And while we agree nothing beats flipping through the bins, we encourage you to check in with your local record store to see if you can peruse their inventory online. Scott Simon, Weekend Edition: So tell us please about Cruel Country. But it is less polished, like the most beautifully ornamented home recording imaginable. In celebration, Jeff played shows (Feb/March 2022) in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and Dallas alongside the album band featuring Spencer Tweedy, Sammy Tweedy, Liam Kazar, Sima Cunningham and James Elkington (plus Macie Stewart on violin). But even for doubters, the consistency and quality here will be stunning. They played Casino Queen twice! The Loft Reel takes a closer look at the bands iconic Chicago studio, The Green Room Reel shows rare backstage snaps, and the Live Sessions Reel gets up close with the band members on stage. 17-Across, Four Letters: 2010 title role for Angelina Jolie. And now that the group itself has decades of its catalog behind it, Cruel Country also circles back to Wilcos own past; the band used a similar hand-played, live-in-the-studio approach on its 2007 album, Sky Blue Sky. The country music that Wilco embraced on that album, and returns to through most of Cruel Country, has a particular vintage: the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Buck Owens and Merle Haggard were pushing country toward rock while bands like the Grateful Dead, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers were connecting three-chord country to psychedelia. And if you had time that day you'd maybe add something on it. Thanks! Jeff spoke to CBS This Morning about the initiative, watch the interview here. Cruel Country is almost entirely composed of live takes recorded at the Loft in Chicagoa method not employed by Wilco since recording Sky Blue Sky and follows a loose conceptual narrative. Get your tickets here: wilcoskybluesky.com. Watch the Tweedys sing Evergreen from Jeffs album WARMER here. And because it is the country I love, and because its country music that I love, I feel a responsibility to investigate their mirrored problematic natures. Hes singing about lovebut also about America, where dreams and destinations glitter like baubles in a shop. Songs were recorded live, taped as quickly, loosely, and freely as they were written. The following interview has been condensed and edited. I think theres been an assumption over the years that Wilco is some sort of country band, Tweedy wrote in a lengthy letter about the new album, the bands first studio LP since 2019s Ode to Joy. Enjoy a live cut from the night now. Many of the album's best moments are wordless ones. Its boring, they dont tell you that, closer The Plains notes, Wait its all they ever say / Its hard to watch nothing change. What good am I?, the unnervingly sweet All Across the World asks. Cruel Country, an Album by Wilco. Available on 2-LP (black and color vinyl) or 2-CD. Tickets are available here. You've had the same lineup since 2004. What good can I do / When I can barely stand / Knowing whats true? Taking inventory of American disorder in the title track (I love my country, stupid and cruel / Red, white, and blue), an evil twin to the ragged optimism of Being Theres Red-Eyed and Blue, and in songs like Hints (There is no middle when the other side / Would rather kill than compromise), Cruel Country absolves itself of responsibility for what it cant control and pledges to work on all it can fix. A new Wilco song called TellYour Friends is availablefor immediate downloadwitha charitable contribution via Bandcamp. *Sorry, there was a problem signing you up. The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time In his 2019 book, How to Write One Song, the singer-songwriter explained that writing is a chance to watch your concept of time evaporate, to live at least once inside a moment when you arent trying to do anything or be anything anymore. In Lets Go, he told us his songs are messages to himself in the future: If I have some epiphany that Im sure Ill eventually forget, I make a mental note to stash the basic premise in a song somewhere so I can have the lesson refreshed from time to time. Cruel Country feels like a collection of those notes, a man pondering his smallness in the grand scheme of the history of the universe. 