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.

Beirut released a New Single Today

                Zach Condon released a single today called “East Harlem”. This is important. Beirut has been on a slippery slope downward for quite some time. You can only rely on your rabid, almost serial killer-esque fan base to listen to the same two albums and handful of EPs for so long. At some point you need to simply ‘bring it’. 

                I think Zach finally understands the importance of building up hype. With the “East Harlem” release he satisfies countless dedicated fans. Apparently the single was first written by Zach at the tender age of 17. Zach may be leaning too hard on his earlier, more prolific years.  Personally, I don’t think that. Sometimes it takes playing a song or group of songs a lot before you realize how good it is. Often songs require a bit of tweaking. For “East Harlem” perhaps Zach needed to actually see East Harlem before he could get the sound right. 

                Bands go through practicing songs over and over again in a live setting to get them right. Radiohead took this approach with most of the material on “In Rainbows”. Zach knows “East Harlem” and “Goshen” has been bootlegged to near-death, near-irrelevance. Releasing both of these songs in an official format means he ‘gets it’ and understands a market exists. So many years have passed since he released anything new anyway. Now he wants to show he is serious about getting an album out in time for summer. A hope of his is to be taken seriously. By actually doing what he states would be a big step in this direction.

                Unfortunately neither of these songs has any noticeable Brazilian influence. You see Beirut has a huge following in Brazil. Brazil first saw him in the mini-series “Capitu” which won him the following of an entire nation in 2009. The ensuing buzz has created a whole cottage industry of bands hoping to be just like Beirut, playing similar music and instruments. I think this shows a prime example of the ‘exporting of buzz’. Like with Dubstep, Beirut’s unique brand of Balkan Folk takes a few years to really get to other audiences. Dubstep began years ago and we’re only hearing it now. Beirut’s last album came out in 2007 it took a few years for it to reach Brazil.

                Now Zach needs to figure out exactly how to make or market his next album. Will he simply continue on the same path making the same predictable Balkan Folk/World Music? Or will he take another approach, deciding to forgo the tough nature of the US buzz market and pin his hopes on South America? South America’s buzz market is nowhere as competitive as the United States. Hell, bands even have a name for tributes to his greatness called “Beiruting the Square”. Zach would be a fool to ignore that level of dedication, that level of love. Forget mopey late twenty something s in the US. Their income will increase only so much as they spend large amounts of time alone, crying, scrobbling Beirut’s few releases over and over again on Last.fm. If Beirut wants to really make an impact he ought to release his album in Brazil first and let it release in the United States later. 

                Releasing his upcoming album in Brazil first will show he appreciates and cares about the genuine affection the country shows him. I mean, I can’t even think of a single US TV show where Beirut appeared. No band does a tribute to Beirut in the US. Most Balkan Folk bands in the US are actually from the Balkans and probably influenced him. Zach needs to take this once in a lifetime opportunity and influence a growing, younger and considerably more vibrant music scene in an entire country. For buzz in the US is fleeting (Beirut knows this from his own experience) but buzz elsewhere lasts longer. 

                Hopefully the next Beirut EP reveals a bit more about potential new album. Or perhaps he’ll just pull a “Joanna Newsom” and randomly release the whole thing without any teasers. Either way he will need to rise above.