Average Metacritic score is 76 (34 reviews):

by Wilco
Wilco (The Album) ( Nonesuch)
U.S. Release Date: June 30, 2009
Ranking: 80 (4 Stars)
Pitchfork: 7.3





http://www.spin.com/reviews/wilco-wilco-album-nonesuch


BY DAVID MARCHESE 07.19.09 8:57 AM
4 Stars

Until now. If 2007's Sky Blue Sky was an amiable, if mildly flaccid, return to rootsy songwriting fundamentals after the migraines-and-motorik meandering of 2004's A Ghost Is Born, then Wilco (the album), the band's seventh studio effort, treats verse-chorus-verse basics like holy truths. The result is the rare rock album about acceptance. And it's fantastic.

Maybe it took Tweedy some time to find solid footing after a mid-decade addiction to painkillers. Or perhaps he and fellow original member John Stirratt (bass) are only now studio simpatico with latecomers Glenn Kotche (drums), Mikael Jorgensen (keyboards), Pat Sansone (guitar, keyboards, percussion), and Nels Cline (lead guitar, whose swooping birdsong solos are a highlight here). Whatever the reason, the Chicago sextet finally seems comfortable with itself -- and wants you to buy in. On lead-off track "Wilco (the song)," Tweedy delivers the soft sell over a confident Velvets chug. "Do you dabble in depression?" he asks. "Are you being attacked?" Don't worry: "Wilco will love you." It may read like a wink, but when couched in such sturdy songcraft (the bridge soars), it sounds like fact. If all advertisements were this persuasive, I'd be even more broke.

After that initial statement of purpose, Tweedy spends the rest of the album gracefully to terms with the things he can't control. (Dollars to donuts that the Serenity prayer was hanging from the bathroom door of wherever he clocked his rehab.) On the eerie "Deeper Down," a spidery guitar line, ride cymbal, and 16th-note harpsichord pulse skitter around the singer as he shakes hands with unknowing: "I adore the meaninglessness," he declares, "of the 'this' we can't express." Later, Feist guests on the simply gorgeous "You and I," which abides by a different kind of mystery. "However close we get sometimes," she and Tweedy sing in close harmony, "it's like we never met." That could be a frightening realization, but the gently strummed acoustic guitar, warm keyboard chording, and lilting vocals suggest the awe that arrives by acknowledging your lover's mystery as part of what makes them magical. Likewise, "You Never Know," a standout among the album's handful of crisp rockers, floats the phrase "I don't care anymore" over zippy slide fills and Abbey Road "ooh oohs," turning an admission of defeat into an existential victory.

The only missteps come when Wilco move away from tweedy's front-porch Zen homilies and the band's otherwise tight arrangements. "Bull Black Nova" is a road noir that lunges from tense staccato guitar and one-note piano plinking into a noisy jam that confuses motion with progress. And hazy atmospherics undercut the apocalyptic lyrics of "Country Disappeared." But when the biggest problems with an album are a couple of arguable form-function misfits, why fight it? Resistance for its own sake will only take you so far. As Wilco (the album) proves, sometimes submission is a beautiful thing.

It has been a loooong year. I completely forgot about this album. It's good. Probably make my Top 20 by default.

this is where wilco went a little too adult contemporary for my taste. i still like them and they have a shot at my top 10 (in a weak (imo) year), but i don't hear the experimentalism anymore. at least on sky blue sky there were some indulged guitar moments. Now what is there -- a duet with feist that makes me recall the 80s hit "just you and i" ("sharing our love together..."). i think they jumped the porpoise.

yeah, i like it and it'll definitely make the top twenty, but that duet does annoy me.

whatever, I love this record. Top 5.

Blech.

I like the daddish stylings of Wilco 2009.

"You Never Know" is a pretty great pop song. Kind of George Harrison-like.

This album never really connected with me. I'm going to listen to it again right now, see how it settles at this point.

I've pretty much had this opinion of the band since the first time I tried to listen to them. It isn't awful, it just isn't my thing.

Good album, not great, I guess Im unfairly judging all future Wilco work on "Sky Blue Sky"

i can understand the complaints attached to this record. I can see how Wilco has lost touch of the "experimentalism" that made them "so good" (and indeed one of my favorite bands).

But really, that experimentalism, if you want to call it that - last like two albums. There are subtle sonic experiments on Being There and Summerteeth, but there is no way that those are not just pure pop records.

The same goes for Sky Blue Sky and Wilco (The Album). If anything, I think that Tweedy's songwriting has gone downs slightly and that is the main complaint, but it's still a very good album. Catchy songs (that aren't as traditional as you want to say they are). I mean Bull Black Nova is pretty ballsy for a "dad" record.

I like this record a lot. Its not going to be my favorite Wilco, though I don't ever know what is my favorite Wilco album.

Yeah, I also prefer SBS, but this is a solid album.

In my Top 20 for the year.

Listened again. Still gets a "meh" from me... though will probably still make my top-15 for the year... keeping in mind I only have about 20 albums from this year.

SBS was the adult contemporary record for me, but this was a nice surprise. Made me dig them again, when I had begun to lose interest after the previous two albums.

Aren't you the guy who likes Phil Collins a lot?

I like this album. Definitely not my favorite of their records. In fact, I have a long lasting, deep love for Sky Blue Sky, Ghost is Born, Yankee Hotel, Summerteeth, Being There and all the Tweedy stuff off the Mermaid Ave records. A love that allows me to play any one of said albums at any time, front to back, and enjoy every second of it.

Wilco (The Album) has yet to gain that love from me, but because of the track record from this band, I will keep this baby in the house, try to give it the attention it deserves and hope that one day it will grow up to be an album worthy of playing with it's older siblings.

Seeing them this February might show me things I previously missed on this record. Fingers crossed.

This, though for me it would more accurately be "begun to lose interest in their studio songs until they showed up on live recordings"

Other than "Bull Black Nova" (too grating) and the title track (too um, cheesy?) I pretty much dig and connect with everything on this record, have given it a ton of spins and will continue to do so.

Probable Top 10.

Gonna put this on right now, it's been awhile.

i was just gonna listen to this again but can't seem to find it. oh well.

i don't think i liked it much anyways.

I just don't get this, because Wilco sound nothing like what is on adult contemporary stations.

Its a winner of a record, and it sounds great live as well. Definite top 10 if not higher status.

this album is alright. i really liked it at first but has no staying power, imo. i have no desire to play it and that is never a good sign. will play again to see where it will place this year but should only be around 30 or so for this year.

i'd rank this as probably their worst album

It's not about it sounding like 80's cool rock/modern pop contemporary to me, it's about it sounding like terribly mundane AAA radio/Bob Boilen style tunes. Thus why this style of music is now being saddled with the awful genre misnomer of "Dad Rock".