Wilco

It's not surprising that Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy recently completed rehab for painkiller addiction; the man who summoned A Ghost Is Born is clearly haunted. After ambitious stabs at a history-of-rock concept album and a summery pop record culminated in 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot -- a post-9/11 rumination on the...

By Michael Gallucci

July 1, 2004

[
        {
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Inline Content - Mobile Display Size",
          "component": "12017618",
          "insertPoint": "2",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "2"
        },{
          "name": "Editor Picks",
          "component": "17242653",
          "insertPoint": "4",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "1"
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "18838239",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "17261320",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "18838239",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - Leaderboard Tower - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "17261321",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        }
      ]

It's not surprising that Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy recently completed rehab for painkiller addiction; the man who summoned A Ghost Is Born is clearly haunted. After ambitious stabs at a history-of-rock concept album and a summery pop record culminated in 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot -- a post-9/11 rumination on the state of America, famously recorded prior to September 11 -- Tweedy steers Wilco toward an even thornier path on Ghost, one lined with fragments of art-rock discord and comforting bits of melancholy.

Closer to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot's disjointed aesthetic spirit than the melodic Americana Wilco started out with, Ghost is the band's distressed reaction to the past four years (which yielded a very public battle over the release of Foxtrot and the departure of several key members). Songs such as "At Least That's What You Said," "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" and "Handshake Drugs" pack Tweedy's random lyrics ("Who will wear the crown of drowning award/Hold a private light/On a Michigan shore") into less fussy versions of Foxtrot's aural collages. This time, the challenges are in the artist's breaking psyche, not in the music.

KEEP WESTWORD FREE... Since we started Westword, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Denver, and we'd like to keep it that way. Your membership allows us to continue offering readers access to our incisive coverage of local news, food, and culture with no paywalls. You can support us by joining as a member for as little as $1.