Wilco - The Whole Love

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.)

but wait -- dorks LOVE Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but they think the last two Wilco albums were "boring" ??

are you clowns for real? You miss the innocence of the heavy metal drummer so much that you can't work with and appreciate Tweedy growing old? and singing like a guy that has two kids and sits in underwear in the morning? That's what he is. I mean, I dig the old stuff too, but dude....

the other hilarious thing is how that -- I'd guess you'd call it now -"mid period" Wilco is considered "experimental"?

What, the sound of a clock chiming is "experimental"?? I've never ever ever gotten the idea that this fucking great rock band was in ANY sense "experimental". Maybe Wilco is 'experimental' if you normally listen to Tracy Chapman or something.

Anyway, love Wilco, and new alb is fantastic

The "and we'll do it again" is what people on the dance floor feel at that point in the song when the song repeats itself.

Why "I Gotta Feeling" works so well:
1. The intro gives people enough time to recognize the song and get on the dance floor. And yet the drumbeat doesn't kick in for a while, so if it takes 30 seconds to set down your drink and grab someone and run to the dance floor, you get there without having missed anything.

2. The aspiration of the song is not to have "the time of my life" but the instinct that tonight is going to be a "good night" -- something within reach. [n.b. Why this is the quintessential dorm-room primping song.]

3. The lyrics are almost Springsteen-like in the aim to reach transcendence through just going out and spending a little money at a club.

4. Unlike Celebration, the song has lead vocals for both a man and a woman.

5. The song works like a suspension bridge--it's basically the same song repeated twice, which--as you may have already seen first-hand at a wedding reception or 40th birthday party, as I have--leaves the dancers actually exhausted in a post-coital way.

6. The days of the week make it a hit with the under-six set.

7. What bugs me about the Tweedy cover is that he takes a shit on the song but he doesn't perform it as composed -- as if all the repetition is lazy songwriting rather than carefully executed dance music to give the dancer enough time to get to the dance floor and then have peaks and valleys for the next four minutes.

8. The song works because it takes the impossible expectations of holy occasions--weddings, bar mitzvahs--and makes the dancers feel that they actually are achieving the transcendence that the event is supposed to give them. It gives the dancer at the special occasion the feeling that in fact transcendence is attainable, that tonight is going to be a good night after all, and that, finally, that is enough. It doesn't have to be a transcendental wedding--it becomes one through simply being good. A good night.

9. You know that scene in Miami Vice where Jamie Foxx is fucking his lover/co-worker and he pretends to orgasm but then he makes it clear he was pretending and goes at it double-time? That's what happens in this song, after the breather in the middle: and thus it aspires to surprise and then fully satisfy and exhaust those who choose to dance to it.

10. it communicates exactly what it means, and yet it makes no rational sense; and while it is “wrong” in the everyday world, the three worlds of this title simply cannot be reduced even to nouns, verbs, and prepositions. Gramatically, the Black Eyed Peas have created an impossible compound. It is only what it is. A prime number. In other words, a spell. L'Chaim.

This thread is giving me great joy all of a sudden. I can't wait to see clemenza deploy this argument -- "I mean, I'm hardly the only person to think so--it was #1 for 14 consecutive weeks" in defense of some shitty, shitty movies.

Also, Stormy OTM about the last two records.

I merely brought up the #1 business because of aerosmith's "you really honestly think that?", like I was trying to pull something over him by defending some song that nobody else in the world loved. Pretty sure I never resort to a populist argument to defend the work itself, i.e. millions like it = therefore it's good. My point was that millions like it = why do you seem so surprised that I might like it too?

Poor Wilco. That's what you get for making fun of "I Gotta Feeling," Jeff Tweedy--your thread gets hijacked.

(By the way, I love Eazy's lengthy defense of the song, especially "The days of the week make it a hit with the under-six set"--just like the Jackson 5's "ABC." I hope I'm not being reeled in by an ingenious parody...)

I will say, as a parent of two kids (like Jeff Tweedy!) I've found that small children are overwhelmingly drawn to music that is simplistic and repetitive, and that the better they can understand the lyrics, the more they like it. Hence, little kids (in my experience) don't like rap, terribly, or metal or stuff that's hard to follow. But they do like modern country and piffle like BEP, which is the pop equivalent to a t-ball stand. No one strikes out.

