Wilco (the album)

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Release Date
DescriptionExcerpt

Wilco (the album), the band's seventh studio album, "is all about a great band playing great original music on an album filled with great songs," says NPR. The Independent gives a perfect five stars to the "magnificent" album, which finds Wilco "at the peak of its powers." BBC said the album features "some of their most charming pop rock ensemble playing" and asks, "Best live band? How about plain old best band in the world right now?" 

Description

Nonesuch Records released Wilco’s seventh studio recording, the aptly titled Wilco (the album), on June 30th, 2009. The new offering by the Chicago sextet features, among other things, eleven new songs, a duet with Canadian songwriter/vocalist Leslie Feist and a camel named Alfred as its cover star.

The new songs find Tweedy juxtaposing heady, heavy themes like disillusionment (“Country Disappeared”), martyrdom (“I’ll Fight”) and homicide (“Bull Black Nova”) with acceptance (“You Never Know”), love (“You and I”), humor (“Wilco (the song)”) and more. Sonically the album draws on many of the best elements of Wilco's wide-ranging previous work, while incorporating Tweedy's objective to "use the studio as another instrument.” The result is a unique, complex endeavor.

When the band began recording the follow up to 2007’s Sky Blue Sky in October 2008, it was mainly business as usual. The six members—Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Glenn Kotche, Nels Cline, Pat Sansone, and Mike Jorgensen—convened in Wilco’s longtime recording home, the Loft, on Chicago’s north side. They worked for a month, framing songs and recording basic tracks. When they left the studio for a few weeks of touring with Neil Young in late November/early December they assumed they’d return to the Loft in the new year to pick up where they left off.

In late December Tweedy, Stirratt, Kotche and Sansone detoured to New Zealand on the invitation of Crowded House’s Neil Finn to participate in 7 Worlds Collide—a collaborative benefit album and mini-tour featuring, in addition to the aforementioned Wilco members, Johnny Marr, Radiohead’s Phil Selway and Ed O’Brien, Finn’s son Liam, Lisa Germano, and others. At the recording helm was studio veteran Jim Scott, who worked previously as a mixer on several of Wilco’s earlier albums.

The reunion with Scott proved significant. After wrapping up work on 7 Worlds Collide, Tweedy and company decided to forestall the inevitable Chicago winter, opting for the sunny climes of New Zealand and Finn’s Roundhead Studios. There, with Jim Scott as co-producer and engineer, they resumed work on the latest recording.

After several weeks of writing and recording in Auckland, one by one, band members returned to Chicago. Joined by Scott and loaded with inspiration and vision, the full band reconvened at the Loft. From there the process was swift. Together with Scott, the six members worked, collaborating further on what they had started in October and expanding on what was recorded in New Zealand. Feist made a guest appearance at the Loft in February to record a duet that Tweedy had sent her months earlier, and the new record was done.

Wilco (the album) features the best aspects of a live performance album mixed with a layered, overdubbed studio album,” said Scott. “It also contains some of the best songs Jeff has ever written. I think they should have named it Wilco (their best album ever).”

ProductionCredits

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Wilco and Jim Scott
Recorded by Jim Scott
Additional engineering by Jordan Stone, TJ Doherty, and Jason Tobias
Recorded at Roundhead Studios, Auckland, New Zealand, and The Loft, Chicago
Mixed by Jim Scott with Kevin Dean at PLYRZ Studios, Santa Clarita, CA
Mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering, Portland, ME

All songs written by Jeff Tweedy except "Deeper Down" (Tweedy/Sansone)

Leslie Feist appears with courtesy of Polydor, a Universal Music France division

Photography: Autumn de Wilde
Graphic Design: Jeff Tweedy and Lawrence Azerrad

Nonesuch Selection Number

516608

Number of Discs in Set
1disc
Album Status
Artist Name
Wilco
MusicianDetails

MUSICIANS
Wilco are Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Glenn Kotche, Mikael Jorgensen, Nels Cline, and Pat Sansone
Wilco played rock band and non-rock band instruments and sang.
With Leslie Feist, vocals (5); Dave Max Crawford, trumpet (11); and Jason Tobias, slide cimbalom (2)

Cover Art
UPC/Price
Label
CD+MP3
UPC
075597984965BUN
Label
MP3
Price
9.00
UPC
075597984941
Label
LP+MP3
UPC
075597981896BUN
  • Wilco (the album)
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News & Reviews

  • Wilco's Jeff Tweedy joined Cheryl Pawelski in conversation at a Recording Academy event in Chicago celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the band's groundbreaking album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The super deluxe anniversary edition of the album, released in September 2022, earned them the Grammy Award for Best Historical Album in 2023 as compilation producers and writer Bob Mehr the Grammy for Best Album Notes. You can watch their conversation here.