2023 Vox Media, LLC. Cruel Country is the band's exploration of the genre they've often been defined by but, until now, never fully embraced. Record Store Day has compiled a helpfullistto get you started. "I love my country like a little boy," Jeff Tweedy sings on "Cruel Country," the title track of Wilco 's twelfth studio album. Password must be at least 8 characters and contain: As part of your account, youll receive occasional updates and offers from New York, which you can opt out of anytime. Artwork by Grammy winning designer Lawrence Azerrad.Engineered and Mixed by Tom Schick at The Loft. This week, American Idol crowned Noah Thompson, a scruffy-goateed 20-year-old construction worker from Kentucky, as its 20th seasons winner. Cruel Country debuted at #190 on the Billboard 200 during the chart week ending of February 4, 2023. Its like fishing or watching youth sports: If you like it, you can do it all weekend; if you dont, the level of tedium can become almost psychedelic. But to be honest, weve never been particularly comfortable with accepting that definition of the music we make. 10 years ago I put together this book to commemorate an exhibit at the first Solid Sound Festival an exhibit of 100 photographs chosen from the thousands I had taken in the previous few years. But to be honest, we've never been particularly comfortable with accepting that definition of the music we make. NYT Critic's Pick Wilco's "Cruel Country" makes a modest first impression for a magnum opus. Originally released in May 2022 (digital only) and in a limited pre-release CD edition for the June RSD drop, lead tracks Falling Apart (Right Now) and Tired Of Taking It Out On You have already become staples on non-commercial, public and AAA radio. All rights reserved. Originally given digitally to Solid Sound participantsfor free,followed by a digital release May 27 (the same day the band performed it liveinits entirety at the festival). Our country", Wilco Goes Country on New Double Album Cruel Country, Paul Oakenfold Faces Sexual Harassment Lawsuit From Former Personal Assistant, Fugees Stage Surprise (and Potentially Final) Reunion at Roots Picnic, Taylor Swift and Maren Morris Finally Got to Play You All Over Me Together at Chicago Show, Foo Fighters Power Through Pain On One of Their Best Records Ever, See DJ Khaled, DMC, and Melle Mel Talk Hip-Hop's Roots in New Educational Video, Moneybagg Yo Balances Pain and Pleasure on 'Hard To Love', Renee Rapp Changed Directions for 'Snow Angel' LP; Now It's Finally Coming Out. And the hits just keep on coming. Looks like this album is only available via digital download. I Am My Mother opens the album with images of immigrants on the Southern border and the paranoia they inspire in the morally feeble, while Hints reflects on how optimistic notions of American exceptionalism have warped into the extremism of the post-Trump era: There is no middle when the other side would rather kill than compromise, Tweedy offers. The Wilco x Oxford Pennant collection isback in stock and better than ever. Available now and ready for your ideas, setlists and meeting notes. Its like fishing or watching youth sports: If you like it, you can do it all weekend; if you dont, the level of tedium can become almost psychedelic. With this album though, Ill tell you what, Wilco is digging in and calling it country.. I want to talk about music in a way that it rarely gets talked about. The 50 Worst Decisions in Music History The Wilco 3D Viewfinder is a crossover between one of childhoods best toys and one of Americas best bands. Rated #700 in the best albums of 2022. [5], The album sees the band fully embracing their country music leanings. What made you decide to finally put your arms around country? The double-disc packages are comprised of 21 Country Music inspired tracks, recorded at the bands Chicago studio The Loft. The stunning Bird Without a Tail / Base of My Skull rambles like the Allman Brothers Band as Tweedy strings together metaphors charting a path from despair to contentment to death. Ambulance Can I get you both to explain how that works? The same weekend of Cruel Country's release, Wilco will perform songs from the album for the first time at the Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, Mass. