Wilco - "Sky Blue Sky" (Top 4 Smash!)

[reception]

Reviewed by Edna Gundersen
USA Today

Wilco, Sky Blue Sky: * * * (out of four) More pop, less experimenting

Jeff Tweedy’s voice - confident and relaxed, with enough husk to suggest world-weary wisdom - anchors the band’s sixth album, a jangly Americana affair with a plethora of ’70s signposts. Coming on the heels of such experimental forays as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born, Sky Blue Sky is surprisingly straightforward, laying bare tasteful melodies, sumptuous guitars and unambiguous lyrics that prove no less satisfying than Wilco’s knottier constructions.

[joker]

The A.V. Club interviews Jeff Tweedy (2 pages)

[roentgenizdat]

Review: Wilco Unveils More Restrained, Intricate Sound On 'Sky Blue Sky'

Wilco: "Blue Sky Blue"
Producer: Wilco
Nonesuch
Release Date: May 15

With "Sky Blue Sky," Wilco eschews the sonic adventurousness of its last two records in favor of more subdued material. Gone are the electronic blips and blurps and 10-minute homages to Kraftwerk, replaced by rootsy, often acoustic-driven songs that call to mind '70s light rock. One can hear traces of the Beatles' "Something" on opener "Either Way," while the rest of the album stews together the Band, Pink Floyd circa "Meddle" and the Allman Brothers. On first listen, it might seem too derivative, even dull, but Jeff Tweedy's intricate vocal melodies and Nels Cline's ferocious guitar work keep things interesting. Best of the bunch: the twin guitar soloing of "Impossible Germany," the head-nodding, twangy strut of "Walken" and the emotional crescendo of "On and On and On." What's most impressive is the band's ability to gracefully shift from one style to the next -- from track to track, album after album -- and continue to deliver quality songs. --Ben French

[areyoureadytojump]

HITS:

...while Nonesuch critical darlings Wilco return with a lauded new album, Sky Blue Sky, that seems headed for 50-55k, based on its #3 ranking on iTunes and a Starbucks presence.

[joker]

Another Jeff Tweedy interview, this time with Mother Jones.

[reception]

Wilco's 'Sky' mixes virtuosity, humdrum

Reviewed by Richard Cromelin
Los Angeles Times

"Sky Blue Sky" by Wilco; Nonesuch

When Wilco signed up Nels Cline as its guitarist a few years ago, it looked as if the sky was the limit. Wilco's ability to bend its folk and rock roots with adventurous experimentation had already made it one of the most admired bands in American music, and with Cline they added a musician known for fiercely inventive avant-jazz explorations, as well as more grounded work with rock bands such as Bloc and the Geraldine Fibbers.

Now here's Wilco's first studio album with Cline (as well as newly recruited multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone), and wouldn't you know it? "Sky Blue Sky" is the most musically direct and down to earth of the band's six-album career. Which underscores two things: Cline is as valuable for his taste as for his pyrotechnics, and Wilco indisputably remains Jeff Tweedy's band.

Tweedy and his five bandmates expand on the songs' folk- and soul-music basics with ensemble playing that's both spontaneous and meticulous. Even if he is a team player here, Cline has frequent moments of exquisite guitar work, with elegiac leads of liquid purity and agitated interaction with Tweedy's and/or Sansone's guitar.

All that helps compensate for a diminished level of mystery that sometimes leaves the album a little prosaic. Wilco might be down to earth, but we don't want them to be entirely of the earth.

[joker]

Hit List: Jeff Tweedy (Wall Street Journal)

[joker]

Wilco aboard

Don't think you know what to expect from him now that Jeff Tweedy has cleaned up his act, writes Guy Blackman.

'This idea that it's all about life and death - it's not. There's life, and there's death."

Jeff Tweedy is a man who struggles against misconceptions. The 39-year-old singer has led his roots-born, rock-raised group Wilco through six studio albums since 1995, but has felt pigeon-holed and misunderstood at every turn.

He was an alt-country hero after Wilco rose from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo, a band whose sound and style virtually launched that modern country rock genre. Then he was a traitor to the cause, when Wilco began to cast aside narrow definitions and explore its experimental side on 1997's Being There.

Next, he was an erratic addict, hooked on painkillers and booked into rehab just before the release of the fifth album, A Ghost Is Born, in 2004 (the band's first US top-10 hit).

Now Tweedy is battling with a different myth - that of the artist as tortured soul.

"Art can come out of anything, not just suffering," he says patiently, backstage at the Palais Theatre during Wilco's recent Australian tour. "That's something people seem to have a tough time comprehending. The myth perpetuates itself in the celebrity-driven culture we live in, because it makes really good ink.

