Album Review: Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

            Wilco, an alt-country band from Chicago, Illinois, sucks.  I recently purchased their album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with money I received from selling my textbooks back to the bookstore, and was highly disappointed.  Instead I could’ve bought two large pizzas, 11 crunchy tacos, 15 Pepsi-colas, and a side-order of Love, which is now sold at all Wal-marts.

            My 11^th grade English teacher, whose musical taste I respect greatly, once informed me that Wilco is “like Radiohead, but better.”  I couldn’t agree less.  Although like Radiohead in the sense that their songs are tripped out and mellow, Wilco lacks the structure that Radiohead has.  The first song on the album, “I am Trying to Break Your Heart,” features a mellow tone with a pseudo-techno drum beat that Radiohead patented on the song “Airbag.”  Furthermore, towards the end of the song, Wilco goes into some tripped-out, confusing montage of noise that reminds me of the noises that play in my head when I haven’t slept in two days.   And these aren’t the good noises; they’re the bad ones that give me a headache and make me wish that I hadn’t taken that much No-Doz.  While an eager attempt to be Radiohead, this song falls short.  As if that isn’t bad enough, the song features shitty lyrics that are trying to sound cool, such as the line “take off your bandaid ‘cuz I don’t believe in touchdowns.”  Deep?  No.  Cool?  No.  Paints an interesting picture?  Not really.  Drug induced?  Maybe.

            The suckage of this album does not stop there.  Track five, entitled “Jesus, etc.” sounds like a terrible Christian song.  It doesn’t really have to do anything with Jesus, or religion, but being that it mentions Jesus, and sucks, one could easily misinterpret it as a terrible Christian song.

            The “hit” single, “Heavy Metal Drummer,” also sucks.   It’s a pop song with the occasional weird background noise (a technique also patented by Radiohead, and many other cool groups of the like) and, once again, shitty lyrics.  “I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands,” Wilco claims.  If they had only listened to heavy metal, maybe they would’ve been turned off of the suck-ass sound they have been creating.  The line “playing Kiss covers, beautiful and stoned,” which comes from “Heavy Metal Drummer,” also makes me wonder.  First of all, if Wilco had ever played Kiss covers, what in the hell possessed them to then change their sound to the genre of “suck-ass?”   Secondly, when has a Kiss cover ever been beautiful?  And finally, how could a Kiss cover be beautiful while stoned?  Wait, I get it.  Wilco must have harnessed their suck-ass power to alter the Kiss songs into more of a Wilco-esque suck.  

            There is only one positive note of this album, and I mean that quite literally.  The song “I’m the Man Who Loves You” features a wonderful one-note guitar riff, a la our musical lord and savior, Neil Young.  This song is the only song that doesn’t totally blow on the album.  It is the most rocking song on the album, which doesn’t particularly mean much coming from this band.  However, it is not all that bad.  It is very Beta Band-like.  It has a feel-good vibe provided by a steady, non-complicated drum beat (that doesn’t interfere with the music at all), rhythm acoustic guitars, clean vocals, and a dirty guitar riff consisting of one note with the occasional augmented 4^th played.  Furthermore, the horns that play throughout the song seem to add an element of fun to this pop song. 

            But now back to the suck.  The second song on this shitty album, “Kamera”  sucks.  The gratuitous pounding on pickle jars or whatever as a form of “cool percussion” is a stupid idea.   It doesn’t fit this John Mayer-type suck-ass song.  Not to mention the misspelling of the word “camera” for the title.  That’s just stupid.  You guys suck.

            You’d think that the suck would stop there, being that they’ve already exceeded the suck-quota allowed for five or six bands.  You were wrong, moron.  The third track, “Radio Cure,” sounds like a Christian musician playing his awful songs in the depths of a dark, evil cave infested with demons.  His voice sounds as if he is in pain.  He sounds like he needs help.  He seems to be begging you to help him… to help him stop writing songs that make us cringe.  Eventually, the weird noises kick in again.  These noises can be confused for your speakers malfunctioning, so don’t go to check them.  I already have- it’s just the song.  It sucks.