Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

I remember that Wilco tour supporting the album (when it actually came out, not when it was in limbo). It was one of my first concerts, and it was fun singing along with "Heavy Metal Drummer" - it definitely felt like it should've been a hit single. It seemed to fit just fine at the time, and I guess in the grand scheme of things I have nothing against rock albums that throw in a track like that because there's nothing wrong with having some fun even when you're swinging for the fences. Aspiring to high art shouldn't mean humorlessness. I remember when detractors tried to knock that album for being pretentious or self-important, and it's like really? "Heavy Metal Drummer"? "I'm the Man Who Loves You"?

... starting a song and album with the words "I Am An American Aquarium Drinker"

Wilco (The Song) came on once and despite owning that (disappointing) album I spent a few seconds trying to remember which late-period Pavement song it was

Went to the 20th Anniversary show in Chicago last night. It was wonderful. Full band + 3 horns + a string quartet. Did the whole album front to back with all the interludes and studio details performed live, no commentary or talking that I recall. YHF is canon for me, and to see it played with such care and reverence was very cool. The run of "Heavy Metal Drummer" -> "I'm the Man Who Loves You" (Jeff on lead guitar) -> "Pot Kettle Black", with horns, nearly brought the house down.

After the album they played a handful of older and rarer songs, including a YHF outtake I'd never heard. Closed with "Monday" and "Outtasite (Outta Mind)" -- again, the horns really took these to another place.

yeah saw them with horns about a decade ago, I remember "Monday" and "Pieholden Suite" were both fantastic. I'm going to Solid Sound for the first time next month - I wonder if they'll do the YHF set, I haven't seen it announced anywhere...

Man, I should've caught one of the NYC shows. One of the very first rock concerts I ever saw was from their 2002 tour, so I didn't feel a need to go, but it didn't occur to me how different and more elaborate they would sound for these anniversary shows. The core band itself was smaller for those 2002 shows, and they didn't have a horn section and a string quarter joining them either.

Also, I imagine most people here saw the tracklist of the upcoming box set. Eight discs for the CD version...it's tempting, but I've barely touched the bootleg of demos and studio material that I already have.

thinking pretty hard about going to solid sound (wilco's festival in western mass.). the first night is billed as a "special set" from wilco, so i imagine that will be yankee hotel foxtrot.

11 LPs...geez.

I was at the saturday show, same setlist but with 'i got you' swapped for 'monday'. I was surprised at how exacting it was in terms of all the transitions and noises and such.

a lot of the boxset looks likely be the demos/early studio versions that have been floating around for ages, but there's some stuff there that hasn't been available before & it'll be cool to have them all properly contextualised

most interesting is the yhf-era versions of "hummingbird" which i had no idea existed, and the "stravinsky mix" of "ashes of american flags" which tweedy said has an excerpt of stravinksy's "symphony of psalms" playing throughout the entire song but they couldn't clear the sample for the original album and cited it as one of his favourite things he's ever done

A serious question of the utmost importance: do y'all consider this album as being from 2001 (the year of its band-sanctioned internet leak), or 2002 (the physical release)? These days, an album would undoubtedly be seen as belonging to the year it became digitally available, but this was kind of a pioneering record in that regard. I've been putting together some yearly best-of compilations, and I wouldn't want future generations stumbling upon them and thinking me an utter fraud for so horribly misrepresenting this album's place in something as epoch-defining as some dude's personal Apple Music playlists.

I actually remember the 2001 stream being of very low quality - like Real Audio or something like that. When I got the CD in 2002, it was an enormous improvement, even for someone like myself who was listening to most of their music on a portable player and headphones. So I usually peg it as 2002 simply because the presentation wasn't completely there until then.

I will say when releases get delayed substantially, I sometimes end up going with the earlier "leak" date. Like Dylan's "Basement Tapes" will always be 1967 to me partly for that reason. Then there's the Modern Lovers album which came out 1976, but I think of it as an earlier release, even though the date is still hazy, like 1971 or 1972. Same with Big Star's Third.

i must have nabbed it from filesharing bc the CDR i remember listening to was definitely better than realaudio stream quality. i firmly peg it as a 2001 release, both bc thats the year the band released it and thats the year that i was steeped in it & everyone was talking about it. when i think about YHF i think about fall 2001.

Aw man, I wish I did file sharing then but I didn't have good internet at home, just at the library or school.

Very much think of it as 2001 album--listened to the mp3s so much before the physical release, to the degree I forgot it was so much later.