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. [11] The release of Cruel Country coincided with Wilco's Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA, where the band performed the album in its entirety. Wilco's resident gorilla gets its shirt changed every year to correspond with Jeff Tweedy's age. Which means youre in luck, because there are two new tracks available now as part of Sub Pops Singles Club. Wilco's universally-acclaimed dozenth studio album will be available for the first time on vinyl and in a standard retail CD format via dBpm Records on January 20. The Beatles were only together for eight years. Originally released in May 2022 (digital only) and in a limited pre-release CD edition for the June RSD drop, lead tracks Falling Apart (Right Now) and Tired Of Taking It Out On You have already become staples on non-commercial, public and AAA radio. Throughout, his fragile liberal patriotism stands pat: Love my country/Stupid and cruel, he sings on the title track, a line with a clever double meaning. Join the party in June/July! Foxtrots immaculate blend of country bona fides, pop smarts, and avant-garde flourishes was an escape from a sound they felt trapped in. May 10, 2022. In the fall of 2021, during a short break from touring, Wilco hunkered down at The Loft. . The heiress turned reality star died of a stroke, her family confirmed. Or dig in digitally on all of the usual streaming services and Bandcamp. Photo by Zoran Orlic Video by Picture Show. Tired of . [12], Cruel Country was met with critical acclaim. Our indie friends are taking a hit. Cruel Country. In a decade of grunge and hip-hop, it drew instead on a boomer trinity of the Band, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I am, in spite of so many concerning non-musical occurrences that assail us all at this time, truly happy and proud to announce the imminent release of this double album. NC. Wilco - Cruel Country Lyrics and Tracklist | Genius Check out Cruel Country by Wilco on Amazon Music. As of 2021, that revenue will be donated to I Grow Chicago, a Chicagoorganization focusing on community connection, skill building, and opportunity. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Deluxe reissues are available now (US | EU | AUS). [10] The album was released digitally on May 27, 2022, by dBpm Records, with physical releases on CD and LP planned for a later date due to the supply chain crisis. Cruel Country CD $13.00 Qty Add to cart Release Date: January 20, 2023 Yeehaw! Check out the 2022 photo galleryhereand the recap videohere. With racial tension, with political wars, with a pandemic that has taken the lives of millions of people. I think that they were expressing themselves however best they could with whatever they could get their hands on. There's a lot of evidence to support that way of thinking about our band because there have been elements of country music in everything we've ever done. A civil war brews in the singer, and around him. Song. Story to Tell Cruel Country is the twelfth studio album by American indie rock band Wilco. Weve never been particularly comfortable with accepting that definition, the idea that I was making Country Music. Being There used the format to push the band in a dozen new directions, but Cruel Country is honoring a different impulse, scaling down and burrowing into itself. 13. Please Be Wrong Tweedy: First of all [the song is] true. You\'ll receive the next newsletter in your inbox. Privacy Policy and Wilco are art-rock legends, but back in the 90s, the bands fiddle-laden jams about gambling and drinking got labeled alt-country. After pushing in all sorts of exploratory directions over subsequent decades, the band reset its sound in response to the COVID-19 crisis. These are country songs imbued with the lacerating wit of Randy Newman, that observe the balance of the romantic and the cosmic at the core of good John Lennon songs, that tap into the feathery folk-rock of the Byrds and the grisly storytelling of Bob Dylan. When Wilco starts to get comfortable, it changes again. It was a smart move, since at the time even the kind of people who liked iconic Midwestern alt-country were starting to get word that the dread cult of authenticity was becoming toxic and freighted. Cruel Country offers pretty chords and pointed questions. High and Low/The Message by Birdy On The Moon (aka Pat Sansone!). All Across the World We need a Jocelyn cigarette counter in the corner of the screen. Wilco is headed over to Europe and the UK this summer! The sonic experimentation that Wilco has enjoyed since its 2001 masterpiece, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot which it recently performed at concerts in New York and its longtime hometown, Chicago, and plans to reissue in vastly expanded form in September has been temporarily, though not entirely, cut back on Cruel Country, as if to set artifice aside. For the Wilco collector: We created a beautiful hand-crafted autographed deluxe edition of Ode to Joy that includes and hand-numbered pop-up art book