Wilco “I Might”

 

               Wilco, what happened to you? I’m worried about you. You’ve fallen far from such great heights, from the critically-acclaimed “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” to the coolest alternative country rock band. That’s a big difference: the difference between being “Billy the Kidd” or a rancher with a keen sense of style. Seriously, this is scary. All the drama from “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” right down to using snippets from the Conet Project feels lost, gone forever. Listening to that album it’s a different band. That band was a better band, one that could get the coveted ’10.0’ from Pitchfork.

                I can’t blame you entirely. The circumstances surrounding “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” are legendary. Dropped by your label, you offered free of charge your best album. Eventually you got picked up by another label owned by the same conglomerate “Warner Brothers”. People watched everything unfurl and thought “Wow, the music industry is dumb”. When the album eventually was offered for sale, it ended up being your best-selling album, despite (or perhaps because of) its previous free nature.

                Pitchfork hasn’t been as kind to you since. After that 10.0 you’ve been hanging out in solid ‘7’ territory. How can you really improve a product declared to be perfect? No one can get a ’10.1’. It’s impossible. You made it and fell. Even other, heavily praised bands (Animal Collective) didn’t receive a 10.0. They got a 9.6, leaving at least .4 worth of improvement for a future product.

                By now you’d probably be happy with an eight. That 10.0 might have been from the cover alone: a picture of those famous towers in Chicago won over a critic or two residing in the Midwest’s hippest city. You knew how to cater to the critics then. Experimental without being overwhelming, ambitious enough to meet your goals, you had it all. What happened since then Wilco?

                Don’t give up. You have plenty of talent. Receiving a 10.0 means Pitchfork is legally obligated to cover whatever you do for the rest of your career. Since they made you buzzworthy, they have a duty to report on their previous star pupil. Well, you’ve had a big weekend, announced your new album entitled “The Whole Love” and come out with the song “I might”. Additionally, at a relevant music festival in Massachusetts, you debuted two new songs: Born Alone” and “Dawned on Me”. Together this ought to create enough buzz to help you hype your new album. Giving out singles of the “I Might” song at the festival shows you understand how to create buzz. But still, Best New Music might be a bit hard for you now, at least judging off of your new song.

                Clearly you know the game of hype. Let’s hope the new album can at least compare to your previous glory. I wish you the best.

I’m missing the War

America fights many battles. Sometimes it is against itself (like that whole yawning income disparity) but we usually enjoy an external enemy. Having an external enemy allows everyone to come together and raise our fights, shaking them against whoever assails this great free land. 

                Today what I’d like to do is try to focus on some of those wars that we’re winning, some that we’re losing, and what can or cannot be done about both. Some may see this as a form of giving up, but that’s not accurate at all. We need to find out what we’re winning and losing, in order to truly retain being #1.

1.       Vending Machine War – One of the most critical places to be losing the war. Sure, we’re winning the war against healthiness (for now at least) but to lose at something so integral to who we are? Those who bring up the live bait vending machines, those are cute but fail in comparison to what some of our allies and enemies have created. Japan appears to excel at this level of weirdness, offering not only those legendary used schoolgirl panty machines but a walking and talking Coca-Cola vending machine. Gold to Go, the vending machine where you can buy gold, exists in several countries, including Germany and the U.A.E. Despite Glen Beck’s urging, these never took off here. Italy and the UK present pizza making machines (pizza is made by the machine). I understand the UK since their food is dreadful, but Italy, really? China wins with its ‘live crabs’ vending machine, which wins in so many ways. But we’ve been coming back of late, in California there is an actual vending machine for Weed, which leads to the next war.

2.       War on Christmas – Suck it Christmas! We are beating the snot out of Christmas. Santa’s down for the count and the reindeer are helping us kick him in the shins. In case you find this a tad too harsh, remember Church Lady’s sage advice: “If you move around the letters, Santa spells Satan.”

3.       War on Poverty – We are totally defeating poverty by having rich people drop twenty dollar bills as they pay for their latest Faberge egg. Middle class people help this to by dropping change as they pay for things in cash. Unfortunately, due to the large proliferation of credit cards, this trend is beginning to reverse. In that case, charities have to use the power of guilt to shock you out of your comfortable lifestyle. 

4.       War on Easter- Seen Bugs Bunny lately? Yeah, there’s a reason for that. We’re winning. Also, Warner Brothers never understood how to market these characters for generations not born in the early 40s. 

5.       War on Terrorism – That TSA agent is really into you, man. Are we winning? Can we know? Every time we ask “Are we winning the war on Terrorism” it sounds exactly like that other question “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” My opinion is that it resembles the anarchist movement of the late 19^th/early 20^th century. Basically, they will never truly go away besides by their own accord and internal strife. Sorry for giving such a negative answer on this, but I don’t think there can be a yes/no answer.

6.        War on Hipsters – Hipsters can and will never be defeated. There are a few reasons for this, most of it having to do with the Catch-22 like nature of their very existence. Every time someone gets called a hipster and says “No, I’m not” then they become one. If you decide to agree that “Yes, I am” you no longer are. You had to be there to fully understand. 

7.       War against good movies – We are definitely winning this one, via me having seen one new movie the entire year (movies I see on planes are usually at least a year old)

Hopefully this has given you some hope for America. Concerns aside, I think we’re making strides to continue our reign as the most powerful country on Earth because if you don’t think that, then the terrorists truly have won.