was I thinking when I said hello?

I can certainly see where someone might find those lyrics aggressively stupid; for me, they're fine (even though I haven't a clue what they mean, or if they mean anything). Lyrics are lyrics; they either work in the context of the song or they don't, but they rarely make or break a song for me.

ha dude you won't catch me repping for Tweedy's lyrics anywhere ever, don't get me wrong here I'm not arguing for Wilco I'm just saying I Gotta Feeling is terrible

IGAF lyrics are so bad they're good

you just have to admire their chutzpah

it's like pointing out that the top of mt. everest is freezing. yeah so what? people still wanna climb it!

wilco, otoh, there's no saving wilco. dud forever

underrated when you blew a gasket about me saying that eminem isn't a good hook writer wasn't that on some '50 million elvis fans can't be wrong' shit? is BEP exempt from your faith in the wisdom of the masses?

Lyrics are lyrics; they either work in the context of the song or they don't, but they rarely make or break a song for me.

I can 100% groove with this until they do something like right-there-in-front-of-you verb tense shit or (my personal least favorite thing ever) forcing a stress onto an unstressed syllable to make a rhyme (exceptions about; "Suddenly" does not really work well as a rhyme if the next line is "it has happened to me" but I will cut anybody who speaks ill of "Suddenly," an all-time jam). Or until they're like

Lets paint the town
We’ll shut it down
Let’s burn the roof
and then we’ll do it again

really? "and then we'll do it again"? you didn't have the extra minute to maybe bust out something even a tiny bit fresher than "and then we'll do it again"? oooooohh hate it

xp "I Gotta Feeling" is a good hook that doesn't make it a good song yo

one thing more benign about Wilco than "I Gotta Feeling" tho is I basically will never have to hear Wilco unless I choose to. "I Gotta Feeling" though...that shit, I will hear. Often. Until I die. And it will suck every time.

the best part about graduating college was never having to listen to wilco again

"Let's burn the roof/and then we'll do it again"--I'd never thought about how completely nonsensical that is. I like the song even more now!

lol clemenza that made me smile really big

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

Let’s burn the roof
and then we’ll do it again.

They've been casting about for the next politics thread title; I think "Let's Burn the Roof (And Then We'll Do It Again)" just might work.

Ha, I am so glad Clemenza posted those lyrics -- I was just about to come on here and post something similar, but not in defense of Black Eyed Peas, but in confusion over all the posters that dog the last two Wilco albums upthread. I just listened to 'Wilco (The Album)' again for the first time in like a year, and yeah I think the new one is probably better than it. Still undecided where the new one stacks up against SBS

But like, the last 4 albums Tweedy gets better at lyrics. That's why I laugh at the early Wilco partisans who derided the previous two albums. Give me the oblique, married man, late John Lennon stylings of the last few records over embarassing, precious crap like "the ashtray says you were up all night" or "I am trying to break your heart". could never get into this band until Tweedy grew up (and it also certainly helped when he hired guys that play their instruments at the top of their game like Sansone, Kotche, and Cline)

guys everybody read dayo's post out loud and really give it your most sincere reading and you will have a deeply transcendent moment

"I Gotta Feeling" is a good hook that doesn't make it a good song yo

wouldn't be the first time i liked a song for having a good hook and little else (althoguh i disagree with you about the production being generic, i think it's pretty distinctive personally)

btw i did listen to the new wilco on spotify, since i usually feel a pang of 'nels cline is on this, i should probably check this out' when they put out a new album and then never do hear it. first track and last track are cool, don't know about much in between.

guys everybody read dayo's post out loud and really give it your most sincere reading and you will have a deeply transcendent moment

i used to do this with donna summer lyrics.

yeah also dayo, whoever the hell you are, you've been SB'd. I suggest every other reader do so as well to the mouthbreather. I mean Jesus Christ please stop wasting everyone's time bro

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

If we burn the roof, can we do it again?

A monk saw a turtle in the garden of Daizui's monastery and asked the teacher, "All beings cover their bones with flesh and skin. Why does this being cover its flesh and skin with bones?" Master Daizui took off one of his sandals and covered the turtle with it. "Let's burn the roof," Master Daizui said. "And we'll do it again," replied the monk.

stormy dayo brings quality lols to every thread he participates in so do not hate, thank you

When Eshun, the Zen nun, was past sixty and about to leave this world, she asked some monks to pile up wood in the yard.

Seating herself firmly in the center of the funeral pyre, she had itset fire around the edges.

"O nun!" shouted one monk, "is it hot in there?"

"Such a matter would concern only a stupid person like yourself", answered Eshun.

The roof burned, and then they did it again.

Daiju visited the master Baso in China. Baso asked: "What do you seek?"

"Enlightenment," replied Daiju.

"You have your own treasure house. Why do you search outside?" Baso asked.

Daiju inquired: "Where is my treasure house?"

Baso answered: "What you are asking is your treasure house."

Daiju was enlightened! Ever after he urged his friends: "Let's burn the roof and then we'll do it again."

oh I'll hate, and with vigor. dude seems like a pg-rated ade langston with a slight custos bent to boot. fucking clown

I was gonna try to bring in some Bhagavad-Gita but dayo is the master

that is actually the best compliment anybody has ever paid me

Coincidentally listening to Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne tonight - isn't it STILL weird that Jeff Tweedy ended up the guy that more people heard his music from those two in their first band? I never saw that one coming and I dug what both were doing and saw Uncle Tupelo three times. That said, the last record I got from either was Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. (Although I hung out and did a bunch of a recording with a guy that was a total Wilco fanboy and I got a CDR burn of the one with the egg on the cover.)