Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

why do wilco members wear long sleeve shirts, and sometimes even a suit above it on their live performence, for example yesterday,in this hot crowded venue at the end of june?
just wonderin'..

just to enhance the visual chemistry on stage i guess.

works nicely for me

The best thing about this album is the guitar solos. I've been wondering lately whether I might have a secret, as-yet-untapped jam-band love considering how much I like it when Wilco and Sonic Youth get all mellowed-out and jammy.

Well, what do you think of the Dead?

This album kind of rules. I bought the vinyl, which sounds soooo amazing. It's the first Wilco album I've ever bought (maybe the first one I've ever heard all the way through?) I bought it cuz I kept hearing them performing the songs on all these radio shows .. i think it was the 'Prarie Home Companion' set that sold me. but anyway, Nels Cline is seriously the star. there are points where he sounds just like my hero John Cipollina but in general he just brings some bite to this band. Tweedy still bugs me -- though sorta hafta admire just how well he has the Lennon phrasing down on this record -- but the band and music really shine.

and yeah, the "Brontosaurus" rip in "Hate It Here" is funny and great.

"The best thing about this album is the guitar solos"

OTM.it's Cline at the peak of his powers,Tom Verline style..
i'd say this:
best album - being there
best production - ghost is born
best playing - sky blue sky (though it has the weakest songs)

I reckon it's a lost John Lennon album from his Wilderness Years.

(That's the second half of the 70s, not 1980 - present day).

Well, what do you think of the Dead?

I haven't heard much of the Dead, although the little I have heard has them noodling over pretty basic three-chord blues progressions, so I haven't been too enthralled.

Tom Verlaine is another good example of a jammy guitar soloist I like.

Nice to see people coming around to this disc. Bee OK (who sounds like he or she might be affiliated with Wilco's management team, but I'm guessing) said upthread that BSB is "a very good album." That's right. And it's really the perfect compliment for this record: Humble, succinct and accurate.

Oops, I meant "SBS." Sorry.

Bee OK (who sounds like he or she might be affiliated with Wilco's management team, but I'm guessing) said upthread that BSB is "a very good album." That's right. And it's really the perfect compliment for this record: Humble, succinct and accurate.

haha, no i have nothing to do with Wilco, Nonesuch, WB or anything else having to do with the business. i'm just a music fan.

Fair enough. And it is a very good album.

From FLUXBLOG today:

Some people seem a bit surprised when I tell them Sky Blue Sky is one of my top favorite records from 2007, and maybe a lot of that has to do with the fact that I've barely written about it. It's been a fairly private pleasure for me, particularly over the summer when its calming chords provided some relief from stress and worry. This isn't to say that Sky Blue Sky is an entirely relaxing set of songs -- if anything, I kept going back to it because its emotional state so neatly echoed my own experience of trying to stay cool and collected while quietly freaking out. Most of the worst reviews for the record glibly dismissed the music as "dad rock," which is sort of aggravating because I think that the epithet accidentally touches on the stoicism and maturity that is key to the record's appeal, but favors a kneejerk appreciation of less emotionally (or musically) complicated music. Also, it's a huge mistake to write it off as an album full of wanky, meandering guitar solos. Yes, there's a lot of solos, but they are part of dynamic, meticulously crafted instrumental sections that carry a great deal of the record's emotional weight. The words are fine, and as usual, Tweedy's voice is extremely charismatic and expressive despite his limitations, but for the most part, the major action on the record happens in the instrumental sections -- the climax, the resolution, the postscript. It's both the feelings buried underneath the surface that you can't quite let out, and the things you just can't articulate with words for one reason or another. It's a very sophisticated and subtle work of art, and though it is understandable why so many people would either neglect or dismiss it for not automatically revealing its charms, I promise you that the album has quite a lot to offer.

Yeah!

"Impossible Germany" is one of my favorite songs of the year.

Then again, Wilco is my favorite band.

Wow Daniel, thanks for posting that Fluxblog piece. Matthew is OTM.

He is. I like how he describes Sky Blue Sky as "a work of art." That's totally OTM and it makes the rockist in me happy.

What some people miss about this disc is how great the performances are, especially by Nels Cline. The DVD included in the deluxe version of Sky Blue Sky makes this clear; Cline's solo on Impossible Germany (also one of my favorite songs of the year) is breathtaking and dynamic.

sky blue sky -
songwriting - mediocre.
instrument playing and production - superb.

