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Wilco - A Ghost Is Born Audio CD

A fair review of the Wilco "A Ghost Is Born" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Wilco reviews here, or go back to the Wilco tabs.

Wilco Band: Wilco
Title: A Ghost Is Born
Rating:
Release Date: 2004-06-22
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: At Least That's What You Said 2: Hell Is Chrome 3: Spiders (Kidsmoke) 4: Muzzle of Bees 5: Hummingbird 6: Handshake Drugs 7: Wishful Thinking 8: Company in My Back 9: I'm a Wheel 10: Theologians 11: Less Than You Think 12: Late Greats

My favorite Wilco album
At age 60, I had thought nothing came up to the standards of 1960s-70s rock and roll. I've been listening to Wilco for about 5 years, starting out with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which made me rethink the state of American music. YHF made me start listening again, and that has led to what are, for me, some amazing discoveries (and it has reduced my opinion of some of the music of my youth).
I bought A Ghost is Born as soon as it was released, and, at first, I was disappointed. My wife hated the noise, and I didn't like it much either. But, after 4 years, the album keeps getting better for me. Just when I get into the musicality of some of the "easier" songs (whose standards are still higher than those of 95% of the stuff you hear), something ominous-sounding creeps in and changes my mood. There's nothing pretentious or arty about this album. It's take-it-or-leave-it creative. YHF is still my second-favorite Wilco album, but the two are quite different animals.
Wilco is the best band I've heard in many years. If you already like them, get in your car and go to a live concert. They'll blow you away. They are not only amazing performers, but they're the most generous band I've heard live. They play on and on, and the feedback between the band and the audience is amazing. .


Great Record
This is a great album once you come to know Wilco well enough to enjoy their strange, seemingly out of tune riffs in the middles of some of their songs.


Vinyl Review
I love the music, but I was a bit disappointed that the record did not come with a CD or MP3 download of the songs. I ordered this on vinyl just because I didn't have any Wilco on record. Especially since it cost like $24. Also, the record is a bit annoying because there are 2 records and each side only has 3 songs. So I'm constantly having to flip them over. So now I've gone ahead and ordered the CD as well. As for the music, I think it's great. .


Grasping for greatness
That continues with their fifth album, A GHOST IS BORN. Wilco
A Ghost Is Born
2004; Nonesuch Records

My Rating: 6/10

To me, the trajectory of Wilco's recording career shares a strange correlation with Radiohead's. If YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT was WILCO's KID A, then yes, this is WILCO's AMNESIAC. It's not just that GHOST's experimentalism seems a bit tried after the resounding avant masterpiece YHF - it's that, at this point, the band seems to be grasping for great ideas rather than letting the joy of making music lead to inspiration.

That being said, I do want to say that A GHOST IS BORN contains some startlingly great songs. "Muzzle of Bees," "Company in My Back," "The Late Greats" - all of these have become live staples for Wilco and for good reason. They are fantastic songs. Similarly, "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" is an adventurous kraut-rock experiment that just rules. It's one of my favorite Wilco tracks, even at close to eleven minutes. However, there are an equal number of disappointments. "At Least That's What You Said" is the worst opener in Wilco's catalog, and "Hell Is Chrome" just drags a little too much. And "Handshake Drugs", though certainly a highlight in Wilco's catalogue, is a little too cleaned up here compared to the earlier, superior version on the MORE LIKE THE MOON EP.

Additionally, A GHOST IS BORN contains what is probably the low point in Wilco's career, the 2-minute song plus 11 minutes of white noise, the inexplicable no matter how hard you try to spin it as art, "Less Than You Think. " The song itself doesn't even warrant inclusion, and its only redeeming quality may be that it allowed Tweedy to get a few records full of completely obtuse avant-garde nonsense out of his system. But that's as harsh as I'm going to be on Wilco, band that I love. Regardless of what you could say about this, it is still a WILCO record, and that fact alone makes it enjoyable.

A GHOST IS BORN represents WILCO's attempt to top itself once again. Given that, it's daunting to best a masterpiece. Five albums into a stellar career, it became apparent that they were trying a little too hard to reinvent themselves this time around. Being a WILCO record it contains several great songs, but overall GHOST comes off sounding like the band's mid-life crisis. Thank God they managed to come out of it alive, for there were brighter horizons awaiting the band.

I recommend A GHOST IS BORN only for WILCO die-hards and completists. Many of GHOST's tracks can be found in superior form on the live record KICKING TELEVISION.

Tracks:
1. At Least That's What You Said (3/5)
2. Hell Is Chrome (2. 5/5)
3. Spiders (Kidsmoke) (5/5)
4. Muzzle of Bees (5/5)
5. Hummingbird (4/5)
6. Handshake Drugs (3. 5/5)
7. Company in My Back (4/5)
8. Wishful Thinking (4/5)
9. I'm a Wheel (2/5)
10. Theologians (2. 5/5)
11. Less Than You Think (1/5)
12. The Late Greats (4/5).


Highly recommend this album
It blew me away. I just recently became a fan of Wilco and anyone interested in this group or even just solid alternative music should for sure buy this album.


You can see a complete list of all Wilco discography, or go back to the Wilco tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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