There's a new podcast called Kitschfork whose first episode covers this album. The hosts look at the album itself in detail and consider the massive press response to it as part of their overall project of looking back at Pitchfork's influence in the 00's indie music scene. I thought it was pretty interesting!

anybody heard this?

(a few of the tracks are certainly not new to me, but the rest would be.)

the early "hummingbird" from the unified theory of everything disc would be right at home on amnesiac

this version of "i am trying to break your heart" stays permanently in drones + wild percussion mode, cool to hear but really emphasises how much the album was a triumph of the mixing desk

"ashes of american flags (stravinsky mix)" is really cool

lmao the wah pedal that's all through "pot kettle black" is so goofy

oh wow this "poor places" is the biggest difference, totally different arrangement

where are you hearing this

it's out on streaming today

ahhh!

cannot find it in the UK though

it's listed as 'yankee hotel foxtrot (deluxe edition)'

though the digital release isn't the full boxset, it's missing the other three discs of outtakes/demos/early versions, so i haven't heard those yet

found it thanks.

Unified Theory is not simply Jay's mix then? What is it?

it's definitely not his mix (i don't think he made a full mix of the album to begin with, only a few tracks), it's just a set of alternate versions of tracks from what's clearly fairly far along in the process - though i expect the full liner notes in the boxset explains it. they spent a long time messing around in the studio recording many different arrangements of every track & it's some of the results of that + an early version of "hummingbird" that didn't make the album. some of the arrangements are very different from the final version, & some are just incomplete and in an earlier state or only part of what was used in the final mix. "ashes of american flags (stravinsky mix)" was intended for the final album though but they couldn't clear the stravinsky sample that goes throughout the entire track originally.

combined with the long-ago-leaked "engineer demo" collections that also probably make up some of the other discs in the set it's an extremely cool insight into the creative process of the album

Damn I wanted to splurge the whole super deluxe in one go but this will suffice for now

I'm reading some reports elsewhere from those who have the CDs of the full set, saying that the third disc is very 'Jay-esque'... the presence of Venus and Shakin' Sugar would only add to that

seeing reports that some of the other discs include some of the well-bootlegged demos/studio wip versions but a lot is still completely new

That does not bother me as those boots were goldmine to begin with

I love YHF but these alternate mixes really highlight how truly bad it could have been. It's a near miracle that Jim O'Rourke managed to pull off what he did.

Full-band Venus Stopped The Train is what I now want to hear though. I always wondered if the Ken Coomer appearances on the songs that reappears on the Bennet/Burch album had anything to do with repurposing tracks laid down during the YHF sessions

xpost much of the stuff that has just come out sounds like entirely different takes though? Pot Kettle Black possibly being one expection

Listening again now and I think the Stravinsky version of Ashes is another performance entirely. Hence you get the second outro which resembles that from the album

some of them are different versions entirely while some of them sound like they were heavily used in the final mixes - "i am trying to break your heart" was clearly edited together from this drones & percussion version as well as other takes such as the rhodes-driven version on the engineer demos bootleg, "radio cure" is pretty close to the final just the drums are different & it's missing a lot of the keyboard parts from the final version, "jesus, etc." seems to just be missing the strings, and so on

"ashes of american flags" isn't a different performance entirely but there are still a lot of differences from the final apart from just the sample - the drums are different (iirc bennett played the take that was used on the final version while it sounds like the stravinsky mix was kotche), there's a lot of synths added in places in the final version to try to capture the feeling of the removed sample & the way the main piano & guitar fade in and out is different

Nice. Are there detailed credits in the box? Can hear what sounds like Jeff lead guitar on the Stravinsky version too

Never knew Jay drummed on the final version either. Only now I can notice it's obviously not Glenn. Always assume the even earlier version that leaked in 2002 was Ken "not feeling the song" but no idea now.

the most 'who plays what' info we have available for yhf is just from this interview with bennett where he lists what he played on each track: https://gloriousnoise.com/jay-bennett-yhf

ah apparently the story with the stravinsky mix was that it's just a rough mix from when they were playing around with the idea of using the sample, but they found out they couldn't get clearance before the final mix was finished or anything which is why there's still a bunch of other changes

ooh there's a lovely full-band take of "venus stopped the train" on the american aquarium disc

The Stravinsky mix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOMOB0I7rOc

As is, once it gets past the intro, I'm not sure it really works - it feels a little sloppy at times, like it needs more finessing. Very interesting though.

(To clarify, I mean the mix and getting the sample to really work within it.)

I listened to some of this box set today and I think Tweedy should send Jim O'Rourke a bouquet of flowers once a week for the rest of his life