Chuck Eddy would do a better job of taking up this argument than I can, but I'd take issue with the idea that "I Gotta Feeling" is simplistic. I understand your basic point, though. (No kids of my own, but I spend six hours a day with 25 of them.)

when I worked with kids I was a lot more sympathetic to songs like this because I could see them enjoying them, and what's more infectious than that. I do recall with pleasure though a discussion of Pink's "Get This Party Started" that involved exploration of the imperative mood & whether the consequent on not getting the party started was the threat of physical violence toward the listener/addressee

clemenza I got love for IGAF but comparing it to ABC is SB-territory

(Not a parody--I've just spent some time under the hood with IGAF, figuring out how that engine hums!)

(And apologies for the big hijack. I streamed The Whole Love on NPR earlier this week. I liked not knowing when one track ended and the next began.)

Haha, fair enough, clemenza - I misread you and thought you were resorting to "if millions of ppl like it it must be good." Didn't seem like your kind of argument.

Honestly, though, it's a terrible terrible song. Putting it in a category with "Wedding Bell Blues" is definitely smdh territory.

Good--I'm sometimes not sure when I'm on ILM. I'm an aging homebody with three left feet, so I really like your stuff about dancing.

I love "I Gotta Feeling" more than "ABC," more even than "I Want You Back." True story. (But not more than "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" or "Wedding Bell Blues.")

last night when i got IGF stuck in my head because of this thread i remembered fergie's "i know we'll have a ball" section and was like oh damn this song totally has more than one hook, it's so well constructed, fuck what those guys were saying

I'm totally sympathetic, per aero's example, to what kids like and why they like it. But as with food, I find the quality of what they like, generally speaking, directly disproportional to how much they like it. For example, the shittier the microwave pizza, the more the kids like it, no doubt due to all the extra fat, salt and stuff, and lack of complexity. Labor for a couple of days on an awesome dough, homemade sauce and fresh seasonings/toppings, and you'll have a barely touched dinner. I've exposed my kids to all manner of music, from "Music for Airports" through Iron Maiden, but I know what's made the biggest impression on my older one is the mix my friend made for her aerobics workout, which she used to play in the car driving my daughter back from gymnastics.

For example, the shittier the microwave pizza, the more the kids like it, no doubt due to all the extra fat, salt and stuff, and lack of complexity.

"I Gotta Feeling" is the equivalent of a homemade pizza then, with all the strange, wonderful things you'd add.

Josh: I hope you can appreciate that the idea that Iron Maiden is more complex than "I Gotta Feeling" is as baffling to someone like me as the appeal of "I Gotta Feeling" is to you. The older I get, the more I realize that arguing taste is a dead end.

Not arguing tastes, as such. Just noting how my own personal tastes are not aligned with that of many six-year olds I've met.

Not saying Iron Maiden or "Music for Airports" are better than BEP in this case. Just that there's too much abstract stuff going on for little brains to grasp. Not complex as a complement, just literally less repetition, more parts. Sometimes to their detriment. Kids can't process that shit. Again, that's not a diss. It just seems to be true from my perspective.

By the way, you guys ever heard "Bananaphone?" It's a jam.

And come on, "I Gotta Feeling," like it or not, is totally microwave pizza. Sometimes microwave pizza hits the spot. Especially if you're little and don't like food of different colors touching one another.

;)

one sunday morning is really lovely

also standing o sounds vaguely like a supergrass song??

This album is bookended by two of their best ever songs imo. So much so that so far it's hard to get past them and listen properly to the rest.

Funny that they recently covered Nick Lowe, because some of the poppier stuff in the middle reminded me a bit of him. But the skronky guitar reminds me a lot of the Pixies.

I finished listening to this for the first time (I'm not a big Wilco fan but I like a few of their songs)

I'm going to say Dud - I could barely keep my ears open. But I can easily picture a bunch of Kaputt fans loving this

hmm, how is kaputt similar to this?

musical scale/note selection. less than inspiring vocals. soft rock opus type stuff

nah.

first track and last track are cool, don't know about much in between.

This.

I wonder how anyone can call this soft rock. The guitar playing is more scuzzed and abrasive than the band has been in years, and while the rhythm section is similarly more slick, I don't see how anyone can listen to Kotche/Stirratt and not be impressed.

I noticed some very talented playing but nothing grooved with me. "Soft rock" wasn't meant to be a bad thing. Some tracks weren't soft rock in a traditional sense but they still made me sleepy.

last track is quite good, but also too repetitive.

just listened to this for the first time. i really liked it, seemed much better than their last album. i love Sky Blue Sky so it has a ways to go to be better than that for me.

The autopilot of W(TA) really lowered the bar to ankle level, so new one's a huge relief.