10 Best Wilco Songs
After last month's surprise new album Star Wars, what are the Chicago band's best ever songs?
Wilco are often called America’s Radiohead, and they’ve been critically-acclaimed since they formed back in 1994. Their magnum opus came in 2002 with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which got a perfect 10 from Pitchfork, but also nearly ripped the band apart.
Don’t be fooled by the fact that was 13 years ago, though. They’ve consistently made interesting and compelling music throughout their career, and newly-released ninth record Star Wars is no exception.
It arrived in July 2015 with little warning, and took just about everyone by surprise. The band posted short messages on Facebook and Twitter announcing its availability, and that was that. The very next day they performed it live, in full, at Pitchfork Festival in their hometown of Chicago. In keeping with its low-key introduction, frontman Jeff Tweedy described the album simply as “having a cat on the cover”.
A trim 11 tracks and just 33 minutes long, Star Wars is definitely the band’s most fun release, full of fuzz guitars and understated pop melodies. For a band who of late have become famed for virtuoso guitar solos, it’s also surprisingly focused - there’s not much widdling to be found here.
In short, it’s very good indeed, and testament to the fact that in their third decade of existence and onto their ninth line-up, they’re still producing visionary music and evolving their sound.
But with a back catalogue of well over 120 album tracks, plus countless rarities, outtakes and alternative versions, just what counts as definitive Wilco?
10. You Satellite
As this post is inspired by Star Wars’ surprise release, it seems apt to start there. While tracks such as Random Name Generator, Where Do I Begin and The Joke Explained are some of Wilco’s best songs in years, its standout is You Satellite.
Lots of the album is upbeat, fuzzy and - whisper it - fun, but this is a slow burner, and could easily drop onto one of their classic albums. Pitched somewhere between Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’s sparsity and A Ghost Is Born’s experimentalism, it features a repeating two chord guitar pattern that underpins everything, while eerie background noises give it depth.
Its most fascinating aspect is its descending guitar line, that seems to never pick one time-signature and stick with it, which gives an ever-changing feel to things despite the simplicity of it all.