paired with a 180g vinyl. Their latest is a beautifully rootsy album with a broken sense of patriotic concern. [14] Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? Yeehaw! But I decided that Id rather continue to stay involved in creative pursuits and share it with others. The title is kind of a double entendre: This is the most extensive foray into pure country for Wilco since A.M. (which, to be fair, is just as much a descendant of the Stones as it is of the Scorchers), and 2022 is a uniquely disquieting year to be an American. @JonPareles, A version of this article appears in print on, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/arts/music/wilco-cruel-country-review.html, Wilcos Cruel Country ponders history, politics, mortality, ambivalence and the utility or futility of art in 21st-century America. With no one person in charge, the goal can be vague. Get it from our web stores here US |EU|AUS Buy on Bandcamp Or stream on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, etc. It is, for all of us, about the growth and really not knowing what's gonna come next. Wilco/Cruel Country - The world is always on the brink, Story to Tell reminds us, and love is dumber than you think. The universe, torch song The Universe resolves, For what its worth / Is the only place / To be. Near the end of the album, Sad Kind of Way (The best I can do / Is try to be happy for you / In a sad kind of way), and Please Be Wrong (Let me be someone good / You deserve / Someone good) choose perseverance. Featuring Hayley Williams and Fall Out Boy. Amid Cruel Country celebrations, Wilco played 3 surprise shows at Chicagos iconic Honky Tonk, Carols Pub. The live set closes with a cover version of Neil Youngs classic The Old Country Waltz. But Wilco is a band whose membership includes brilliant experimental artists like drummer Glenn Kotche and guitar god Nels Cline,and a certain restlessness endures even when the group tries to tone it down. Seven(!) They also, at times, blur distinctions between patriotism and romance. I believe it's important to challenge our affections for things that are flawed. Watch as the band plays the ultimate game of hide-and-seek around Chicago. **, We miss each other. Cruel Country by Wilco on Apple Music When you love your family you forgive a multitude of sins and we are a family as a country that is dysfunctional. But it is less polished, like the most beautifully ornamented home recording imaginable. At Manhattans United Palace Theater in April, Wilco lovingly re-created every part of the beloved release, then came back for a fleeting set of ephemera pertinent to the album a cover of Be Not So Fearful by Bill Fay, the genius British folk singer Tweedy became taken with in the early aughts, and Pieholden Suite and A Magazine Called Sunset, two originals that heavily featured late, great multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett, Tweedys foil in the Foxtrot sessions. Wilco - Cruel Country Album Reviews, Songs & More | AllMusic It was a smart move . Tweedy: I want to meet people where they are. If hes telling the story of America, its mainly a tale of everyday people trying to map out broken realities they inherent and barely know how to occupy. At this point listening to Wilco is more a pastime than a passion. Meanwhile UR-60 Unsent, the B-side, is a pitiful tale of an unsent lovesick mixtape, taken from a separate batch of unreleased songs with mostly pitiful lyrics. OUT NOW! Unsurprisingly, returning to the scene of a project whose note-perfect sadness is the product of a writers struggles with drugs, depression, labels, and other bandmates is no comforting task, especially for a band that hates repeating itself. I had just begun to look at preparing this reprint when COVID emerged, and was on the fence about whether or not to move forward with the endeavor. In a 2004 Spin interview, the singer said the studio is his bastion of control on a planet that he cant change: Its hellish for me to so badly want order in a world where you cant have it. Released 27 May 2022 on dBpm. Each 3D Viewfinder comes with 3 reels, each containing 7 Wilco images. : I really didnt want people to think of us with a label attached roots music or Americana or whatever brand they were peddling that week. Wilco quickly applied itself to complicating that rep. Summerteeth, released in 1999, mixed rugged power-pop and Van Dyke Parks fan service; Foxtrot doused sunny rockers and moody folk songs in waves of hissing noise. You formed in the '90s. But as a band and as an ensemble