In the annals of rock music, there seems to exist a certain category of groups that I like to call "grow-on bands". You know the type - the first time you listen to one of their albums, your emotions range from mildly amused to puzzled to downright annoyed, and at the end of it all you're left wondering what the heck everyone's raving about. I've felt this way about bands ranging from Sixpence None the Richer to Radiohead at one point another... and even my beloved Jars of Clay has not been immune. Over time, I've learned to appreciate rock albums with that quirky "grow-on" quality, too - even to the point where I come to enjoy those albums more than the ones that relentlessly grab my attention at first and never let go. Maybe it's just the critic in me - I want to latch on to something that requires a certain amount of attention and patience for me to "get it". It's like a rite of passage.

So I had heard about this band Wilco, who was getting rave reviews and making all sorts of Top 10 lists for the year 2002 with the album that almost wasn't, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I guess the deal was that these guys, having built a reasonable fan base by building off of a sound known as "alt-country", got all experimental and recorded an album so difficult to get into that their record label advised them to go back to the drawing board. Defiantly, the band refused, and after a good bit of shopping around, found a more independently-minded label to release the album. And of course, Wilco got the last laugh, because the album is now a success story that typifies the "indie rock" spirit - tell us it can't be done in a rock song and we'll do it anyway. All of the above is what I had heard. So naturally, I had to hear this thing at some point.

I'll be honest - I was prepared to hate this thing from the get-go. Not because I had anything against Wilco - I just figured there would be a bit of a learning curve, and that meant that the album would likely confuse me at first. To some extent, that was true, but overall, my reaction after giving it the once-over was an overwhelming sense of apathy. I didn't hate it. I didn't love it. It was just kind of... there. Perhaps I needed to give Jeff Tweedy's voice some time to grow on me. (I tawt I taw a Tweedy bird!) Perhaps I needed to analyze the lyrics. Perhaps I needed to crank the volume up. Perhaps I needed to put headphones on. Well, I've tried all those things, and I've had a good half a year to process Wilco's latest effort, and you know what? It's still just kind of... there. I wish I didn't have to say that. I wanted to grow to like this thing. I wanted to be able to sit here with a straight face and tell you this was a brilliant work of art that had changed my outlook on music. But I can't. Perhaps I was expecting too much?

Now don't think that this means I don't regard it as a good work of art. I do. I guess not all art resonates with me. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot can, at times, display a wonderfully unorthodox approach to putting together a rock album with folk/country overtones... these guys certainly like to play with electronic noises and odd snippets of sound, and yet the music as a whole has a decidedly acoustic underbelly. I like it when bands have the vision to do such things. And the lyrics are frequently clever and quotable without being immediately transparent. I can appreciate that. So what is it that rubs me the wrong way? I don't know. There are times when I feel like Wilco is doing something just for the sake of doing it, not because it really helps the song or the album to make a point. Quite a few songs have that balance of cynicism and religious symbolism that seems guaranteed to get a songwriter dubbed as a poet laureate these days. Jeff Tweedy's vocals are purposefully cracked and sorrowful through much of it. The drums clunk away, sounding like they're in the next room at times. And no less than three songs end in chaotic snippets of white noise. The whole thing just makes me frustrated with myself - I know it's art, and I should respect that because we just don't have enough creativity in the music biz these days... but why is it annoying me so much?

Perhaps I'll never know. But the album's still enjoyable enough to warrant being given a spin every now and then, and ironically a few of the weirder songs stand out as truly excellent pieces of music. So let's take a closer look and see if I can figure out what's ailing me here...

