Wilco: A Shot In The Arm
Concluding my list of the Top 10 albums of 1999, coming in at #1 is Summerteeth by Wilco. The third album by my favorite American band of the last 25 years holds many special memories for me. This was one of the first albums I remember listening to with Ms. Faux from beginning to end. We were both already fans of the band from their work on Being There and the Mermaid Avenue recordings, but neither of us were prepared for the evolutionary steps the band took with this album. We loved it upon first listen and it is still one of our favorite albums of all time. There were several albums released in the late ’90s that received the tagline the next Pet Sounds, but this is the only one that still comes close to that ridiculous media-created description. While the band’s 1996 album Being There was important for Jeff Tweedy’s songwriting evolution, Summerteeth is the album that finds him mastering the craft. With much-needed support from Jay Bennett, Tweedy moved firmly away from the alt-country trappings present in earlier Wilco recordings. The songs on Summerteeth are intricate and incorporate a modern production technique via Pro Tools, introspective lyrics not present on earlier songs, and a pop sensibility that moves the music past the basic pop, rock, and alt-country of the time. Tunes such as “Can’t Stand It,” “ELT,” and “I’m Always In Love” would have been Top 40 hits if pop radio had not have already died by 1999. “She’s A Jar” and “A Shot In The Arm” present Tweedy’s new compositional style in brilliant fashion. The songs “How To Fight Loneliness” and “Via Chicago” present gorgeous centerpieces to the album. The closing “Candyfloss” adds a surprisingly catchy closing after “23 seconds of silence.” All in all, this is a perfect album. It was a commercial failure at the time when compared to their previous album, and it heralded Tweedy’s descent into major-label difficulties- culminating in the drama that surrounds their next album (the masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) – but it now stands as one of the best albums of the ’90s. I can’t imagine my life over the last 25 years without this album as part of my personal soundtrack.
To learn more about Wilco, check out their Wikipedia page.
To listen to all of the songs of the day, check out the Radio Faux Show Song of the Day playlist.
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