  • Wilco’s 2007 album Sky Blue Sky is now available in a limited-edition two-LP, sky-blue vinyl release; you can take a quick look inside here. The Gold-selling album made year’s best lists from Rolling Stone, Uncut, Mojo, BBC Radio 6 Music, and more. “Near perfect,” said Spin. Featuring the band that was assembled after the release of 2004’s A ghost is born, Sky Blue Sky was the first studio album from a lineup that has remained the same to today: guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter Jeff Tweedy, bassist John Stirratt, percussionist Glenn Kotche, keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen, multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone, and avant-jazz guitarist Nels Cline.

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  • About This Album

    Nonesuch Records released Wilco’s seventh studio recording, the aptly titled Wilco (the album), on June 30th, 2009. The new offering by the Chicago sextet features, among other things, eleven new songs, a duet with Canadian songwriter/vocalist Leslie Feist and a camel named Alfred as its cover star.

    The new songs find Tweedy juxtaposing heady, heavy themes like disillusionment (“Country Disappeared”), martyrdom (“I’ll Fight”) and homicide (“Bull Black Nova”) with acceptance (“You Never Know”), love (“You and I”), humor (“Wilco (the song)”) and more. Sonically the album draws on many of the best elements of Wilco's wide-ranging previous work, while incorporating Tweedy's objective to "use the studio as another instrument.” The result is a unique, complex endeavor.

    When the band began recording the follow up to 2007’s Sky Blue Sky in October 2008, it was mainly business as usual. The six members—Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Glenn Kotche, Nels Cline, Pat Sansone, and Mike Jorgensen—convened in Wilco’s longtime recording home, the Loft, on Chicago’s north side. They worked for a month, framing songs and recording basic tracks. When they left the studio for a few weeks of touring with Neil Young in late November/early December they assumed they’d return to the Loft in the new year to pick up where they left off.

    In late December Tweedy, Stirratt, Kotche and Sansone detoured to New Zealand on the invitation of Crowded House’s Neil Finn to participate in 7 Worlds Collide—a collaborative benefit album and mini-tour featuring, in addition to the aforementioned Wilco members, Johnny Marr, Radiohead’s Phil Selway and Ed O’Brien, Finn’s son Liam, Lisa Germano, and others. At the recording helm was studio veteran Jim Scott, who worked previously as a mixer on several of Wilco’s earlier albums.

    The reunion with Scott proved significant. After wrapping up work on 7 Worlds Collide, Tweedy and company decided to forestall the inevitable Chicago winter, opting for the sunny climes of New Zealand and Finn’s Roundhead Studios. There, with Jim Scott as co-producer and engineer, they resumed work on the latest recording.

    After several weeks of writing and recording in Auckland, one by one, band members returned to Chicago. Joined by Scott and loaded with inspiration and vision, the full band reconvened at the Loft. From there the process was swift. Together with Scott, the six members worked, collaborating further on what they had started in October and expanding on what was recorded in New Zealand. Feist made a guest appearance at the Loft in February to record a duet that Tweedy had sent her months earlier, and the new record was done.

    Wilco (the album) features the best aspects of a live performance album mixed with a layered, overdubbed studio album,” said Scott. “It also contains some of the best songs Jeff has ever written. I think they should have named it Wilco (their best album ever).”

    Credits

    MUSICIANS
    Wilco are Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Glenn Kotche, Mikael Jorgensen, Nels Cline, and Pat Sansone
    Wilco played rock band and non-rock band instruments and sang.
    With Leslie Feist, vocals (5); Dave Max Crawford, trumpet (11); and Jason Tobias, slide cimbalom (2)

    PRODUCTION CREDITS
    Produced by Wilco and Jim Scott
    Recorded by Jim Scott
    Additional engineering by Jordan Stone, TJ Doherty, and Jason Tobias
    Recorded at Roundhead Studios, Auckland, New Zealand, and The Loft, Chicago
    Mixed by Jim Scott with Kevin Dean at PLYRZ Studios, Santa Clarita, CA
    Mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering, Portland, ME

    All songs written by Jeff Tweedy except "Deeper Down" (Tweedy/Sansone)

    Leslie Feist appears with courtesy of Polydor, a Universal Music France division

    Photography: Autumn de Wilde
    Graphic Design: Jeff Tweedy and Lawrence Azerrad