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There’s a collective experience happening at a rock concert that I’ve always assumed would probably be what Church should be like, if Church was what it should be.
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Music is finished in the audience.
Jeff Tweedy (lead singer of Wilco).
I am working on a paper on the Spiritual trends of Indie music and I keep coming back to Jeff Tweedy, who I believe has some profound things to say about the artistic pursuit in light of today’s oversaturated capitalistic society. Tweedy gets that music (and any art for that matter) is a communal endeavor.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]A song from my number 5 selection- Wilco- Jesus Etc.
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My top 10 “Desert Island” albums- number 5
#5 Yankee Hotel Foxtrot- Wilco
“I want to hold you in the Bible black pre-dawn” Wilco - I am Trying to Break Your Heart
I am pretty sure I first heard about Wilco from my friend Sean, who I lived with during the summer of 2002 (the year YHF came out). I was mad that Wilco had been around forever and I hadn’t been listening to them. This album was so different than anything else I was listening to at the time. In a lot of ways it opened up a door for me to become a music snob. Most of my music library up until that point was either alternative Christian music or what I would call “High School” music, stuff that doesn’t have a shelf life of longer than 4 years, not timeless by any stretch. YHF is a timeless record. It will always be good. It can be enjoyed in any context.
I later learned about the history of this record when I saw “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” at a little indie theater in Portland, Oregon called the Bagdad with my old roommate Joe. The whole artsy experience just added to my feeling of self-importance. Seeing the documentary, which chronicles the making of the record despite the loss of two band members and label disputes, helped me to appreciate the record even more.
I eventually went out and bought Wilco’s first album entitled A.M. , which is also great but is much more rooted in the Alt-Country sound of the original band of many of Wilco’s members, Uncle Tupelo. The experimentation that is evident on YHF is part of what led Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke to compare the record to the “garage-art splendor of The Beatles White Album.”
There isn’t a bad song on the record but Jesus Etc. is certainly a standout, and is probably in my top ten favorite songs of all time (although I am not sure I will ever get to that list).
You can buy Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on iTunes or here.
