Wilco No one is more aware than Wilco that, on the heels of albums
titled Schmilco and Star Wars, reappropriating the title of one of the
most famous works of music in history—and in these times*, no
less—could come off to some as slightly disingenuous. But while
acknowledging his band’s own history of irreverence, here Jeff
Tweedy snubs that angle, intending that we should take Wilco’s 11th
studio album, Ode to Joy, with open hearts. “I think it’s
audacious and sincere,” Tweedy says. “It just kept coming back as
the one title that felt honest. The record is, in a weird way, an ode;
this terrible stuff is happening, this deepening sense of creeping
authoritarianism that weighs on everybody’s psyche on a daily basis,
and you’re allowed to feel a lot of things at once. And one thing
that is worth feeling, that is worth fighting for, is your freedom to
still have joy even though things are going to shit.” Besides, no
one is more aware than Wilco that, on the heels of ten damn Wilco
albums—and especially in these times**—an 11th simply wouldn’t
be warranted were it not presenting something equally new and
necessary. *Political Climate, global; **Rock Music Climate,
especially that of white men “Nobody needs more Wilco music,”
Tweedy says. “But at the same time, if you use that as motivation,
that’s a lot of energy to push forward and try to make something
that is worth sharing, to challenge yourself to make something that
has meaning to you. As an artist, I think that’s your fucking
job.” Following a year that produced a pair of solo albums as well
as a bound autobiographical memoir, no one could ever accuse Tweedy of
lacking a motor. But where those recent works reveled in their
incisive, confessional focus, Wilco, as he says, has a broader
mandate, one that requires the space to react to a sonic environment
with a little more abstraction being baked into the equation. And so,
with an eye on The Climates yet resolute in his belief that they
should not dominate the headlines of our daily lives, he gathered
Wilco to The Loft in Chicago for work. “I wanted to write lyrics and
create an environment for them that felt like our current
landscape,” he says. “It forces us to ask, What do you do with
those really insular feelings that feel almost shameful to allow
yourself to indulge because of the greater amount of suffering you are
witnessing? Well, so far I’ve only been able to figure out that you
make art with them. But I don’t want to ignore the reality that they
are somehow smaller than the landscape. And it’s a weird landscape
to make art in, because at the same time I don’t want to talk about
it directly, I don’t want Him or That to own my joy or my art—they
don’t deserve it. They can’t have everything. So that allowed for
the music to provide a lot of the commentary.” On the subject of
resistance, another looming elephant in the room provided the band a
second behemoth of which to be wary: rock music itself. “I am at a
moment in my life where I feel the canon of Baby Boomer Rockism
tropes—Rockist music—is complicit,” Tweedy says. “All of the
music I hear that draws upon those tropes feels like it’s based in
fear: I’m afraid that we are not going to have any audience anymore
if we don’t keep perpetuating this. That notion is completely
divorced from the most important aspect of what rock and roll is to
me: selfliberation, self-actualization, self-invention. I can probably
intuit that because I know that I’ve felt it. Rockism is not
intellectually an honest place to be, so this is more just a personal
observation of what I don’t want to do.” From its very onset, Ode
to Joy reflects and rejects these notions while building up far
greater ideas from their foundations. Throughout the entire album,
drums pound and plod with a steady one–two pulse, meant to mimic the
movement of marching—a powerful act utilized on both sides of the
authoritarian wall. From the sparse and lovely opening duo of
“Bright Leaves” and “Before Us” to the Nels Cline guitar
freakouts of “We Were Lucky” and the gorgeously fractured final
tune “An Empty Corner,” Glenn Kotche’s percussion propels the
music forward while Tweedy’s measured words flesh out the cleared
paths. While all six members of the band can be heard on every
song—most clearly on the upbeat acoustic numbers “Everyone
Hides” and “Love Is Everywhere (Beware)”—it’s clear that
Tweedy and Kotche were the launching pad from which most of the songs
materialized, as they sketched initial ideas for the album together as
a duo. By focusing on a unique rhythm track and a minimalist
instrumental accompaniment— typically acoustic guitar—and pairing
that with observant lyrics at once hopeful, morbid, tolerant, and
abstract, the band’s vision was achieved. “They’re really big,
big folks songs, these monolithic, brutal structures that these
delicate feelings are hung on—that’s basically how I feel right
now,” Tweedy says. “Everything is designed to be authoritarian.
There is a sense of foreboding but there’s also a desire to have
some comfort, and to me that marching sound is really pleasing, almost
like a heartbeat or something elemental, like a nice Q-tip in your
ear. I’m not saying I’m depicting the current American landscape,
I’m just trying to have something feel the way I feel when I think
about it.” Whether our joy is measured by sparks felt when clutching
old sweaters to our chests, by the number of tiny digital hearts
earned from a shared photograph, by a guitar solo or a drumbeat or a
piece of cotton on a stick, or by something even greater, Wilco wants
to sincerely remind us to wear that feeling loud and proud. This is
Ode to Joy: pick it up, hold it tight. - See upcoming events +
giveaways at The Fillmore -
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01/04/2020 Last update