Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway (Again)

Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway (Again) by Wilco

Editor's Note: Who is the greatest American band? We eliminated every singer song writer or solo performer—Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan, and Billy Joel for example—were eliminated. Other than that, anything goes. This week I present the arguments for who I think should be in the running.



Pros: Sometime around the suicide of Kurt Cobain, Jeff Tweedy decided that he was going to be the greatest GenX song writer. Some of his lyrics are amazing: "You love her but you don't know why"..."The ashtray says/You were up all night"..."I'm the boy that looks excited/I'm the boy thats gonna fall apart…/I'm the boy with the poetry power/I'm the boy, smells like flowers"... Wilco sounds American, which is a major requirement if you want to be the greatest American band. This is in part because there is always that country influence in the back of every Wilco song, this makes sense seeing that they started off as an alt-century band and all...some of their songs can only be described as beautiful...as Sasha Freer-Jones wrote about a year ago Tweedy has "a knack for writing clipped, vernacular descriptions of relationships and emotional states." In other words, we've all felt like a Wilco song at some point in our lives; assuming, of course, you have a soul and have been in love...The band has tried new things over the years, changing their sound and doing it well, much like Radiohead has and the Beatles did....Being There, Summer Teeth, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot are three good to great albums and they all sound different (and on the right day Sky Blue Sky is good)...Bonus point for being from and based out of Chicago, and considering that Norman Mailer called Chicago the most American of cities, Wilco gets extra credit, even if Chicago isn't always on their mind in their song.

Cons: This band starts and ends with Jeff Tweedy. Not that the other band mates aren't good musicians, but Tweedy is Wilco. Rarely do you hear anything remarkable in an Wilco song that doesn't have Tweedy's finger prints all over it. This might be why the band has seen a decent amount of turnover during their history...A Ghost is Born anyone? And for that matter, Sky Blue Sky didn't necessarily deliver... If you're not expecting it, A.M. seems like it was a mistake, but that's being harsh...They've sprawled countless indie bands that flat out suck but for some reason hipsters consider good. Tweedy and Wilco made the wining singer/song writer cool, and now we have to suffer though thousands of hipsters attempting to be like that, only they aren't good at it. NOTE: Let Jeff Tweedy being Jeff Tweedy, don't try to be him because you can't...I can't blame Wilco for this indie/hipster problem, but it's there and should be pointed out...Are they too recent to be considering the greatest? Do we need more time to evaluate and see how their albums age and also how they age as a band?

Best Album: Summer Teeth. Most people would say Yankee Foxtrot Hotel (and reading this is nearly comical six years later), but that's easily Wilco's most overrated album. I hate to compare it to the White Album, but honestly, there is too much noise and not enough music on each album, which always kocks each album down a little bit. Summer Teeth on the other hand, is a pop album. Wilco trying to be the Beatles. And they do a great job at this. It's easily the easiest Wilco album to listen to since it's accessible, good, and non-pretentious, yet it also features some of the greatest Wilco songs: I'm Always In Love, A Shot in the Arm, We're Just Friends, Candy Floss, etc.

Best Song: Misunderstood -- I don't think we can ever fully understand this song because it seems so personal. Tweedy is writing for himself. But the build up during the intro, the simple guitar and piano, and then Tweedy's lyrics. A masterful song and one of the greatest of all time.