"What people don't seem to get is that everybody suffers. Even people who are doing well, they have moments when they suffer."

Because Tweedy is now a not-so-tortured artist: the tumultuous period of line-up upheaval and record label limbo captured in Sam Jones' 2002 documentary, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, is far behind him. The daily migraines, which Tweedy says were the result of an undiagnosed anxiety disorder, are likewise a thing of the past. Just months shy of his 40th birthday, the singer has entered a steady, balanced phase of life, and wants to keep it that way.

"It's an ongoing process, but I feel good," he says. "I haven't smoked in two years, and I haven't had a migraine in almost three years. I feel really good about the changes I've been able to make in my life."

Sky Blue Sky, therefore, is an intriguing proposition - the first Wilco record since Tweedy cast aside his demons. Therefore, in some ways, its steady, stripped-back simplicity is just what you'd expect, but in the end, it's another album to confound narrow-minded listeners.

After avant-garde guitarist Nels Cline (who has worked with the likes of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and jazz legend Charlie Haden) joined in 2004, many fans of Wilco's experimental side hoped the new album would continue in that direction, and so the comparatively straightforward Sky Blue Sky has left them disappointed.

"We're getting the same reaction from those people as when the band introduced its experimental elements, and the folk contingent was outraged," Tweedy says. "I think Nels, like a lot of people that play that style of music, is a little bit misunderstood. People believe that that style is a dismissal of all other things, and it's not. There's plenty of people, like myself and Nels, that really enjoy a record by (Japanese free noise artist) Merzbow, and at the same time can appreciate the Byrds."

Tweedy says the new album was made by a band who just love to play together (as heard on last year's live album, Kicking Television), six guys sitting in a circle in their own studio, playing without headphones all in the same room.

"It's something we've always attempted, but I was more successful at it this time because I had a lot fewer issues regarding health or addiction," he admits.

Accordingly, Tweedy's lyrics, which were growing more abstract and poetic with each album, are again disarmingly direct. And this is another misconception that Tweedy feels the need to correct, the idea that simple lyrics are somehow artless or easy to construct.

"A lot of people seem to be responding to it as 'The lyrics are simple'. There's some judgement being made about the idea that it's direct," he says. "I would argue that it takes a lot more courage to come directly to some topic and say, 'I care about this, so I don't want to be misunderstood'."

Sky Blue Sky sounds like a record addressed to just one person, and Tweedy admits that the album is in part a gift to his wife of 11 years, Sue Miller. It's a symbol of his new-found commitment to the simple, steady and positive things in life.

"There've been many songs that people have read a lot into over the years, songs that sounded very dismal," Tweedy says. "People took them to be autobiographical, and there were certainly things that would be painful for anyone's wife to contemplate. So it was a chance for me to be able to say to my wife, 'No, these are the songs that are actually directed at you'."

And in turning away from conflict and turmoil as artistic inspiration, Tweedy holds up pre-punk hero Jonathan Richman, who rejected the prevailing '70s atmosphere of hedonism and self-indulgence, as a role model

"That's really one of the boldest, bravest rock'n'roll stances anyone's ever taken," he says. "Like, 'I'm straight, I'm not going to get high, I'm eating health food'. It's beautiful, and that's what expression's all about."

Sky Blue Sky is out now.

[joker]

HITS:

-- 4 WILCO NONESUCH/ATLANTIC/AG 75,436 --
SKY BLUE SKY

Amazing numbers, I believe they had predicted ~50k. If the #4 spot holds up tomorrow, it's a career best!

[nucker]

I picked this album up on a whim after downloading a few songs. It was a good decision.

[areyoureadytojump]

Billboard:

At No. 4, "Sky Blue Sky" becomes Wilco's second top 10 album and highest-charting effort yet with 87,000. That represents its biggest sales week, surpassing its previous sales high, when 2004's "A Ghost Is Born" bowed at No. 8 with 81,000. The new album moved 20,000 via digital retailers -- 23% of its first-week sales ...

[joker]

87k, great!

[joker]

nucker said:

I picked this album up on a whim after downloading a few songs. It was a good decision.

Nice.... while this album probably won't go down as their masterpiece, there's plenty here to make this a satisfying listen.

[areyoureadytojump]

6/2 chart

04 NEW 01 Wilco, Sky Blue Sky 87,342 363 999 87,716

[joker]

NPR - All Things Considered
May 26, 2007

Not everyone ends up at a parade on purpose. Singer Jeff Tweedy of the band Wilco found himself trapped by one years ago in his hometown of Belleville, Ill. That moment inspired the title track song of Wilco's new album, Sky Blue Sky. Tweedy shares this memory and reflects on how it changed him.

