Some Wilco
Wilco’s new album came out Tuesday and thought this would be a good opportunity to post a few of their songs in a way I haven’t done before. This started as a little practice with some new audio software and I like how it turned out so you get to dig it. It’s still a good ol’ mp3, but instead of a podcast or individual tracks there’s one big file. In addition to songs from the 2002 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot there is commentary by David Fricke from the documentary ‘I Am Trying To Break Your Heart’.
In 2001, Rolling Stone (the only music magazine I was reading around then) had an article about Wilco being dropped from their record label. That didn’t really flutter my tummy but thought it odd that it made news. Bands get canned all the time. The reason it made news is that they got canned from Reprise Records because they were a big band and didn’t want to change their album to make it radio-friendly. Bands get publicly dropped when sales crash, but not because they publicly say, “I’m not changing a single thing. Deal with it.” So, Wilco was without a label to distribute their newly recorded and ready to go cd.
Here’s where it got really interesting for me.
The band did a tour of some sort and, completely unheard of in 2001, started streaming the unreleased album from their website after copies of it leaked out. Napster was in full gear and the out of touch monarchs at the RIAA were tooling the greatest PR campaign they ever cooked up*. My compulsion to download brought me to a single mp3 with the album in it’s entirety. It was grand.
I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Streaming the album brought in a whole cadre of folks who otherwise might not have given it a chance, myself included. As a result, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot got close to Billboard’s Top 10 album list, higher than any of their other albums. This whole thing was filmed for a documentary called ‘I Am Trying To Break Your Heart’. Put it in your Netflix cue, it’s spectacular.
The film talks about the band, making the album, being dropped, the whole nine yards and scattered throughout there are comments from various people about why such a great album had such a hard time being released. One of my favourite music journalists, David Fricke, senior editor at Rolling Stone, contributes some very insightful remarks about that topic and how it relates to our cultural need for instant gratification while keeping it in the context of music and this album.
So, hear’s the meat of this post. Four songs (listed below) with commentary from Fricke that I ripped from the DVD. Go to Wikipedia for more info. You can view Wilco’s stuff at I-Tunes.
I think it makes a nice listen. Enjoy.
1. I’m The Man Who Loves You
2. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
3. Ashes of American Flags
4. Heavy Metal Drummer