Wilco
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

THE REVIEW

The story is simple. "No-depression" was the title of the first work under the name "Uncle Tupelo," a deformed body with two great talents at its heart: Jay Farrar (the bad guy) and Jeff Tweedy (the good guy). At the time, no one dared to imagine the impact that work would have on the history of music. "No-depression" became a symbol of a certain way of feeling music, uncategorizable in its urgent and emotional mix of country, folk, pop, blues, and rock.

"No-depression" became THE genre. Many came after, copies, imitations, scams, revivals, rebirths, and epitaphs. After all, the bad guy (Farrar) and the good guy (Tweedy) couldn't last together, and indeed they didn't. There were two attempts, and then it was said: who lives will see. Too different, in the end, and you can see it in the very genesis of their paths: Farrar will retreat more and more into himself, within his increasingly tormented soul, giving birth to songs of wrenching suffering, up to the last one, "Terroir blues," the quintessence of human pain. I've always wondered what it takes to foresee death. I pray for Farrar to keep tearing me apart with his litanies for a long time, and hopefully, but I don't see him in great shape, that's all.

Jeff Tweedy, on the other hand, moved early towards the light. He founded Wilco, an ensemble that first launched into a rather roots country-pop (A.M.), then, with the handbrake off, first producing a pop gem ("Being there"), then a universal masterpiece in which everything is fused ("Summerteeth"). Only the arrival is missing, as the path to perfection is almost complete.

Reprise is of a different opinion, and – upon listening to this Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – considering it too uncommercial ("not even a single, damn it, not even one" - read in NME), without too much ceremony kicks them in the ass and goodbye. Wilco pulls out $500,000, buys the masters, and keeps looking until they find a less obtuse label (the "Nonesuch"). Tapes in hand, everyone is ready for the first underground masterpiece of the new millennium. And so it was. Only the mixing is missing, and in the film, it's the turn of the handsome, Jim O'Rourke, one of the most avant-garde producers and musicians.

Now the music. "I am trying to break your heart," with its blanket of ethereal percussion, opens the dance, piano lines set like jewels among poignant lyrics and dreamy organs. "Kamera" is indie-rock of the purest kind, wherever you look, a sense of complete purity reigns supreme. Pavement echoes, jingle-jangle refrains, freshness and sweet irony ("Heavy metal drummer"). Demonstrations of how rock can be understood as something creative (the noise effects, the delightful percussion, and Tweedy's detached voice in "Poor Places"). "Jesus etc.." represents the pinnacle of the work, combining obsessive lyrics with country laments, but of a country violated and tormented.

A work of universal beauty, a piece made of ideas before songs, music of souls before musicians. Irony and sweetness are not in C minor, but in "Ashes of American flag," where conscience marries talent. "Reservations" closes, a slow fading litany, close to the less cerebral Radiohead, a voice that begins softly and ends imperceptibly, rock made psychedelia, folk made bone, song made eternal. The first great masterpiece of the millennium.