Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Decent. Perhaps a bit overrated.

Better than Coldplay

Nothing particularly engaging about this at all for me, I'm afraid.

I can't explain this album other than saying it's one of the best albums I've ever heard. Maybe it's because it is my favorite genre so it's easy for me to find an album in that genre that's critically acclaimed and I'll automate like it, or maybe the lyrical matter and the writing is so good that I can push away my bias to enjoy what I think is beautifully written music. I've heard this album a handful of times. Jesus, Etc. and Heavy Metal Drummer are on my main playlist so I listen to those songs often enough, but since I haven't heard it in a while I genuinely forgot how great this album is.

Out of the pool of "canon" 2000's indie albums, this is not one of my *absolute* favorites, but I sort of get it. The tone here is like archetypal indie, like I could imagine a lot of this album in one of the sadder Wes Anderson films. This is charming, and quirky, but also sort of baroque
and deeply sad: but the sadness is never overwhelming. Out of this, Wilco pulls a few nearly perfect songs and some that are just good. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, Radio Cure, Jesus etc., and Ashes Of American Flags are basically perfect songs. And everything else is at least good. Basically, the highs are there, but the connective tissue doesn't do as much for me. This has some perfect moments, but it just isn't all there.

Varsin hyvä indie-levy, mut en ihan ymmärrä hypeä. 3/5 pitänee joskus palata

Before I started listening, I thought there was a chance this would be only a 4. It’s one I have no childhood affinity for. It’s grown on me over the last 20 years—was maybe a 2 or 3 the first time I listened in 2002. There were definitely listens when I thought it was boring and bland.

But then I dove in and there was no way it would be anything other than a 5. On headphones, which is not how I usually listen, there were so many interesting sounds. I love the lyrics. At this point it’s just a trusty companion. I’ve got reservations about so many things, but not about this album.

Dosadna muzika (za bljutave ljude).

You had to be there in the early 2000s indie scene, days where Jeff Tweedy, Conor Oberst, Matt Ward, Ben Gibbard, and Jenny Lewis and their assorted band just fucking ruled, they were pumping out classic albums like we breathe and blink everyday. Earnest troubadours here to soundtrack your twee life... Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is probably the pinnacle of those days, bands would eventually sell out from their indie label and join the massive conglomerates and eventually become the mainstream.

Wilco just doesn't really do much for me. They're not bad, but I don't feel compelled to listen to them repeatedly.

This album is just sort of thoroughly "meh" for me.

"I'm The Man Who Loves You" was interesting, with a unique guitar part. If only the rest of the album was. I'm starting to think "indie" is a label that just means the music isn't very good.

This isn't the first time in this project that I've been pleasantly surprised by how much I vibed with an album. This is FANTASTIC for helping me focus! I got shit done!

Active listening? Naaaaaah. I shall accept this gift from the ADHD gods.

The vocalist is wildly out of key at times, and the music is mostly basic and unimpressive, apart from a few transitional synth parts.

The problem with a lot of these indie rock albums is that they always sound like the band phoned them in - partly because the music isn't challenging at all, and partly because the style demands simplicity. Nevertheless, if the album is short enough and takes a few chances, indie rock can indeed be interesting. However, while Wilco does take some chances musically, the album is also almost a full hour in length, and each song is stretched at least 2 minutes past where it should've ended.

1.5/5.0: Bad

this was a tough listen. there are two or three songs that were listenable which keep this from getting a one

I don't think i was expecting it but i absolutely loved Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Even if my favorite genre is metal, i still do enjoy an album that is so relaxing, it soothes the soul. Every song, even if it did have a faster pace to it, just felt so relaxing with the slower songs being the ones that really brought it out. I also liked all the little electronic sounds in each of the songs as they did help give the songs even more of an identity even if they did get a little noisy in the first couple of songs. I also never really found the length of the album an issue because i feel this album needs to be 57 minutes in order to fully soothe you. This is a really excellent album that i can easily recommend to anyone.
Best Song: Ashes of American Flags
Worst Song: I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

I’m at a 10.

I knew this one had acclaim going in, and I’m very glad that it lived up to it. It’s much easier to feel this album in the moment, while your ears are just encapsulated by it & while the brain is conjuring up the imagery to match. In this case, it’s one of those albums where I got so deeply encapsulated that I’m having trouble finding the words to write down. There’s broad strokes flying around my head; “stellar lyrics”, “his vocals pull incredible emotion out of them”, “instrumentation & sound design that always fits the mood”, “perfectly captures a feeling my brain hasn’t gone to since Radiohead’s Kid A”, “did these guys steal the Beatles’ talents on ‘I’m The Man Who Loves You’ like they were the Monstars”, and so on. I guess I’ll touch on those a bit.

