Wilco-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Wilco had been a decently straightforward rock band until the release of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, their complex masterpiece. Summerteeth showed them moving toward a more experimental sound, but nobody could've expected an album like this. Wilco shocked its fans, and even turned some of them off (Their dispute with their record label is well-known by now). But despite the possibility of turning people off by an almost complete reconstruction of their sound was a price the members of Wilco were willing to pay. They released their strange new album to an audience unaware of the masterful songs contained within it.

1. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart-Right from the beginning of the song, an obvious change has taken place in Wilco's sound. Jeff Tweedy begins his poetic lyrics about drinking and heartbreak over an acoustic guitar, a strange drum beat, and even stranger noises. The song quietly moves along up until about the four minute mark, then during the last two minutes, the familar structure of the song gets lost in a wall of feedback, alarms, and other strange sound effects. It's a mesmerizing song, and sets the tone for the rest of the album.

2. Kamera-A rolling beat complete with muffled acoustic guitar drives this song along. It shows Wilco's pop sensiblity is still present, and that they can still be radio friendly if they want to be. The lyrics are very catchy as well, and are much less challenging than that of "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart."

3. Radio Cure-"Cheer up. Honey, I hope you can." The way Jeff sings this song perfectly illustrates the lyrics. The strange, almost psychadelic music backing the vocals adds to the sort of down-tempo mood of the song.

4. War On War-A simple, but very catchy song. It starts with an upbeat acoustic guitar. The drums kick in soon afterwards, and eventually the simple but effective lyrics chime in. The song is easy to sing along to and remember. Towards the end it gets a bit more experimental with strange sounds that sound like amplifiers picking up signals from space. That's what I got out of it...

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