Wilco - Being There Poll

ty 2 wikipedia for the tracklist i c&p'd

the best tracks on this:

Misunderstood
Monday
I Got You (At the End of the Century)
Hotel Arizona
Sunken Treasure

comes down to these:

Misunderstood
Hotel Arizona
Sunken Treasure

voted for:
Sunken Treasure

LORD the lyrics

not even gonna listen to this right now

"Misunderstood"

so true when it comes to me and ILX...

<3

http://www.spin.com/blog/what-jay-bennetts-death-made-me-realize-about-wilco

I loved this record when it came out. It's still probably my favorite of theirs that doesn't have lyrics written by Woody Guthrie.

Far Far Away

Hotel Arizona

I remember when this album came out after AM and everyone was all "Whoa, Wilco really went off the deep end this time!"

say you miss me

Red-eyed and blue
Say you miss me

first disc of this record is pretty classic through and through. patchier as the rest of the album goes on, but that might be the point.
fave might be "far far away".

I love this album tons and tons. I remember picking this up on the day of release after class, then spending pretty much the entire next three days listening to this in studio while I put the finishing touches on a design project. Since this involved pulling two consecutive all-nighters (unfortunately not a rare occurance that year), a lot of these songs hold weird, hazy memories of 3 and 4 a.m. for me, particularly tracks like "Sunken Treasure", "Dreamer in My Dreams", and "Misunderstood".

Really tough call for me, but at this point I'm kind of tempted to vote for "Someone Else's Song".

yeah i like that one -- a rare example of a meta song really working. i remember kind of groaning when i first heard it, but it grew on me.

also remember hearing outta site outtamind on the radio and thinking, "oh shit, this is going to be a huge hit." wrongo!

red -eyed and blue. i think it was the first song i could really play passably on guitar.

i think i still like this one best. but i haven't heard the last 2 (3?)

love that y'all are voting for different songs!

http://i.imgur.com/Qqi33.jpg

:D

<3

<3

I Got You!

Love this album so much. So hard. Think it might be "Sunken Treasure."

I dedicated at least a year of my adult life to being obsessed with this record. It's going to have to be Misunderstood, although Sunken Treasure is great (prefer the Dylan rip off acoustic version actually), Red Eyed is also a highlight and I'm actually ridiculously into Kingpin

the live version of "kingpin" is better than the studio version iirc

a lot of this album is better live tbh

yeah, "misunderstood" isn't the same w/o a million "nothing"s

really love 'hotel arizona'. it's got the trademark wilco sprawl going on, but with a punchier and more reined-in tone than usual. great lyrics too.

yeah, agree with tyler about the live thing, particularly re. 'kingpin', which is great live, but a little bit slight on disc.

yeah feelin this a bit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC_K1N-olbk

voted "Far, Far Away"; I love the sound of the guitar on that track, sounds like you're inside the guitar. My fav Wilco songs at this point are the ones with the most impressive guitar songs (e.g. "Kamera"). o/w yeah, the live versions are better...I saw this band sooooo many times b/w 1995 & 2000, + Tweedy acoustic show bunches too. In the former "Red Eyed & Blue" knocked me out a few times as an opener w/ Tweedy's obviously wasted leers genuinely creeping me out; & in the latter it was "Sunken Treasure" with those drawn-out notes during the "I am so out of tune" parts in 1999 & thereafter, & the drony guitar part.

Always loved the sound of the acoustic guitar on this too. Any idea what he's playing?

Tyler - what's the best bootleg (or boot comp) of this material?

i have a show at the fillmore west from 97 that's great -- would've posted it on the blog but there's something screwy with a few of the songs. actually my fave wilco live period might be 99-00, when they're playing mermaid ave//summerteeth/being there tracks and just blazing.

tyler, do you know if there are any good sites to go to to get wilco boots? i used to d/l wilco live stuff, but that was years ago

voted RE&B but maybe shoulda voted ST - phenomenal record

wilco live archive http://www.owlandbear.com/wilco-archive/

Whoa. OK, who wants to help us wade through these? Which is their Europe 72? Which is their Reckoning?

PS I thought Kicking Television sounded limp and boring

this is that fillmore show i was talking about upthread -- http://wilcoarchive.com/Wilco%2019970509/

and this summer 2000 show is wild http://wilcoarchive.com/wilco%2020000730%20SBD/
maybe the pinnacle of the bennet era of the band? he kind of drives the whole thing.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

ty for all the links, tyler! much appreciated

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

hotel arizona should've placed higher, but well done on the top two y'all

I'm pretty okay with the results of this poll.

