Brilliant marketing strategy: your new record Star Wars mention the moment those trailer the most watched ever is, put a cute cat on the cover, temporarily give the album away for free and then let social media do the work. 'If you can't beat them, join them' squared away. And meanwhile merrily mixing old Bowie with Captain Beefheart with a touch of Radiohead and americana. Wilco does it all.
And this for a band that, while not averse to downloading, sighed through frontman Jeff Tweedy: "Nowadays, people download tracks. When I was a kid we'd make tapes, samplers for your friends." But: "Most often it was a way into the whole record, a gateway drug."
For Tweedy gave in that same interview admitted that contrary to what is the norm these days, he does not want to release single songs, but records:
"I'm not a curmudgeon, a luddite or anti-modern technology doomsayer. I just want to listen to the album and have a feeling that one part has ended, and now I can take a little breather before I listen to the second part. Or I can listen to the second part another time. An album is a journey. It has several changes of mood and gear. It invites you into its environment and tells a story. I enjoy albums, and I assume that if I enjoy them there must be others who feel the same."
Not for nothing did the band release Being There in 1996 as a double CD, when the 76 minutes of music could easily have fit on a single disc. And so Wilco is giving away the new album as a whole. Not original, Radiohead did it, and so did U2, but where the latter band unsolicitedly dropped the new album into playlists of all users via iTunes, Wilco first asks for an e-mail address. Is much friendlier, but of course that mail address is later used to inform you about gigs and the appearance of the physical product, on CD, and preferably LP. So it goes.
You'd get cynical of less, but is this new record any good?
Definitely!
World-shaking?
No. The alt.country label the band was given in the early nineties managed to shake off with great success with more experimental records like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) and A Ghost is born (2004). The poppy Wilco (The Album) (2009) was disappointing, but at The Whole Love (2011), the band managed to unite both sides, from heavily dissonant to additionally danceable, with the addictive highlight being the actually dead boring and over 12 minutes long 'One Sunday Morning‘.
That line draws Star Wars by. It begins dissonantly once again with 'EKG', on which in just over a minute Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits go to war, immediately followed by 'More' full of Beatles-at-the-time-of-The White Album-references. And so it goes on. From the glam rock of Bowie and Bolan to alienating psychedelic effects. Centrepiece 'Your Satellite' - at just over five minutes the longest song on the album - has a The Edge-like guitar part, but rough, much less slick than anything by the much more famous Irish band. And is thus immediately many times better. 'Taste the ceiling' is an unadulterated tearjerker and 'Where do I begin' is downright disturbing.
After just over half an hour, it's over.
"This album is a recommitment to the idea that music is important to our lives. Art is more worthy of our striving. And fun is more sustaining than cash. It's not intended to be a comment on the music business, just one band's wish to give our fans a jolt of joy: a fun surprise."
Nothing more, nothing less.
Free download yourself? here
Don't feel like giving your email address to the band? then listen to it here
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