What people search:
 | Title : Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Author : Wilco
Release Date : 20020423
Binding : Audio CD
Regular Price : $18.98
Amazon.com Price : $9.69
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Editorial Reviews :
Named in honor of the three-word codes used by short-wave radio operators, Wilco's fourth album sounds like a late-night broadcast of some weirdly wonderful pop station punctuated by static and the sonic bleed of competing signals. Songs that begin with simple, elegiac grace--'Ashes of American Flags' and 'Poor Places'--end in a cathartic squall of distortion. The results can be initially jarring, but it's these tracks more than the sturdy jangle pop of 'Kamera' or 'Heavy Metal Drummer' that demand, and reward, repeated listens. Mixed by studio experimentalist Jim O'Rourke and produced by the band, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot harkens back to a time when the words 'pop' and 'sonic adventurism' weren't mutually exclusive. The Beatles and Kurt Cobain knew this, and clearly so do Jeff Tweedy and company.
Buyer Reviews :
Once every couple of years, an album comes along that almost-automatically merits consideration as a 'Classic' in its genre... I offer you Radiohead's 'OK Computer', Lauryn Hill's 'Miseducation of...', and (on the ever-growing World stage) Natacha Atlas' Transglobal Underground-fueled 'Ayeshteni' as evidence for this trend. 2002's 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot', by Wilco, is the latest album to merit inclusion in the 'instant landmark' category. Jeff Tweedy's band has made a record so jaw-droppingly complete, eclectic and satisfying that it would make both Harry Smith and Brian Eno proud. Though often described as a 'Hillbilly OK Computer', YHF goes farther, muuuuch farther beyond mere pigeonhole-ization. This is a record of a uniquely sobered sensibility... the studious innocence of Uncle Tupelo's early recordings and 'Being There's' sense of wide-eyed optimism are both gone. In their stead, we find a narrator than can, alternately, drink you under the table ('I Am Trying to Break Your Heart'), celebrate Rock 'N Roll without sounding trite ('Heavy Metal Drummer'), and be patriotic without being obtuse or jingoistic ('Ashes of American Flags'). One has to feel somewhat sorry for Jay Farrar... on the same year he releases a sensational solo effort ('Sebastopol'), and in which Uncle Tupelo's greatest-hits compilation comes out, Tweedy outdoes him, again, though this time more severely than ever before.
As for several pundits' charge that this record tries hard to be pretentious and 'artsy', I will, actually, heartily agree with whoever states that claim... Nevertheless, I strain to remember any album consistently placed in most critics' 'Best of All Time' shortlist, which did not initially strive to be 'important': 'Sgt. Pepper's', 'Pet Sounds', 'Highway 61', 'Born to Run', 'Nevermind', etc. ALL were clearly about their respective creators' attempts at critical respectability and, ultimately, historical weight. Tweedy can hardly be faulted for doing the same, particularly in an era of such fluffy, unimportant sonic trifle, courtesy of a conference room-ful of three-piece Swedish suits who write music for thirty-plus men posing as 'boy' bands, and for bleached blondes with no vocal talent other than aping faux-R & B mellismas.
Wouldn't you just HATE to be that poor sap from Wilco's former record company who told Tweedy and co. to take a walk... with this master-piece in tow?!?!?!
(by Carlos R. Pastrana)
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