The future has a valley and a shortcut around...

I became a fan of Wilco before knowing what Uncle Tupelo was all about. I’ve gone back and got the Uncle Tupelo albums and I enjoy them, but you can’t go back in time and pretend you were there from the beginning or pretend you were even old enough to be there in the beginning. Not that I would want to. I think those albums are great and I enjoy that kind of music, but why would I want to sacrifice the five outstanding Wilco albums for a chance to be snotty about a group of musicians “turning their back” on a genre they helped mold in the first place? I’ve never understood why certain fans are upset with Wilco’s constantly shifting sound. As soon as they make a record of all Kraftwerk covers, then I might join the chorus of complainers, but until that day comes I’ll be anxiously awaiting each new album with the hopes of them further pushing the boundaries of what it means to make a good rock album.

I wasn’t thrilled when first listening to A Ghost is Born but I wasn’t disappointed either. It’s rare that great albums grab you on the very first listen and this was no exception. I continued to listen to it and before long I was playing it constantly. Although I would probably take Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to the proverbial deserted island if I were forced to, there’s an argument to be made that AGIB is a better album. I’m not sure that I’m the guy to make that argument, but here it goes anyway:

There’s something here on AGIB that I didn’t even know was missing from previous Wilco efforts and that’s the perfect pairing of language and sound. When I first heard YHF I was instantly intrigued by whatever it meant to “assassin down the avenue” but I was more in love with lines like, “I want to hold you in the bible-black predawn” and “picking apples for the kings and queens of things I’ve never seen”. Those more traditionally poetic lines get overshadowed by the peculiarity and cleverness of “take off your Band-Aid because I don’t believe in touchdowns” even though those words do work together despite all of the possible realistic connotations they carry. My point being that the words were holding my attention over the music in some songs and vice versa in others. I’m not saying that AGIB is the first time Wilco has had that marriage of language and sound. In fact, the song "Via Chicago" from Summerteeth could possibly be the perfect example. I just don’t think they’ve ever had an album where the music and the words compliment each other so fully. Usually one draws more attention than the other. Let's look at the first song "At Least That’s What You Said" (link goes to lyrics). Just reading those few lyrics they might not sound like anything special to you, but when listening to the song it’s hard to imagine those words belonging anywhere else than right there being cradled by that acoustic guitar, soft piano, and Tweedy’s whisper. The fact that the song then goes on to fill the remaining 3 minutes with stabbing thrusts of electric guitar and an onslaught of drums draws more attention to the “purple black eye” part of the lyrics, something that the hushed tones of the opening seems to gloss over.

"Muzzle of Bees," "Hummingbird," "Company in My Back" are all just as strong as the opener and while not every song on AGIB is knock-you-on-your-ass outstanding, none of them seem like they should be changed; from the extended stretch of almost-silence at the end of "Less Than You Think" to the “noise” at the end of "Handshake Drugs". In the end they make A Ghost is Born a statement instead of just a random collection of mp3’s, a work of art instead of a compact disc, a complete album instead of just an album.