18 years old today. Fuck doesn't that make you feel old. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jXuDrTdKA4

I can't find one online now without going into the Spin archives, but the advertising for this album had one of the best slogans: "The Album That Reminds You Why You Let Music Ruin Your Life".

I love this album.

Jay Bennett piece above is OTM. a completely different band without him. And a lot less enjoyable.

Did I see this concert? Maybe!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7pY6UPPbVQ&fbclid=IwAR2DIOUNnww1gOWJFi_K-8ZDBCE9jT3wyJB63mKcqIar3qofMGbp_j1iBHk

Dammit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7pY6UPPbVQ

Baffling to me that I used to enjoy this band

i mostly lost interest after Ghost (not for any particular reason other than there was just lots of other stuff I guess) but I still stan this record.

The chord changes are uninspired, his lyrics and phrasing are terrible, he doesn’t have much of a voice
But yeah. Who knows

This was good in small doses. The songs can be great when a few of them are sprinkled throughout a setlist, but in memory, hearing both discs in one sitting was kind of like hearing the same chord changes over and over again - it got old really fast.

But overall it was a step up from their debut, and for the next six years they took big steps with each album after that, and they were a top-flight band for a little while after that. I absolutely love everything from the first Mermaid Avenue album up to and including the Kicking Television live album. I think the albums since have been generally okay - you can make a really excellent compilation cherrypicking a few highlights from each of them - but breaking little ground. At this point, they're a reliable and enjoyable live act, mining the occasional gem in familiar territory.

lol, 99% of songwriters would kill to have Tweedy's chord changes, lyrics, phrasing and voice. rightfully so.

Like will I also lost interest after Ghost. I never reach for Being There now but at the time this album represented my favorite version of them, when they still had a connection to the sound of country music

Star Wars is a gem

Star Wars is a very strangely overlooked / underrated. Their best since YHF, imo, and significantly better than any of the other post-Sky Blue Sky albums.

maybe "post-Ghost" albums

The Whole Love and Star Wars are definitely the two stand-outs for me "post-Ghost." I may need to revisit again, but the first time I put it on, The Whole Love was a pleasant surprise. For like the first 20 or 25 minutes, I thought it was shaping up to be their first great album in a while, but the second half was kind of underwhelming and uneven compared to the first. (That final 12-minute track, "One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)," is a gem though - it actually sustains itself the entire time, which is very impressive considering how modest and intimate it sounds.)

I like Star Wars, it's got some really good cuts and it was a welcome display of boldness, but as a whole it felt underdeveloped. It was initially given away as a free download (and dropped as a surprise), and along with the tongue-in-cheek title and artwork, I wonder if that led some listeners to think of it as an experimental one-off?

Think I’ve said this on another thread, but I was a non-fan who got into the band via Star Wars — it’s the first album of theirs I really liked (I thought Schmilco was great, too).

lol, 99% of songwriters would kill to have Tweedy's chord changes, lyrics, phrasing and voice. rightfully so.

Wilco is one of those bands I was Very Heavily Into at the outset of the noughties and while I don't intend to revisit them any time soon, this still feels otm.

Yeah, I rarely play them on purpose, but when I do, the songs and albums sound good

I do like Star Wars a lot, but the first half of the self title album is pretty great too, and “Bull Black Nova”’s build and freakout is top 5 Wilco.

re Star Wars, last time I saw them they did Random Name Generator and the crowd really went for it so maybe it has a cult following

^Such a great song! that + "The Joke Explained" are one of the best twofers I can think of.

I'd reckon they were very consistent for a while. But the last few albums have not been up to the standard of their 2000s material. I'd probably rank them as such. . .

1. Sky Blue Sky (which I absolutely hated at first)
2. A Ghost is Born
3. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
4. The Whole Love
5. Summerteeth
6. Wilco (the album)
7. Star Wars
8. Being There
9. Schmilco

Not counting the live album and the collaborative records. . . and I had completely lost interest after Schmilco, so I never heard Ode to Joy.

you didn't include A.M., either! it's a top 3 Wilco album, imo, along w/ YHF and Being There

sorry, i shouldn't have put the ! after either. kinda sounds aggressive and i don't mean it that way :)

anyway...

It was initially given away as a free download (and dropped as a surprise), and along with the tongue-in-cheek title and artwork, I wonder if that led some listeners to think of it as an experimental one-off?

i think this is absolutely a big factor in Star Wars being overlooked, and i think Jeff agrees. in this interview, he talks about embracing the promotion of Ode To Joy after doing "a disservice to the last two records that we created the atmosphere of them being really low-stakes" ... the last two records being Star Wars and Schmilco:

https://www.spin.com/featured/wilco-interview-jeff-tweedy-nels-cline-ode-to-joy/

That's a good point. I definitely considered less of Star Wars because it was called Star Wars. And yeah, Wilco (The Album) and Schmilco are stupid names for albums, too. But all of those albums have some, even a lot of great stuff on them. I never even heard Ode to Joy (which is also kind of a glib or flippant title).

