Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco, 2002, :51
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
This album is often held up as the Holy Grail by alt-country-pop hipsters who think Wilco is the greatest thing since white bread. It's a fine pop album, and superb in places, but certainly not without its flaws. "Radio Cure" is languid and self-important and boring, finally bothering to work itself up into an actual song in the final minute of its five-minute length. The seven minute number "Reservations" is a quiet unassuming song, with four full unnecessary minutes of ever-quieter beeps and drones and hum at the end. I like the horns in "I'm the Man Who Loves You," but dislike the strained guitar noises at the end. Likewise, "Poor Places" is a fine song, but ends in awash of irritating white noise and found sound. Noise isn't Art, it's just noodling.
Favorite tracks: "Jesus, Etc," the rollicking "Heavy Metal Drummer."