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
This is not a joke, so please stop smiling
What was I thinking when i said it didn't hurt?
What a title! From the slowly building, "Is this thing on?" sort of intro that finds the band members contributing various instruments to the mix one by one, to the clumsy but addictive drum pattern that drives much of the song, to Jeff Tweedy's off-his-rocker lyrics, this track generates one heck of a huge expectation for all that is to follow it. This is one of those songs that just defies you to figure out what the heck is going on as Jeff wearily mumbles things like, "Take off your band-aid 'cause I don't believe in touchdowns." A few mentions of drinking are made in the song, and the whole song has the aura of being thrown out of a run-down bar, especially with the weird "broken piano" noises that float in and out. I can't think of a better way to describe it. The title lyric slices through all of the confusion near the end, offering a very purposeful sting to the listener - this must be what it feels like to be dumped by someone who took an interest in you for no reason other than to enjoy watching you crash and burn. This is one of the three songs that ends in superfluous noise, but it's probably the least annoying case of it, and a few lyrics from another song cut in at the end just to keep things interesting.

Kamera
I'm counting on a heart I know by heart
To walk me through this war where memories distort...
Once the previous track reaches the point of being completely discombobulated, it is suddenly interrupted by a comparatively passive guitar strum and a gentle drum beat. The melody and rhythm are pleasant enough to tap your feet to, I guess, but it sounds frustratingly ordinary and even a little thin compared to the wall of noise that was previously unleashed. Perhaps the casual tone has caused me to overlook the song, but I also can't dig as much out of this one lyrically. Jeff seems to be singing about how his memory of how things happened has become twisted over time (perhaps due to one too many beers?), so he sees to need a way of taking snapshots of what's going on so he can piece it together once he's sober again. No clue why "Kamera" is spelled with a "K". Perhaps he just thought it was "kewl".

Radio Cure
There is something wrong with me
My mind is filled with silvery stars...
I like the delicate chord progression and the gentle "thump, thump, thump" that start this song off... too bad it's just plain difficult to hear what's going on. Jeff switches back from his "thin" vocal mode to his "hangover" vocal mode for this one (those are the two he uses for most of the album), croaking out the words "There is something wrong with me." Yeah, I'll say! Obviously this song has a loaded title, given Wilco's refusal to be very "radio-friendly", and while I have no problems with that philosophy, I do find myself frustrated with the album's lack of momentum at this point. There's not much "build" to this song other than a toy piano (or perhaps a xylophone?) that chimes in later on to accentuate the words "Distance has no way of making love understandable". There are some intriguing lines to be found here, but at times they sound like lines from completely different poems.

War on War
You are not my typewriter, but you could be my demon
Moving forward through the flaming doors...
This would be one of the few "upbeat" tunes on the album - I think there's an unwritten rule that all art-rock albums must be slow and ambient. (But hey, I like a lot of slow, ambient albums, so that's not really the point.) I rather like this one even though it's ridiculously repetitive - it's like they retooled "Kamera" by speeding it up a little bit and adding some feisty electronic noises that sound like a radio being tuned in the background. Lyrically there's not much here because most of the song consists of the highly ironic lines "There's a war on war" and "You gotta learn how to die if you wanna be alive" being repeated again and again. I suppose you could get a lot out of just those two lines - and one of Wilco's definite strengths is their high quotability. But in the end, I feel like I'm getting more loosely-related fragments of poems here instead of a coherent song. Hey, at least the tune is catchy.

Jesus, Etc.
Our love, our love is all of God's money
Every one is a burning sun...
Once again, what a title! I'll admit that I was almost immediately put off by the connotations of that title (as if Jesus were one item in a list of similar, interchangeable things), and the song's overall attempt to cheer Jesus up by telling Him He can come over for a drink or something like that, but beneath the song's playful lounge stylings and whimsical violin interludes, there are some spine-tingling lyrics about how "Tall buildings shake, and voices escape, singing sad, sad songs". I know that the album was written before 9/11, but I can't help hearing a hint of that tragic day in a few of this album's songs (this is reinforced by the twin high rises on the album's cover). It's all in my imagination, but I know I'm not the only one. I will admit I'm not too keen on the idea that "last cigarettes are all you can get". Judging from the vocals, Tweedy might want to lay off those cigarettes for a while.

