Skip to main content

149. Wilco: Summerteeth (1999)

Writer's Note: This was the second album review I ever wrote. It appeared in the Augustana Observer on March 26, 1999.

Wilco is one of those rare prolific bands that never seems to run out of quality material. From 1995 to 1999 the band released the equivalent of a record per year and always managed to show up on critics' end-of-the-year lists.

Wilco rose from the ashes of country rock darlings Uncle Tupelo. The group's two songwriters started rival bands, Jay Farrar formed Son Volt, Jeff Tweedy (and drummer Ken Croomer) formed Wilco. Both bands continued the roots rock sound of their former group, with a bit of twang and a debt owed to Neil Young.

Summerteeth, Wilco's fourth album, found the band sneaking away from the genre that defined them, showing barely a hint of twang. Instead of Hank Williams, it seems Tweedy was listening to the Beach Boys. The band still made singable songs with lyrics that are sweet ("When I forget how to talk I sing") and scary ("I dreamed about killing you again last night and it felt alright to me") but this is the album where they discovered the wonder of the studio. Much of country rock's appeal is based in the visceral experience of the live performance, but Wilco layers sounds like multi-tracking was just invented yesterday: guitars sigh, keyboards tumble, bells sway, birds chirp and horns jump.

The catchy choruses and high harmonies belie the sometimes hopeless lyrics. ELT boasts a rocking riff with the repeated warning: "Every little thing is gonna tear you apart". The plaintive How To Fight Loneliness begins with a pretty acoustic guitar and Tweedy's raspy voice telling us to "Smile all the time / Shine your teeth till meaningless / Sharpen them with lies."

Even so, observations of life's problems are tempered with messages of perseverance, and it's no more apparent than when Tweedy proclaims, "Nothing's ever gonna stand in my way again!"

Other highlights include the bonus track Candyfloss, which bops along like a lost '60s bubblegum hit, and I'm Always In Love, a peppy rumination on the contradictions of romance. If you think about it, Wilco themselves exemplify contradictions, quality and quantity, rootsy and poppy, depressed and hopeful.

Summerteeth stands in my mind as Wilco's best record, in a field with strong competition. It's an album for those who relish the art of song; for those who love to listen again and again and discover new surprises every time.

Grade: A
Fave Song: ELT

Comments

Uncle E said…
When you say it's Wilco's fourth album, I assume you're referring to the Wilco/Billy Bragg colab Mermaid Ave as their third?
Uncle E said…
...by the way, excellent review! My favorite Wilco album and the comparison to Brian Wilson is spot on!

Popular posts from this blog

12 by Matthew Sweet (2002 - 2021)

Sometimes a huge part of an artist's career has not been summarized. Case in point... Matthew Sweet has a couple of compliations out there, but neither of them cover the past couple of decades, a span that has seen him release 8 albums of original material and 3 albums of covers.  I followed Sweet's career religiously early on, with my ardor gradually diminishing after the magnificant one-two punch of In Reverse (1999) and The Thorns (2003) That's not to say he hasn't produced some great work since then, it's just that it requires bit of effort to pick out the gems. Here's my college try: (Two of these albums are not available on streaming servies, so here's a slightly modified version of the playlist on YouTube .) 1. "I Can't Remember" ( The Thorns , 2003) The Thorns was a rootsy, close-harmony early-aughts version of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, featuring Shawn Mullins (of "Lullaby" fame) and Pete Droge (of "If You Don't Lov

2022: The Album

Since 2003 I've made a mix of some of my favorite songs of the calendar year. Here's the cover art and track listing for the 2022 edition. 1. BODEGA - "Pillar on the Bridge of You" 2. Harry Styles - "Late Night Talking" 3. Vicious Vicious - "Evolution" 4. Hot Freaks - "Lovely" 5. Carly Rae Jepsen - "The Loneliest Time" 6. Tears for Fears - "End of Night" 7. Spoon - "Wild" 8. Death Cab for Cutie - "Here to Forever" 9. Citrine and GUKKO - "Feel Better" 10. Rhett Miller - "Fascination" 11. Broken Bells - "Fade Away" 12. Leah Marlene - "Flowers" 13. Robbie Williams - "The World and Her Mother" 14. Jimmy Eat World - "Something Loud" (acoustic version) 15. Sloan - "Dream It All Over Again" If you have Amazon Unlimited, you can listen at this link . 

Weezer: SZNZ Abbreviated

One of the most oldest and most enticing thought exercises in pop music is: What if (artist) had released the best songs from (double album) as a single disc instead?  Pre-Internet, folks used their cassette decks to create their own truncated versions of likes of The Beatles'  White Album ("Revolution 9" has to go, for sure) and Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (sorry, "Jamaica Jerk-Off"), some out of artistic vision, others because the tape just wasn't long enough to hold all the songs. Now, with mp3s and streaming, we have the ability to curate everything for ourselves, which means even a single album could be reduced to an EP of your faves, with the shuffle feature making it so the order doesn't even have to be the same every time. Here's where I could detour into a healthy digression about the negative consequences of that total freedom, but I'll resist the temptation. Our good friends Weezer - who are not typically known for rest