I like this. I'll probably never not like anything they do though.

xp or their biggest transition? i think if you're following Tweedy from the Uncle Tupelo years, Being There is a sort of pinnacle for his alt country sound. I'd say the same for Jay and Trace

half of being there is excellent and the other half ranges from not my thing to dull

re same chords changes on Being There—yep totally. I don’t hate it though. kinda gives it a thematic Red-Headed Stranger bine

Being There (the prototypically erratic double album) is pretty clearly where everything goes widescreen. Power-pop, country, Grateful Dead, Big Star's "Third," etc. Then "Summerteeth" is where it goes Technicolor. "YHF" is where it all falls apart (by deconstructed design). "Ghost" is where even a great band can't quite make up for Tweedy shouldering all the songwriting in addition to a pill addiction. Everything after that is pretty clear-eyed and consistent, and often kind of safe, but there are plenty of weird detours to be found.

vibe*
Xpost

(Speaking of Golden Smog's Faces cover, I literally only learned a week or two ago that "Bad Time" by the Jayhawks is actually a Grand Funk cover. I had no idea!)

idk I'm the boring dude who says exposure to Billy Bragg + Guthrie tightened them

Lotta fingers in that particular pie.

what i really miss from summerteeth/yhf is the power-pop influence, the tight pop hooks they used to have. it seems like bennett really helped push things in that direction, and then without him around tweedy's interests were firmly elsewhere after yhf.

Yeah, I miss that power pop element too. It's even there on Mermaid Avenue Vol. II:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQhk__Ti3pc

it's really just that the guitar on this record is so fucking amazing, every song's horizons are extended by some sick guitar part

The power pop appeared to come back on the uptempo songs from The Whole Love (and perhaps on You Never Know) but I couldn't help wondering what Jay would have brought to them

It feels like Jeff has fallen back to writing every song in first position on the guitar which to me is making so much of his recent output sound so samey. He's clearly happier keeping vocal pitching fairly low and hushed too

Rather than retread old ground, these days I'd just be keen to hear someone come up with some more interesting (and lively) chord changes here and there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5tmVsUKCiY

this 8 minute "impossible germany" rules

Just fired this up

So far: I can totally understand why the me of 2007 loathed this. It’s still not high in my overall Wilco estimation but after a long day of middle management it’s nice enough.

“Glass of white wine, middle-aged, home alone on a weeknight” Wilco

Otherwise known as Chillco

(I’m not making fun of it anymore than I’m making fun of myself at this age)

Oh right, “Leave Me” was always such a pretty song.

In conclusion: I’m in a mellower place with SBS but it’s still not The Wilco Album I Reach For Automatically.

i think Sky Blue Sky is vastly underrated. i felt it was an album that had Wilco hit their stride. i understand that is not like by most of their older fans but think it is their lost. it really has some of their more solid songs but most people just say that it's dad rock, so whatever.

― Bee OK, Wednesday, May 6, 2009 9:11 PM (twelve years ago)

i pretty much stand by that and i have been wanting to listen to this present day to see how i feel

good revival series for Wilco Brad, it has been fun to read #originalthread

i just remembered that years back when i worked at my college radio station we got the promo copy. i let my grad colleague hear it first because he'd been a bigger wilcohead and his immediate review was so lackluster that i'd never heard the album. what are the best YHF/AGIB type tracks?

none of it really sounds much like yhf but none of it is too far from most of the mellower tracks on agib. just listen to "impossible germany"

it's not the most agib-like track (idk which is exactly) but it's the album's defining moment

Do they ever not play Impossible Germany outside of album shows?

I don't know if this is their best record (probably Mermaid Avenue for me) but it's the only one I still listen to, and didn't get bored of.

This post was OTM

Oh man, why can't the whole album sound like the middle two minutes of 'You Are My Face'? Christ, why couldn't the whole of 'You Are My Face' sound like that?
― G00blar, Monday, March 12, 2007 1:13 AM (fourteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Do they ever not play Impossible Germany outside of album shows?

I'm not sure about more recently, but it did get played outside of album shows now and then. The band recently issued a box set of shows from the Capitol Theatre from 2014 where it was played.

they haven't played it at every show ever since its release but it's pretty close

possible and likely at every show

I got the impression it has got to the stage where there'd be riots if they didn't