Ashes of American Flags
I'm down on my hands and knees every time a doorbell rings
I shake like a toothache when I hear myself sing...
A strange ringing noise signals the beginning of this song... for some reason, it reminds me of coins falling out of a slot machine. Appropriate, I guess, for what seems like one more addition to the heap of tirades about how grossly commercial and selfish America is. Sometimes I can agree with that sentiment... I guess it just seems like an easy target for your average art-rock band. Anyhow, this one's got sort of a "Karma Police" vibe to it with its piano-and-drum dirge, punctuated every now and then by a melancholy electric guitar line, and of course Tweedy sounds as dejected as ever as he moans about vending machines and the price of cigarettes and so forth. "I wonder why we listen to poets when nobody gives a f***", he whines. I suppose it's a fair question, but I can't help feeling like he tossed a swear word in there just to be all angsty and poetic in that whole "liberal arts college" sort of way. (I should know; I went to one.) The song starts to redeem itself later with meatier lines line "I know I would die if I could come back new", which echoes the life/death paradox mentioned in "War on War". But it's not long before the song generates into another sonic bad dream that goes on for far too long (actually it's probably less than it a minute, but it seems like forever), and I'm extremely glad when a warped piano sample chimes in, signaling a transition to the next track.

Heavy Metal Drummer
Unlock my body and move myself to dance
Moving warm liquid, flowing blowing glass
Classical music blasting masks the ringing in my ears...
You know what I'm in the mood for right now? A feel-good song about dancing in the intense summer heat and getting high. Nah... not really. If I was, I'd go put on some Dave Matthews Band. (Just kidding; I hate it when the DMB does that too.) But that's what Wilco tries to give us here. The song has all the ingredients of a fun summer song - an electronically enhanced beat, a quick guitar strum, a quirky piano line that reminds me of The Flaming Lips' "Spiderbite Song", and lyrics that hearken back to the innocent days of youth. The annoying thing is that those innocent days were apparently spent "Playing KISS covers, beautiful and stoned", and trying to woo a girl who kept falling in love with guys from other bands. Can't say that I relate.

I'm the Man Who Loves You
All I can be is a busy sea of spinning wheels and hands that feel
For stones to throw and feet that run, but come back home...
Now here's a fun summer song that also manages to retain its art-rock credibility. I haven't mentioned much about the other players in the band until this point, mostly because the drums, bass, and guitar seem to be creating a rather thin musical backdrop for the extraneous instruments and noise on a lot of the album's tracks, but guitar player Leroy Bach really whips it out on this one, irreverently dancing all over what would otherwise be a simple folk/rock love song with his whacked-out antics. This takes a song that is basically the apologetic antithesis of "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" (interesting how that song ended with a sneak preview of this one!) and morphs it into a swaggering party of a song, even going so far as to throw some cheerful horns at it near the end. The whole thing eventually falls apart in a slightly less chaotic fashion than Radiohead's "The National Anthem" (it's certainly more amusing than creepy), and Leroy just keeps on screeching away on that old electric. I can just imagine the other guys trying to get his attention - "Dude, the song's over! You can stop now! Hello?"

Pot Kettle Black
Crazy rides rockets, who has a magic wand
Empty out your pockets, words without a song...
Okay Wilco, what gives you the right to be normal all of a sudden? If anything, it's the more straight ahead folk-rock tracks that make this album less interesting to listen to. This one tries to be a fun and witty tune, but it ends up not quite having the oomph that it seems like it should due to Tweedy's vocals (which really lack the appropriate punch to make his words stick) and a lyrical idea based around the cliché of "the pot calling the kettle black". Much like "Kamera", it's decent to listen to and it has its lines that beg to keep your attention, but ultimately it doesn't live up to its promise that "Every song is a comeback".