Anyway, good timing:

Jeff Tweedy announces his inspiring new book, How To Write One Song, out October 13th via Dutton, and available for pre-order now. It’s the follow-up to Tweedy’s bestselling 2019 memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), which was widely praised as an illuminating, moving “uniquely raw rock autobiography” (Rolling Stone). In How To Write One Song, Tweedy has created a candid and fascinating primer on the art form he knows best, revealing both the behind-the-scenes process, and the joy he gets from making something new, as few artists have. The book is conversational and thoughtful - throughout, he offers actionable and practical tips on overcoming self-defeating dialog, building a creative habit, language techniques to get out of a writing comfort zone, easy recording methods, and so much more. He even goes through the exercises himself and shares how those techniques, along with his persistent creative schedule, have helped him write songs that listeners can fall in love with—songs that feel like they’re capable of loving back.

So, why one song? Because the difference between one song and many songs isn't a cute semantic trick—it's an important distinction that can simplify a notoriously confusing art form. By setting a goal of creating just one song from the ground up, the songwriting project becomes a focused, self-contained event, the mystery and fear subsides, and songwriting becomes an exciting pursuit. Tweedy upends the idea that songwriters and writers need to be suffering artists or constantly inspired. Instead, he focuses on the importance of digging deep and finding beauty even when we don’t have the time or the confidence in our ability to do so, and even if what we’re creating is only for ourselves. As Tweedy puts it, “The feeling I get when I write—the sense that time is simultaneously expanding and disappearing—that I’m simultaneously more me and also free of me—is the main reason I wanted to put my thoughts on songwriting down in book form to share with everyone so inclined.”

Maybe he should write (or read?) a book called "How to Write One Album Title."

yeah, i definitely have a theory that their run of uninspired album titles parallels the waning urgency of their recorded work ... i.e. "wow they're kind of mailing it in all the way around" (though not live, it should be noted)

the quality (not the name) of Star Wars is the main exception to this theory

this album is so fucking good. depending on my mood woulda voted for Sunken Treasure or Outtasite (Outta Mind)

Hotel Arizona 2

my people

i bet i was one of the "say you'll miss me" voters tho

second half stunner that deserved a vote is "why would you wanna live"

what's the world got in store -> hotel arizona -> say you miss me are my fav 3 songs on this all in a row

i hadn't heard this yet in 2011 when this poll ran despite being really into summerteeth and YHF way back in high school

second half stunner that deserved a vote is "why would you wanna live"

Otm, shocked that I apparently didn’t vote for it. In my top 3 songs on this record, maybe top 2.

the second disc of this is a fair bit weaker than the first, would have been phenomenal cut down a little bit to make a single album

still going with RE&B in 2022

misunderstood
far far away
monday
outtasite outta mind
red-eyed and blue
why would you wanna live
sunken treasure
i got you
what's the world got in store
hotel arizona
say you miss me
the lonely 1

something like this is what i'd edit it down to

i must be the only one with a soft spot for “kingpin” and “someday soon.” the zero vote-getter that i would prob choose is “was i in your dreams”

I enjoy "Someday Soon", but "Kingpin" is so embarrassingly bad they shouldn't even have recorded it. I think I'd have voted for "Misunderstood".

I read How To Write One Song, mentioned above, but it's misnamed. It's really about setting up routines and practices to become a regular songwriter. Writing just one song would presume that you sit down knowing what you want to say, which isn't Tweedy's method - he free-associates and figures out what the song might mean afterwards.

I'll have to revisit this, but IIRC every time I've played it, my enjoyment rapidly starts to fade once I hit "Outta Mind (Outta Sight)" on Disc Two.

(I should just try stopping the album after "Someday Soon" and see how it works if the first 12 tracks were THE album proper.)

Say You Miss Me or Forget the Flowers

Probably an unpopular opinion but in my edit I would lose the maudlin epics that open each disc. I get that they're important breakthroughs that point the way to the future direction of the band, but Tweedy's not really there yet imo, and when I reach for this album I'm looking for trad/Americana-era Wilco sounds, not Important Artistic Songs. I would keep all the genre pastiche and probably end up with:

Far Far Away
Monday
Outtasite (Outta Mind)
Forget the Flowers
Red Eyed & Blue
I Got You
Someday Soon
Was I In Your Dreams
Hotel Arizona
Why Would You Wanna Live
Dreamer in My Dreams