Listen @ the link

[joker]

They were on "Later With Jools Holland" last week. Click (and scroll down) for the vids of "You Are My Face" and "Sky Blue Sky".

[joker]

Wilco's lighter shade of blue

By BERNARD ZUEL - SMH | Wednesday, 30 May 2007

KINDA BLUE: Wilco songwriter Jeff Tweedy says his band's new album Blue Sky Blue reflects his current contentedness.

In a noisy room beneath the stage at Sydney's Enmore Theatre, Jeff Tweedy is washing down pistachios with diet cola. All natural. Almost. His eyes, once clouded by migraines and an addiction - since overcome - to the drugs prescribed to treat them, are clear. And amused.


At least some of this amusement is caused by listening to my theories on the music of his band, Wilco. Over six albums they have moved from country rock and Beatlesque pop to a German-influenced arty sound and now, on Sky Blue Sky, a mix of all these plus '70s classic rock.

Throughout all this, one question has remained. When would Tweedy stop beating himself up? Sky Blue Sky suggests that at last he has grown to like or accept himself a little bit more. Forgiven himself, even.

"Well, um. I'll always be a restless person, you know, but I think that there is a certain contentedness with that now that didn't exist on other records," he says eventually.

What was it about the restlessness that he didn't like? "I don't know if it was ever something I was conscious of. I just didn't like feeling terrible," he chuckles again. "That's pretty simple."

There, I venture, has been the impression in his music of an unhappiness about the way Tweedy did things, about the way he handled his personal and professional relationships. Sky Blue Sky sounds like someone who no longer thinks less of himself for the bad calls he's made.

"I don't know," he says. "In a lot of ways I think musically [now] I've been a lot more healthy and lyrically I've been able to explore things with more maturity. It's hard for me to look at it and see that there was a lot of apparent unhappiness or dissatisfaction in the music I was making, even before I got healthy. I feel that that was one area I felt pretty good about.

"I think it makes more sense to me to think about it in terms of not necessarily being unsatisfied with who I am, just more troubled by the reality of the fact that who we are is pretty ambiguous. Being able to tolerate ambiguity is something that is very difficult for anybody but I think you have a much more difficult time doing it when you feel terrible and you're struggling with depression and different things.

"You want things to be black-and-white: this is good, I want to feel like a good person, I want to feel healthy. Nothing ever really is like that. That I can hear in the records.

"I can hear a searching for this idea that you need to figure out who you are and I struggle with that notion. I feel more accurately what this record is saying and has more than any other record, is this ease with the idea that, OK, it is a struggle, there is ambiguity, but I can handle it. I think this [album] is more intellectually honest than saying I've got it figured out."

Sometimes an audience wants the artist to be black-and-white, to stay the same, but the irony in audiences wanting that is that the way we listen and respond to music changes depending on our age and circumstances in life. The way we responded at 20 - optimistic about life, untethered, unknowing - is likely to be quite different from the way we respond at 40 - more seasoned, more encumbered, more wearied.

"I think what happens more often than not is that when people start to have that violent reaction against something changing, say a band they care about, what they really hate is that they've changed and that they can't stop themselves from changing," Tweedy suggests.

"People hate the fact that they change, human beings just don't like it. I'm convinced that there is no correct way that we could ever address this problem. We couldn't set out to make a record that would make everybody happy because we would never succeed. All you're left with is this idea that you make something that you love and that you care about."

[joker]

Jeff Tweedy on Comedy Central's "Lil' Bush"

History is being made over at Comedy Central: The network we love to laugh with (save the looping MADtv reruns; make it stop!) has picked up the animated satire Lil' Bush, originally an Amp'd Mobile downloadable short, for a six episode run this June -- marking the first time a mobisode has made the jump to the little screen from the, uh, littler screen. The beefed up TV cast will include Iggy Pop as Lil' Rummy (that's Donald Rumsfeld) and, awesomely, Jeff Tweedy as Lil' God ("Thou shalt not compare us to the Eagles"). The show also promises voice overs from Dave Grohl and the Chili Peppers. No word on whether it promises to be better than the trailer, though.

Trailer @ the link

[joker]

6/9 Chart:

13 4 2 WILCO SKY BLUE SKY

[busyboy]

Robert Christgau review:

Wilco: 'Sky Blue Sky' (Nonesuch)

Though it's possible Jeff Tweedy's wife told him to stop being a pretentious tweet, it's more likely she just told him to stop ignoring her. This doesn't mean he actually was ignoring her, mind you. But too late he figured he'd better make a point of paying attention, which meant no more pretentious tweet (for the time being). On the second-best track here, he does the dishes and mows the lawn even though she's not around to appreciate it. On the best, he admits consumers have the right to think his music means whatever they want it to. Everywhere he stops soundscaping and resumes songwriting.