Poor Places
There's Bourbon on the breath of the singer you love so much
He takes all his words from the books that you don't read anyway...
Ironically, a more believable social conscience comes forth on a song that doesn't seem to be trying as hard as "Ashes" did to make us care about the depraved state of our society. There's quite a bit going on in this song - a few self-deprecating lines here, an odd description of a beat-up guy lying in the hospital there, and the strange chorus to tie it all together - "And it makes no difference to me/How they cried all over overseas/It's hot in the poor places tonight/I'm not going outside." The confession here seems to be that Jeff is aware of great suffering in the world, but he's afraid to go out and do anything about it. He's more comfortable standing on a stage and mumbling pseudo-poetic words at his adoring audience. And part of him just wants to rip off the façade. I can relate. In a way, this reminds me of some of the more vulnerable moments on U2's Pop album. There's a nice cascading piano riff that flows into the song midway through, and this helps create a nice build to what should be a stellar musical crescendo - instead we get the only kind of ending that Wilco seems to know how to give us with songs like these - more egregious noise. This track is probably where it's the most irritating, as the noise overpowers everything else and all you can hear behind it is a British woman repeating the words "Yankee. Hotel. Foxtrot." until it finally cuts off and leaves us with cold silence.

Reservations
I know this isn't what you were wanting me to say
How can I get closer and be further away
From the truth that proves it's beautiful to lie...
The album's last track is a decent comedown from the rest of the album - sparse piano notes and very gentle percussion are all you hear besides Jeff Tweedy's voice - well, that and a little bit of microphone feedback here and there just to remind you that Wilco is clinging tightly to their not-yet-certified insanity. Maybe it's just me, but it seems odd to bookend an album that seems to have so much to say with a pair of relationship songs. Of course, these aren't any ordinary relationship songs, because they both find Jeff admitting that he's the one to blame for things going sour. The difference is that here, he seems to be apologizing for causing the girl undue grief, and assuring her that "It's me I don't like". It's a sadly beautiful farewell even if it does stoop to the classic "It's not you, it's me" cliché that most of us can see right through. What really baffles me is how the song trails off at the end and then we get upwards of three more minutes of nothing but that piano, one note at a time, stretching the song past the seven-minute mark when three or four would have been adequate.

I'd hate to be the one to suggest that Wilco's tendency to experiment should be stifled. If you asked me honestly what I would change about this record... well, I'd hate to change anything, because as much as some of it seems arbitrary and unfocused to me, I'm guessing it all has a reasonable amount of meaning to Wilco and to the band's most devoted fans. I guess there comes a point where I just have to say, "OK, it's art, and not all art is something I can understand." And I don't have to understand it to enjoy it, but after listening to an album ten or twenty times, I generally hope for something that's pleasing to the ear - not necessarily because it's a pleasant sound, but because it denotes a meaning than runs deeper than "we felt like being weird and purposefully radio-unfriendly". And that's the sense I get when albums are mixed to sound thin and lackadaisical and long, rhythm less sections of noise are used to tie songs together. I'm sure you've heard the phrase "An A for effort", and I'd certainly give Wilco one if being artsy were all that mattered to me. But it's not, and so I guess I'm going to have to stick with the equivalent of a C+ for the overall execution here.

So will I dive into the band's next album with as much anticipation as I did this one? Well, to coin a phrase... Don't call us. Wilco you.

ALBUM WORTH:
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart $2
Kamera $0
Radio Cure $1
War on War $1
Jesus, Etc. $1.50
Ashes of American Flags $.50
Heavy Metal Drummer $.50
I'm the Man Who Loves You $2
Pot Kettle Black $.50
Poor Places $1.50
Reservations $1
TOTAL: $11.50

Band Members:
Jeff Tweedy: Vocals, guitar, banjo
John Stiratt: Bass, vocals
Leroy Bach: Guitar, various instruments
Glen Kotche: Drums, percussion

Website: http://www.wilcoworld.net

Recommended: Yes