A Ghost Is Born

by

Wilco

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A lot of listeners sound kind of puzzled by this album. Quite frankly, I think these people are lazy.

Its kind of incredible how much fuss is made about how this album is "out there". When I got this thing, I expected something like Amnesiac. Amnesiac this is not. Yes, initially, this album is difficult to wrap your mind around because each song is not constructed around two or three signature hooks. So you can't pay attention for ten seconds, absorb the hook, think "thats cool" and then go back to talking to your girlfriend on the phone. You have to actually pay attention for the duration of the song to get something out of it. However, once you've put in your time and listened to a song four or five times, you can appreciate this album effortlessly and these songs become really cathy and riveting--and fun. Now I can't stop listening. Its a blast.

The arrangements are much simpler than on YHF. Basically, drums, bass, guitar, piano, and some occassional help from a synthesizer. The vocals are mixed up front as they usually are in Wilco. There are a few spots where Tweedy belts, but he's usually soft spoken. If you liked YHF, you'll like this just as much--maybe more. Just put your time in. This is a really good, conventional rock album. The song structures are just a little bit more difficult to master.

Wilco is one of the few bands I expect to save popular music every time they release an album. Since every album they've made has been better than their last, and they scraped the edge of real greatness on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, my expectations for this album were probably a little ridiculous.

Equally ridiculous, probably, is writing a review this soon after an album has been released, considering that it took me weeks to absorb Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. But I think it's worth a try, since I've been living with these songs - in some form - for quite some time, since the band is good enough to stream them off their website. It's also easier to get acquainted with A Ghost is Born, because - other than a few self-consciously experimental tracks - the songs might be most direct Tweedy has written since Being There.

That's what's odd and, for me, a little disappointing about this album. In YHF, there were barely any songs I liked right away, just strange wisps of melody and words that caught my attention. And they grew in stature the more I listened to them, until the whole album seemed to fit together. It felt like an album that came to the band waiting to be made. On A Ghost is Born, there were a handful of songs that I liked right away: At Least That's What You Said, Hell is Chrome, Muzzle of Bees, Hummingbirds, I'm a Wheel, a few more. The strange this is, the more I listened to them, the less interesting they became.

I might have an idea why this is. YHF seemed like such a cohesive album because the production seemed to go hand in hand with the strange song structures, where many of the songs seemed like fragments of other songs squeezed together: within that context, the strange instrumentation, dissonance, bits of faint radio frequencies, and long silences made sense. Here, the experimentation feels foreign to the songs. There is no reason for Spiders (Kidsmoke) to last for ten minutes. It goes nowhere. The riff repeats, and Tweedy keeps soloing: the textures are not interesting enough (like, say, in Sister Ray) to hold my attention, and at the end the track justs end. And the less said about the ten minutes of silence at the end of Less Than You Think, the better.

One of the truly wonderful things about this album, though, is the production and arrangements. There are wonderful touches scattered throughout: the piano gently rolling up during Muzzle of Bees, the crunchy guitar on I'm a Wheel. In fact, the best moments of the album often come during the instrumental parts of the songs, like the breaks on Muzzle of Bees or the beautiful guitar solo on Theologians. Unfortunately, there's no feeling of balance on the album: the solos don't feel like part of the song. The guitar breakdown at the end of At Least That's What You Said comes out of nowhere, and goes on for three minutes for no particular reason. Some of them are startingly inventive, but often they just drag, and kill any momentum the album starts to build towards the middle, as if the long silences didn't do it anyway.

Too many long jams are often the work of an artist running slightly low on creativity - see for example the last Malkmus album. And the songs aren't nearly as strong as on the past two Wilco albums. Too many rely on aimless minor key wistfulness instead of strong melodies - see, for example, Hell Is Chrome or Less Than You Think - and are rescued only by Tweedy's wonderful voice or the inventive production. Handshake Drugs, I think, might be the most boring song Wilco has ever written. The lyrics have a few moments of startling poetry (my subject line, for example), but don't feel as close to Tweedy's heart as even the most obscure moments on YHF.

And now, praise where praise is due. I enjoy this album a lot. Despite all the criticism, other than Handshake Drugs, I think I enjoy every single song on this album for at least part of its running length. Company In My Back is a masterpiece: the entire album is worth buying just for that song: the lyrics, the beautifully melancholy drive of the chorus, everything - it's part of the brilliant album that everyone wishes these guys had made. Muzzle of Bees and Hummingbird and both favorites, and Late Greats is a fun tune to end the album with. I'm a Wheel is at least lively.

This album has echoes of genius, and is worth buying for them alone, but I don't think it'll be regarded as one of the truly special ones in Wilco's career. Hey, maybe they'll save popular music with their next album, just like Radiohead, Modest Mouse, Blur, Spoon, and the Pixies...