AR: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

The controversy surrounding the release of Wilco's fourth studio album is well documented (and well documentaried, for that matter). The nutshell version is that Wilco's recording label Reprise records (a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner) didn't find the finished product radio-friendly enough (i.e., their A&R man said, "I don't hear a single") and refused to release it. Wilco paid $50K for the masters and shopped it to other labels, ultimately settling with Nonesuch Records (another subisidiary of AOL Time Warner)*. The album had originally been scheduled for release on Sept. 11, 2001 - making those unrelated album cover twin towers somewhat eerie - but the shenanigans with the record labels put those plans severely on hold (it ended up being officially released early the following year).

* - This is the rumor anyways - many sources say that Reprise acquiesced and let Wilco take the masters with them *for free.* Which means that Wilco recorded the album with Reprise's money, got the masters gratis, and then sold the masters back to another AOL Time Warner sub-label. And given how allegedly concerned with single-success AOL Time Warner / Reprise originally was, this highway robbery committed by Wilco seems a bit wacky - it is true that Reprise's PR was taking a hit for being so money-oriented about ARTISTS (!!!), but to drop Wilco at no charge seems odd. I'm sure Jeff Tweedy is a pain in the ass for labels, but seriously, what the hey ya? Some part of me wonders whether this was a cleverly orchestrated scheme to generate album buzz... but that's crazy, right?

Around that time, though, the tracks got leaked to the internet something fierce - Wilco was already a hipster's darling kind of band, and the mystique surrounding the "not commercial enough album" caught fire in all kinds of file-sharing corners of the tubes. The band didn't want to stake the rep of their album on crappy leaked versions, so they made the album available for streaming at their website. Nowadays, this all probably seems quite tame, but in '01 this legal free music on the internet idea was somewhat new, and the antics surrounding YHF gave the band and the disc serious cash-money cachet. Amazingly enough, the music involved measures up to the mystique; I remember tuning into the band's website in late 2001, and the tunes still grab me as much today as they did then.

The primary thing to note is that Wilco's alt-country trappings are way gone by this point - they still have the twang in their back-pocket (and still carry smokey-whiskey-addled cool associations), but the songwriting and styles have escaped whatever limitations being that sort of genre-band carried. YHF is sprawling and experimental with all kinds of ambient noises, taped samples, and complexities that make even the simplest numbers endlessly fascinating. This is not to say that it's all-out art-rock - the ornamentation, while integral to the songs themselves, still adorns flat-out great rock songs. Sections of this album are bleak and jarring, evoking wind-blown wastelands, but they alternate with endearing pop hooks at seemingly perfect intervals. Dissonance mixed with tear-jerking sentiment mixed with invigorating youthful stomp. Sgt. Pepper's levels of attention have been paid to the mixing, production and instrumentation here, and while the kind of overt attempt to be weird and arty will invariably alienate listeners at times (and different times for different listeners, methinks), the effort and skill that went into dressing these simple melodies into an epic work. That's a pretty lame adjective - "epic" - but that's the sense that pops to mind when I think of YHF: messy grandisoity surrounding a great set of Americana-drenched tunes.

The second thing to note is that Reprise's A&R man needs to get his head checked. "Kamera," "War on War" and "Pot Kettle Black" are all catchy up-tempo numbers that grab quite readily. And "Heavy Metal Drummer" may be the most obvious alt / indie single ever - it's borderline Weezer-esque '70s nostalgia, for pete's sake! (I mean, sure it's laced with weird-ass synth effects over the chorus, but what do you want?). I've never understood the claims that this album "wasn't catchy enough" or whathaveyou; I specifically remember expecting nihilistic indulgent crapitude based on those charges, but "HMD" and others jumped out of my computer speakers the first time through. Gimme a break.

Those aren't even my favorite tunes. "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" is an all-time album opener, starting in a tape-looped, weird-effect swamp and spilling into nonsensical lyrics over a heavenly organ and a stuttering drumbeat (two of my favorite lines: the opening "I am an American aquarium drinker" and "Take off your band-aid 'cause I don't believe in touchdowns" give you an idea of the surrealism at play here). The song is so polyrhythmic and multi-layered that it's near cacophonous. It also features a Moment - one of those snippets of music that makes everything stop - at 2:30 with a sort of circus-y, tumbling trill piano line. And the song devolves into true feedback-laced cacophony for it's final minute - quite nice. Another decided highlight is "I'm the Man Who Loves You" which features two Moments - the opening spasmo guitar line that kills me every time, and an over-the-top horn blare toward the end over the repeated, slightly melodically varied cries of the title. Wilco gets its share of Beatles comparisons, and this song is a great anchor for that sort of talk.

And those two pale big time to the centerpiece of the album, the perfect summertime violin and organ groove "Jesus, etc." Five stars because songs can't get six, every time I hear

Don't cry / You can rely on me honey / You can come by any time you want
I'll be around / You were right about the stars / Each one is a setting sun

I don't know, the room must get smokey/dusty or something. Just an aching, beautiful tune that's fully composed with simple lyrics that just drop into place. The slide guitar and late-night, intimate vibe probably make it the most country song on the disc. It's a sad planet where "Jesus, etc." - title aside - can't be a single.

So there seems to be ample catchiness peppered throughout, but don't doubt that the A&R guy had some good reasons for his "noncommercial!" reactions. The remaining songs on the album are very slow and make no concessions to anything one might expect given the pervasive knack for melody throughout the rest of the disc. A lot of outright dissonance and metal machine music takes place here and there, and menacing thundering closes that feature inexplicable samples of ham radio talk hardly make for a welcoming environment. I happen to love the theater involved, but I don't exactly find it crazy that people might run screaming from this sort of thing. These tracks also have a tendency to seriously take their time - the last twelve-plus minutes of the album are dedicated to this high-art. And if you think the symphonic mayhem that closes Sgt. Pepper's is dissonant / noisy, well, just-you-wait for the explosion at the end of "Reservations*."

* - A song with a close-to-home sentiment for a lot of people, I think: "I've got reservations / About so many things / But not about you."

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot exists in an odd place for me - I love it as an overall experience, taking the extreme highs with the sometimes off-putting experimentation as a messy whole. With other albums, a little bit of unpleasantness wrecks the entire trip, ruins the album, but with this one, the clutter sits nicely. I have to recognize, though, that the clutter is just that in some moments, and on some spins I find myself itching for the skip track button. That's a tell-tale sign that this is a great but not transcendent album, one that I recommend highly but will understand if it doesn't resonate with others quite as much as it does with me.

Status: Recommended
Nyet's Fave: "Jesus, etc."