or a collective of people committed to making art together, we get to kind of ensure a certain amount of faith that the world is gonna unfold into something that surprises us. What keeps a band together? The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. I Am My Mother opens the album with images of immigrants on the Southern border and the paranoia they inspire in the morally feeble, while Hints reflects on how optimistic notions of American exceptionalism have warped into the extremism of the post-Trump era: There is no middle when the other side would rather kill than compromise, Tweedy offers. Wait, its all we ever do, he laments. Terms of Service apply. Check here for all the details. And it moved me so deeply. To say something that was hard to say. There was a "Muslim ban." US Wilco Store | EU Wilco Store | AUS Wilco Store. Ode to Joy features 11 new songs including the single, Love is Everywhere.. Wilco's first big gesture when they formed in the Nineties was to leave behind the sound of co-founder Jeff Tweedy's first band, Midwestern alt-country icons Uncle Tupelo. You've written about a band as kind of a functioning democracy. Available for purchase here. Its also an easy, delightful read.. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Deluxe Reissues are available now! Soon after, the title track celebrates my country, stupid and cruel / Red / White / And blue. Yes, a reparations-supporting liberal singer is airing political concerns once again. This is already shaping up to be one of the more interesting TV years in recent memory. 21. The Bush-era fatalism that haunts Wilcos Yankee Hotel Foxtrot an early- aughts alt-country masterwork forever tethered to the grievous anger of the weeks following 9/11, when the record leaked online and listeners were spooked by lyrics that evoked buildings shaking and flags burning doesnt feel as far removed from the present as it should. Stay safe. Anyone out there hankering for a rather elaborate elucidation of sonic architecture in the jazz/rock/improv universe at this time? Wilco talks about new album 'Cruel Country' : NPR Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. More than 30 women have accused him of groping. Get creating: Read an essay on the book by Los Angeles Review of Books. But at this moment in time, it felt like having sturdy shapes and song shapes to project my own uncertainty on to felt like an easier target. And I think that's how we feel about our country as well. Listen to Cruel Country by Wilco on Apple Music. Falling Apart (Right Now) by Wilco | Cruel Country - YouTube It includes a pop-up art book paired with a 180g vinyl. Wilco members Jeff Tweedy (right) and Glenn Kotche (center) spoke with NPR's Scott Simon about embracing country on their album Cruel Country. Cruel Country sees a band pondering its legacy and coming to terms with the limits of what a song can do. Wilco - Cruel Country (2022, CD) - Discogs Published By - Words Ampersand Music Phonographic Copyright - dBpm Records Credits Written-By - Jeff Tweedy Notes "Pre-Release Limited Edition" white label CD. Sad Kind of Way Wilco's New Album Looks for Peace in a Cruel Country - The Atlantic The nation has selected a new musical champion, and he sings with a twang. No one should need to ask. 3:39; The Universe. I Am My Mother kicks things off with a high, reedy vocal performance from Tweedy that signals a new sound the same way that Bob Dylans 1969 artistic detour Nashville Skyline embraced a smoother vocal style while it pushed the folkie into country music. Were constantly updating Wilcostore.com with new fun items. But since Cruel Country was made in a burst of activity in the spirit of letting go of Wilcos thirst for perfectionism, this album sometimes feels more like watching the band as it workshops great demos than it feels like something the guys who made Foxtrot and Being There and 2019s great Ode to Joy or any earlier incarnation of the group might have spent months tweaking. D. Parvaz Yet in the albums title song, Tweedy sets ambiguity aside as he sings, I love my country like a little boy/Red, white and blue, only to follow it with I love my country, stupid and cruel.. Artwork by Grammy winning designer Lawrence Azerrad. Wilco 'Cruel Country' Album Review - Vulture Frontman Jay Farrar walked, starting his own band, Son Volt; the remaining members regrouped behind Tweedy in his new endeavor. Cuba Gooding Jr. The Universe Intimate solo performances with Jeff Tweedy >>>>. Listening to this fantastical album on a beautiful day in - Twitter Ill be telling stories from my life, focusing on a true-to-memory style of how it really felt to me, how I experienced things emotionally. Wilco 'Cruel Country' Album Review | Holler Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. And then there's just a chemistry and compatibility. The Complete History of Ezra Millers Controversial Career, The 100 Hardest Video-Game Bosses, Ranked. Wilcos 2019 Chicago Winterlude Residency was one for the books. Two days later the band emerged with two new recordings, both covers of The Beatles. Cruel Country is Wilco's best album in two decades. WWAS for short. 