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[littlefallsmets]

They're streaming the new Wilco album from 7A-7P today on http://www.wilcoweb.com/ so as to combat leaks, even though its not being officially released until the middle of May and...

HOLY SHIT, it is good. It sounds like Elliott Smith and George Harrison made an album together in the afterlife and sent it back through the Phantom Zone Projector onto our planet's internet.

Have you ever, like, heard an album and thought to yourself "This is so good that it will completely bomb in the marketplace? It is just too good and too ahead of its time?" Christ on God Mountain, this album is fuck*ng amazing.

I am sounding like a psychotic superfan but... if "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" was accidentally an album about the transition into the 9-11 mindset of fear and secret codes and "A Ghost Is Born" was about intentionally about living in the middle of that madness and trying to find peace therein somehow...

"Sky Blue Sky" is pretty much exactly about the transition back out of that horrible place.

I'm giving this album my highest rating, 7 baseball logos out of 10. Seriously. Listen.

[slink]

Seriously. Listen.

Well, I'll give it a go. But I've given Wilco two goes already and they've done nothing to impress me. They just seem bland to me.
I'm guessing to be honest (and from the first track so far) that liking them is what makes their new album that good...

[littlefallsmets]

The first track is definitely the least awesome track on the album. It is simply nice and kinda mellow.

Later in the album, they pretty much reclaim the Triumphant Epic Guitar Solo from hair metal and give it back to the semi-depressed suburban hipsters who inherited true rights to it after Slash started just sort of doing blues noodling.

They also reclaim church-organ from funk and return it to Young Guys Who Are Way Too Much Into Classic Rock. The piano is also back in business as a rock instrument. The lyrics have a... genuine hopefulness, man, in a way I haven't heard in a good rock album in ages.

Like an... adult hopefulness? Like a nuanced hopefulness such as when you have crossed the poles from youthful stupid vigor to teenage sourness to twenty-something-slacker-despair... back around home to hope again at the end of a Hero's Journey, a wiser and truer kind of hopefulness.

But what is most important about this album is the re-marriage of nuanced introspective alt-rock to the shredding guitar. I cannot express how musically important that there are all these mellow, wounded-but-still-trying songs that are not afraid to rip into an epic guitar solo.

We had lost the epic guitar solo for so fuck*ng long to irony.

Fuck irony. Epic guitar solo, I am for one glad to have you back.

EDIT: The track "Hate It Here" toward the middle of the album is most emblematic about what I'm sayin'.

[theinevitable]

Built to Spill had some pretty epic ones maybe? And Dinosaur Jr? I can't compare, as the dang ol' Wilco Album won't play.

I dunno. I am a fan of the really simple garage-rock style guitar solo, myself.

[littlefallsmets]

Built to Spill had some pretty epic ones maybe? And Dinosaur Jr? I can't compare, as the dang ol' Wilco Album won't play.

Built to Spill did but... I always had the idea that they were actively afraid of their power. Like they couldn't use them to their fullest as it might scare the shoegazers away or overwhelm the rest of the song. Such as Epic Guitar Solos had to be handled with tweezers.

As for Dinosaur Jr... I always picked up a whiff of irony in their use. Maybe it was just me.

Wilco just seems neither afraid nor ashamed of their guitars... not afraid of sounding a little bit metal in a mellow song, not trying to couch them in punk-rock laziness to defend themselves from seeming like they're trying, not trying to couch them in retro-kitsch to defend themselves like they're trying.

Unashamed and unafraid of their guitars, unashamed and unafraid of making sincere rock songs that are never going to be played on the radio pretty much ever. This is what the future needs to sound like.

[linnea]

Sigh. I hate streaming. I have a shittay connection and it never works. I spend more time listening to buffering and hiccups than actual real music.

I do love Wilco. I will have to give the album a listen. But I love Jay Farrar and Son Volt more than Jeff Tweedy.

[KeithHernandez]

I uninstalled quicktime yesterday to put make room for all of my music collection so I could make sure everything is perfect.  I am probably not going to have it back for a couple days, is this a one day only thing?  If I like everything Wilco has done, but hated A Ghost is Born, will I like this?  I mean, is there a chance?

[pmcd9]

Someone gathered together all of the best versions of all the new songs Wilco/Jeff Tweedy played over the course of 2006.  I have been listening to it inscessantly for the past 2 months.  If you are a huge fan of A Ghost is Born like I am YOU WILL ABSOLUTELY fuck*ng LOVE IT.  I see that about 2/3 of the songs on that bootleg have found their way on to Sky Blue Sky. I don't remember where I found it so I uploaded it all on my site HERE.  Ought to tide you over 'till the album comes out.

[Doc Benway]

Man, I love Wilco so much! I think I'm going to hold off on hearing anything from the new album until I can hold it physically in my hands and pore over the sleevenotes & lyrics while I'm listening to it though. I've seen leaked versions on various blogs but I can't bring myself to sneak a listen just yet.

[pmcd9]

Do it Benway, you won't regret it.

[littlefallsmets]

CAN'D FOR SHARING AWESOME MUSIC.

[pmcd9]

CAN'D FOR SHARING AWESOME MUSIC.

Thank you.

[Teatime]

I was listening to What Light and thinking "man, this echo thing is really irritating." Halfway through, I realized I had clicked twice, resulting in the song being played twice, one with a second's delay. I have closed one window and the song is much, much better now.