An example of when being wrong is right

About a month prior to the May 15, 2007 release of Wilco's most recent album, "Sky Blue Sky," I received a copy of it. Even though the mp3's had been streamed on their own site, I planned to buy the album when it actually came out, along with a special edition DVD including footage of the band's new lineup playing various songs from the album.


Unfortunately, I wasn't so keen on the album when I first heard it, and it wasn't until May 16 that I decided to buckle down and actually buy, listen to, and enjoy Wilco's truly massive talent. This worked partially: I developed a more concrete taste for it by drawing comparisons to my favorite classic rock bands/artists like the Allman Brothers Band (who I saw a lot of in this CD), Bob Dylan (in "What Light"), etc.

But still, I didn't see "Sky Blue Sky" as Wilco; there were a lot of holes. Songs like "Impossible Germany" were melodically and instrumentally brilliant, but the vocals that were paired with them were relatively unenlightened for a band that has consistently floored me.

Today, though, I watched the companion DVD for the first time, and was actually incredibly happy when I discovered that it includes multiple interviews with Jeff Tweedy as well as the band's other members. And in retrospect, I'm even happier. Listening to these dialogues gave me a new sense of hope for the album, and assigned it a fresh identity in my mind. I'm listening to it right now, and I can finally see all of the little aspects of it that make it undeniably Wilco.

Watching the band members play together in The Loft had the same sort of affect on me that listening to live clips of "A Ghost is Born" did––it reaffirmed the band's ability and assigned a face to the album that instantly made it more real, and expanded my understanding of it immensely.

I've always had this theory about Wilco (even before reading/hearing/seeing any sort of actual statements on the matter) that its members care about the music they make, and everything else kind of comes about as a byproduct––popularity's great when you're trying to make a living playing music, but with Wilco's albums, the main goal always sounded like it was the music itself. That's why I liked them to begin with, and seeing that concept in action on screen only makes me like them even more.

The condensed version of a review I wrote of Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky" appeared in Thursday, May 24's News-Gazette in the Spin-Off section. The original will most likely be posted here relatively shortly.