Vocally, it did feel dry at first, but the intentions revealed by the end of “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” made the monotony of that track suddenly feel brilliant, and from that point onward, I was all in on Jeff Tweedy’s style. It’s subdued yet authoritative, for the most part, but when he needs to break out for the sake of the track, he meets the moment really nicely. I think the instrumentation & sound design do deserve as much credit as they’ll get here – I absolutely love the way each track sounds, & I can’t say I ever had a dull moment with the instrumentation, save for the last minute or so of “Reservations”. The moments where everything feels like it’s falling apart on a few tracks do a great job of mirroring the mental state of each track’s protagonist (is it the same guy throughout?), but even in this album’s happier & brighter moments, the instrumentation never really misses a beat. I’m fully convinced they stole a track from the cutting room floor of Sgt. Pepper’s for “I’m The Man Who Loves You”.

As far as the Kid A comparison goes (which, by the way, also a 10 in retrospect), perhaps it’s a bit of a stretch, but this does feel a lot like a Radiohead album to me, at least in the way it’s structured & performed. I’m obviously not the first person to point this out & I won’t be the last. It did capture some type of vibe though, one that became far more apparent to me by “Radio Cure”. It’s like capturing a panic attack in slow motion, with all of the insecurities & self-doubt brought to the forefront. Sometimes, people say their brain is thinking at 100 miles an hour, so what if you just caught that on a camera & tried to actually view it? Kid A does a similar thing, but it takes the approach of sonic therapy in an effort to heal, whereas this one feels like introspection, swaddled in clothing that feels like toxic disdain for yourself, never quite resolving that inner turmoil.

The lyrics do deserve a bit of love for enhancing that vibe; for tracks like these, I’m very much the type of person who follows along, reads them in the moment, and just treats it like a sort of live karaoke, to try and get a sense of how my brain would feel saying them. It’s a hit & miss approach, but in this case, it just worked perfectly. This is an album that I might define as poetry, but not in the curmudgeonly Bob Dylan sense where it’s far too wordy. It’s poetry in the style of a Maya Angelou, where the rhymes & verbiage are simple, but the imagery they evoke says far beyond the words themselves. Much in the same way that a poet can enter a zen state while reading their words aloud, I think I entered a zen state while reading along. I wish I could bottle up that sort of zen state, when it just feels like you’re in sync with the music, so I could more properly describe it, but I haven’t been able to do it for these moments on the last 545 albums, and I don’t think I’ll have an epiphany for the 546th.

All in all, I just really, really enjoyed this. I haven’t been avoiding it for years, I’ve just never had a drive to listen to it until now, and I’m obviously a moron for not biting the bullet earlier. It’s one of those albums where I’m just glad I started doing this “project” to begin with. Fantastic stuff here, and a seminal album of 2001. Probably the whole decade, really. It’s a 10.

Beautiful and emotive. A sedate journey with just enough interest to waft you along.

jako dobro, fora! iako mi glas nije neš, glazbeno je super, a i tekstovno koliko sam uspio čuti.

p. s. hipsterska kretenčina koja je na pajretbej stavila rip svoje dobrano izgrebane ploče nek odjebe u pičku materinu. stvarno. konjino smrdljiva retardirana

The one that started it all. I was a fan of Wilco before this album, but this one set me down a path toward them becoming what today is likely my favorite band. Such an interesting back story. So many interesting sounds. Just a labor of love (and hate) that ended in a masterpiece. 5/5

On est en 2002, le monde est en train de se demander s’il va finir en cendres ou en bits informatiques, et Wilco débarque avec un disque qui ressemble exactement à ça : une carcasse de folk américain passée à la moulinette d’un logiciel qui bugue. À l’époque, c’était le séisme. L'histoire est connue, limite un peu trop : le label Reprise entend le disque, panique en se disant qu’il n’y a pas de tube pour les radios de centre commercial, et vire le groupe. Jeff Tweedy, avec un flegme de mec qui n'a plus rien à perdre, le balance gratos sur le net. C’est le début du mythe de l’album "maudit" qui devient un classique instantané. Mais au-delà du storytelling pour journalistes en manque de sensations fortes, qu’est-ce qu’il reste vraiment quand on appuie sur "Play" aujourd'hui ?

Il reste un disque qui essaie désespérément d’être plus intelligent que lui-même. Ça commence avec "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" et, honnêtement, le titre ne ment pas. C’est un chantier, un bricolage de sons qui grincent, de rythmiques qui boitent et de cloches qui tintent comme si un gamin avait renversé son coffre à jouets dans le studio. C'est là qu'on sent l'ombre de Jim O'Rourke, le grand architecte du chaos contrôlé. Le mec a pris des chansons qui auraient pu être de simples ballades de feu de camp et les a recouvertes d’une couche de crasse électronique. C’est fascinant, certes, mais c’est aussi un peu poseur. C’est le genre de disque qui te crie au visage : « Regarde comme je suis complexe, regarde comme je déconstruis les codes ! ». C’est de la pop qui a fait Math Sup et qui veut absolument que tu le saches.