19. These days, the authenticity wars have long since cooled, all that cultural baggage has been tossed out the back of the mystery train, and Wilco have settled into one of the most easygoing and successful runs of any American band of the past 25 years. [8] The album was officially announced on April 28, 2022, with the single "Falling Apart (Right Now)" released the same day. [13], Jon Pareles of The New York Times deemed it an "understated magnum opus", writing, "A song can only do so much, and on Cruel Country Wilco offers no grand lesson or master plan, only observations, feelings and enigmas. Glenn Kotche: Our country, just like a child goes through different phases, you just grow and you get through it and you hope that you come out okay on the other side. April 28, 2022 Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, April 2022. Featured in RSD 2022 Drop 2 The rock band known for pioneering the alt-country genre. 6. On Cruel Country, the Chicago band ponders a genre and a nation. Wilco's Jeff Tweedy casually strums one of hundreds of guitars in the Wilco Loft. What were left with, this record seems to tell us, is the terrifying wide open no place inside our battered skulls. But Globes Are a Conspiracy To listen to the audio version, click the link above. So we wrote a song about it to sing with each other, to sing to each other. Jeff Tweedy. Guest performances include Roseanne Cash, Terry Allen, Bill Callahan, Japanese Breakfast, Jason Isbell, Margo Price and Sheila E. For a full photo gallery by Charles Harris click here. And if you already own the Wilco catalog, browse a sampling of the bands latest recommendations featured onthis playlist. Because of you, we were able to donate $7,500 toMovement for Black Lives. "Even though our style of country would be more classified as late '60s, early '70s, it's still fun to go unabashedly country," says bass player John Stirratt. Bundle up with WARM and WARMER. These books give us a record of our times via the moments best comic minds. And unlike Bob Dylan or the Deads Robert Hunter, he isnt as adept at (or seemingly much interested in) conjuring our shared mythic past, as he is at finding a way to make his own fractured, mossy interiority feel commonplace and weirdly relatable. The album opens with I Am My Mother, a waltz about an immigrants hopes and roots: Dangerous dreams have been detected at the southern border, Tweedy sings. But the other thing he said is that he realized that if he had had to carry us across the desert to go somewhere where it would be safer to raise us, when myself and my siblings were children, he would have done that. hide caption. . Hes unsure what his talent is worth, what its value says about the career path he committed his life to. He heard that my family, we were all going to the airport to protest and my dad called me up crying and saying that he would go with us if he could, but he wasn't well. Wilco comes up with twangy, jaunty, chicken-pluck country in Falling Apart (Right Now), where Tweedy complains, to a partner or a populace, Dont you fall apart while Im falling apart, and in A Lifetime to Find a conversation with Death, who arrives suddenly: Here to collect. And amid tinkly keyboard tones and teasing slide-guitar lines in All Across the World, Tweedy admits to the mixed emotions of being comfortable while others suffer I can barely stand knowing whats true as he wonders, Whats a song going to do?. What attendees didnt know at the time is that there was a new album in the can already: the rustic, quiet Cruel Country, another sharp left turn from a group that loves to zig when a zag is expected. You . ** As of July 2020 we have donated $10,000 to World Central Kitchen. Tonights the Day Wilco 'Goes Country' on New Double Album 'Cruel Country' D. Parvaz Courtesy dBpm Records. Wilco Drop New 'Cruel Country' Song, Plot North American Tour - Rolling
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