Looking Back on "The Most Important Band in America"
By Andrew Clayman
Published (with edits) in The Metro Pulse, April 2009
The best kept secret about Wilco has always been the band’s sense of humor. Amid all the dour folk ballads, turmoil-ridden documentaries, and label-thwarting experimentalism, there’s still been an open-door policy-- albeit a subtly cracked-open door-- to silliness and self-deprecation.
“Are those beer cans I keep hearing?” frontman Jeff Tweedy asked the crowd during a solo set at the Bijou Theatre in 2007. When a fan then offered him one, Tweedy smirked
and sarcastically replied, “The rehab was in the news. I'm sure you saw it. But thanks for trying to knock me off the wagon.”
As the face and voice of Wilco, Tweedy has been routinely cast, at best, as a tortured genius, and at worst, as a megalomaniac. But as the audience witnessed that night, and on most nights of a Wilco tour, he is also an exceedingly funny and warm person—unafraid to poke fun at his own checkered past. Unfortunately, the media’s more curmudgeonly caricature of Tweedy has gradually informed its view of Wilco, too— consistently overlooking the fun in favor of the soap operas and seriousness. This decade, it’s quite common to see the group referred to as “The Most Important Band in America,” a ridiculous title that implies Wilco is trying to change the world, when all they’ve ever wanted to do is have a blast playing music for anyone who’d care to listen.
The Most Important Band in America: A Look Back
Chapter One: Jeff vs. Jay
In 1995, there weren’t many people willing to call Wilco the best offshoot band of Uncle Tupelo, let alone the best band in the country. During the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the Illinois-based Uncle Tupelo had laid the groundwork for the alt-country movement, led by the combined songwriting craft of Tweedy and the group’s ostensible frontman Jay Farrar. As the dramatic telling of the story goes, Farrar quit the band in 1994 when he felt that Tweedy was starting to usurp too much of his authority. Uncle Tupelo then splintered into two new groups, Tweedy’ Wilco and Farrar’s Son Volt. With a supposed blood feud in the balance, the music press rallied behind Son Volt’s first album over Wilco’s high-spirited debut A.M.—supposedly proving who Tupelo’s true genius had been, and cursing (or blessing) Wilco to a career of severe over-analysis.
Chapter Two: Jeff vs. Jay II
In between A.M. and 1996’s stellar double-disc Being There, Wilco added keyboardist/guitarist Jay Bennett to the line-up, setting the stage for another unfortunate power struggle. In many ways, Bennett was instrumental in crafting Wilco’s sunnier, power-pop sound on 1999’s Summerteeth and the superb Mermaid Avenue sessions with Billy Bragg. But once again, the more fun Wilco tried to have, the more their reputation seemed to defy them. As best observed in the 2002 documentary I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, Bennett wasn’t always the most popular guy in the studio, and the band soon elected to cut ties with him. While the critics focused their attention on Tweedy’s now supposedly dictator-like thirst for power, though, they nearly overlooked some of the best—and least complex—music of the band’s career.
Chapter Three: Yankee Doodles
Sometimes, a black cloud can sprout a rainbow, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was certainly such an instance for Wilco. The album would eventually sell more than twice as many copies as Summerteeth or Being There, but it would also seal Wilco’s identity, for better or worse, as “The Most Important Band In America.” The additions of producer Jim O’Rourke and drummer Glenn Kotche led the band in some exciting, experimental new directions on Yankee, making it a more challenging listen, but hardly on a par with Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. These were still great pop songs at their core, after all. Nonetheless, the execs at Warner Brothers hated what they heard, leading to the very well documented rejection and eventual re-acquisition (through subsidiary label Nonesuch) of what might be the most critically acclaimed album of the past decade.
Chapter Four: Selling Cars
Much wealthier but still not interested in being someone else’s vision of “important,” Wilco playfully went even further off the experimental deep end with 2004’s A Ghost Is Born, even adding jazz-fusion guitarist Nels Cline to the lineup. But if the comparisons to Steely Dan didn¹t scare them enough, the Eagles comparisons sparked by 2007’s laidback Sky Blue Sky were likely terrifying; Tweedy grew up listening to punk, after all, and has repeatedly made clear his distaste for ‘70s AM Gold. Along with their first lukewarm reviews in a long while, Wilco also took some heat for selling off half of Sky Blue Sky’s tracks for a Volkswagen ad campaign. As usual, Tweedy laughed off the criticism with simple logic, and nobody listened.
Chapter Five: Wilco, the Band
Cooped up in their Chicago loft, the members of Wilco are currently celebrating their 15th anniversary by putting the finishing touches on their seventh album, due out in June. Early reports indicate that it's a return to the cerebral, electro-folk-rock stylings that made Yankee Hotel Foxtrot a classic. Feist is making a cameo appearance, as well, and if the lyrics to new track “Wilco, the Song” are any indication, Tweedy is still funnier than we’re supposed to know.
Are you under the impression
This isn't your life?
Do you dabble in depression?
Someone twisting a knife in your back?
Are you being attacked?
Oh this is a fact,
That you need to know...
Wilco Wilco
Wilco will love you, Baby!
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