Grade: B PLUS

[roentgenizdat]

Pitchfork: Wilco License Sky Blue Sky to VW Commercials

For their very first commercial licensing deal, Wilco have given Volkswagen half of the songs on Sky Blue Sky to use in an ad campaign that features the tag line "When you get into a Volkswagen, it gets into you."

That's kind of nasty if you think about it.

According to AdAge.com, ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (which is responsible for designing quite a few other VW ad campaigns) created the TV spots, of which there will be six in total. Each one features a different song from the album, and the first -- featuring "The Thanks I Get" and viewable below -- is already airing. The campaign will run throughout the summer, and the car company will stream all of the songs used on its website.

Billboard: Wilco Takes A Spin With Volkswagen For TV Ads

June 05, 2007, 11:20 AM ET
Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.

Wilco has taken to its official Web site to explain its partnership with Volkswagen, which is running a series of TV ads set to songs from the band's new album, "Sky Blue Sky."

So far, the spots feature "You Are My Face" and the "Sky Blue Sky" bonus track "The Thanks I Get," with three or four additional songs due to soundtrack upcoming ads, according to the band.

"This is a subject we've discussed internally many times over the years regarding movies, TV shows and even the odd advertisement," the band says. "With the commercial radio airplay route getting more difficult for many bands (including Wilco), we see this as another way to get the music out there. As with most of the above (with the debatable exception of radio) the band gets paid for this. And we feel okay about VWs. Several of us even drive them."

The Web posting goes on to explain that the deal is not a first for Wilco, despite claims to the contrary from Volkswagen. "Wilco have licensed hundreds of songs to television shows and films worldwide," the band says, adding that frontman Jeff Tweedy has also appeared in an Apple Computer campaign and that a song was previously utilized in a TV ad for Spain's Telefonica Mobile.

Wilco's decision to pact with Volkswagen has generated an avalanche of feedback on the Internet, some of it so negative that Tweedy's brother-in-law, Danny Miller, has weighed in on his own blog.

Wilco kicks off a summer North American tour June 13 in Davenport, Iowa.

[joker]

Wilco Defend Selling Music For Car Commercial
It brings their music to more people...

Wilco have defended their decision to allow car makers Volkswagen to use their music in commercials.

The band have come under fire from some fans saying the alt-rock legends have sold out by donating their music to the car giant. But the band have reacted saying it helps their music reach a wider audience.

They said in an official statement “we see this as another way to get the music out there.”

It continued: “And we feel okay about VWs. Several of us even drive them." The full statement (if you can be bothered) reads:

As many of you are aware, Volkswagen has recently begun running a series of TV commercials featuring Wilco music.

Why? This is a subject we've discussed internally many times over the years regarding movies, TV shows and even the odd advertisement. With the commercial radio airplay route getting more difficult for many bands (including Wilco); we see this as another way to get the music out there. As with most of the above (with the debatable exception of radio) the band gets paid for this. And we feel okay about VWs. Several of us even drive them.

If you're keeping track, this is not the first time Wilco has licensed a song to or even been involved in a commercial -- most recently a TV spot for Telefonica Mobile in Spain used a Wilco song and some years prior Jeff Tweedy appeared in a campaign for Apple Computer. Wilco have licensed hundreds of songs to television shows and films worldwide... from festival-only indie films to major motion pictures and weekly TV shows.

Thus far the songs in the VW campaign are "The Thanks I Get" (a bonus track from Sky Blue Sky sessions, available for download via the Enhanced CD and via iTunes) and "You are my Face". We expect to have more details re: other songs shortly. The current plan (subject to change, like everything) is for 5 or 6 songs to be used.

That's it. Don't believe everything you read unless you read it here.

[roentgenizdat]

06/16: 13 23 WILCO SKY BLUE SKY 24,726 -29 34,833 147,275

[roentgenizdat]

06/23: 23 41 WILCO SKY BLUE SKY 16,992 24,726 164,267

[roentgenizdat]

06/30: 41 49 WILCO SKY BLUE SKY 15,585 16,992 -8 179,852

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07/07: 49 55 WILCO SKY BLUE SKY 12,976 15,585 192,828

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07/14: 55 67 WILCO SKY BLUE SKY

[roentgenizdat]

07/21: 67 90 WILCO SKY BLUE SKY 8,308 -25 11,045 212,181

[roentgenizdat]

07/28: 90 112 WILCO SKY BLUE SKY 6,478 8,308 218,659

[roentgenizdat]

08/04: 112 121 WILCO SKY BLUE SKY 6,020 6,478 -7 224,679