Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

(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