L’album est souvent comparé au OK Computer américain. C’est une comparaison flatteuse, mais un peu foireuse. Là où les Anglais de Radiohead semblaient réellement terrifiés par le futur, Wilco donne l’impression de s'en amuser avec une certaine distance ironique. Les textes de Tweedy sont des puzzles abstraits, des collages de phrases qui ne veulent rien dire tout en voulant tout dire. « Des drapeaux américains en cendres », « des cigarettes dans des cendriers », « des radios qui grésillent ». C’est l’esthétique de la défaite tranquille. C’est très "post-tout", post-attentats, post-rock, post-rupture. Mais par moments, on a l'impression d'écouter la bande-son d'une pub pour une marque de café équitable qui essaierait de se donner un genre "indé". C'est le paradoxe Wilco : être à la fois expérimental et étrangement confortable.

Prenez "Jesus, etc.". C’est la pièce maîtresse, le morceau que tout le monde fredonne en pensant avoir capté l’essence de l’album. C’est une ballade magnifique, avec des cordes qui glissent comme sur du satin. C’est d'une douceur absolue. Mais c’est aussi là que le disque perd ses couilles. À force de vouloir être beau et subtil, il finit par devenir un peu inoffensif. On est dans la mélancolie de salon, celle qu'on expose pour montrer qu'on a une âme sensible mais qu'on a quand même les moyens de s'acheter du bon matos Hi-Fi. On est loin de la fureur, loin du danger. C’est un disque qui s'écoute avec un plaid sur les genoux. C’est brillant, c’est léché, c’est une prouesse de production, mais est-ce que ça fait vraiment battre le cœur plus vite ? Pas sûr.

Le milieu de l'album s'enfonce dans des structures un peu plus prévisibles, malgré les artifices sonores. "War on War", "I'm the Man Who Loves You"... Ce sont des morceaux de rock assez classiques, maquillés avec des couches de distorsion et des arrangements un peu bizarres pour nous faire croire qu'on est sur la lune. Mais on sait bien qu'on est toujours dans l'Illinois. Le groupe joue divinement bien, c’est carré, c’est solide, mais la tension retombe. On finit par s'habituer aux bruits de radio et aux transitions foireuses. Ce qui était censé être une rupture devient une routine. C’est le risque quand on veut faire de l’expérimentation au sein d’un format pop : on finit par créer un nouveau standard, un peu chiant, que des milliers de groupes de barbus vont copier pendant les vingt années suivantes.

Pourtant, il y a cette atmosphère, cette recherche de sens dans un monde qui part en vrille. L’album capte quelque chose de l’isolement moderne, de cette incapacité à communiquer vraiment. « Yankee... Hotel... Foxtrot... ». Ces mots répétés comme un code radio à la fin de "Poor Places" sont peut-être le moment le plus honnête du disque. C’est le signal de détresse d’un groupe qui se cherche et c’est pour ça qu’il mérite d’être découvert. Ce n’est pas un disque parfait, loin de là, c’est un disque malade, un disque qui a des migraines (littéralement, Tweedy en souffrait le martyre pendant l’enregistrement), et c’est ce qui lui donne son humanité. Il est imparfait, parfois agaçant de prétention, mais il essaie de dire quelque chose.

Alors pourquoi 3 sur 5 ? Parce qu'un chef-d'œuvre, c'est censé te retourner les tripes, te laisser sur le carreau, te changer la perception du silence. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot te laisse juste avec l'impression d'avoir écouté un très bon disque, très bien foutu, un peu original mais terriblement poli. C'est l'album qu'on offre à son cousin qui veut commencer à écouter des trucs "différents" sans trop le brusquer. C’est une porte d’entrée vers des contrées plus sauvages, mais Wilco reste le guide touristique qui te tient la main pour ne pas que tu te salisses les pompes. C’est de l’aventure en classe affaires. On admire le paysage, on apprécie le service, mais on sait qu'on rentrera dormir dans un lit douillet à la fin de la journée.

En résumé, c’est un tournant majeur pour la scène indépendante, un disque qui a libéré plein de groupes du carcan du couplet-refrain basique. C'est un objet sonore complexe qui récompense les écoutes attentives au casque. Mais c'est aussi un album qui souffre de son propre culte. On lui a tellement collé d'étiquettes de "génie" sur le front qu'on a fini par oublier que c'était juste un disque de rock qui essaie de faire du bruit. C'est une étape nécessaire, une curiosité à découvrir pour comprendre comment la pop s'est emparée du chaos, mais ce n'est pas le Graal. C'est juste un très bel hôtel, avec une vue un peu brumeuse, où l'on passe une nuit ou deux avant de repartir chercher quelque chose de plus viscéral.

Voilà mon verdict sur cet objet de culte. Un disque qui a marqué son temps, qui a redéfini les règles du jeu marketing, mais qui, musicalement, reste un peu trop sur la réserve pour emporter l'adhésion totale. C’est bien, c’est beau, c’est Wilco. Mais on ne va pas non plus en faire un fromage pendant quarante ans.