Arts and Entertainment
Album Review: The Whole Love - Wilco
By Ian Wayne '12, WHCL Senior Advisor
September 29, 2011
Wilco fans are often too lovey-dovey to hate anything the band puts out. Those who drank the punch long enough ago for it to have worn off were rightfully repulsed by the Chicago-based crew’s last release, Wilco (the Album). We feared the thing would be a tombstone. In a return to familiar style, Jeff Tweedy and the whole gang clawed their way out of the grave with their new release, The Whole Love, without making it look difficult.
If Wilco (the Album) was, as I heard Tweedy call it, the first album he made as a stable adult (i.e. not addled by drug addiction or depression), then I’m not sure what this is. All the things about Wilco that made me feel like the band was sliding into Dad-Rockdom (as in the refrain “WILCO!!”) are gone—or at least less prominent—but, as far as I know, Tweedy is still happy. Whatever the cause, I can listen to The Whole Love over and over again.
I agree with what seems to be the dominant reading: The Whole Love is a collection of songs representing the course of Wilco’s 15-year career. The opening two tracks of the album, “Art of Almost” and “I Might” are strange and interesting, playing with looped ambient sound, gargling guitar and bass lines plotted over the top. This experimental, engaging sound catches our ears similar to Summerteeth (1999) and A Ghost Is Born (2004). “Born Alone” has a bright, riff-heavy guitar line and melody with the light bursts of energy from A.M. (1995). “Open Mind” is twangy, sweet and restrained like the late tracks on Being There (1996). “Dawned On Me” grasps at the ingenuity of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002), but falls short of that album’s musical ambition.
“One Sunday Morning” gives us a sense of what Wilco is now. It’s a beautiful ride with the repose, care and attention of six musicians who are all grown up, but not through with making interesting albums. There’s also no illusion that the band is anything other than The Jeffy Tweedy Show; drummer Glenn Kotche and virtuoso lead guitarist Nels Cline are both used to little effect. But there’s no use fighting the tide—Wilco albums will probably never bite the way that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born did. We can only be thankful that The Whole Love asks us to give it some thought.