1b. Wilco: A ghost is born
Where I liken 2002's darkly beautiful, but depressing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to the sound of a man about to hit bottom, 2004's A ghost is born is the sound of someone at the bottom, looking up - it's hopeful, in other words. This analogy seems fitting, as 2004 was the year when Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy checked himself into rehab to fight off a nagging addiction to painkillers he took to ward off the chronic migraines that can render someone completely incapable of functioning. As if predicting this, Tweedy constructed an album that seemed more to be about recovery, acceptance, and finding beauty, even while suffering and struggling to climb the steep hill back to being a healthy, functioning human being. It may not break the ground that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot did, but it perfects the Wilco model of music. This is Wilco at its most earnest, honest point, a perfect, uncompromising balance of songcraft and art. Some moments may seem indulgent, such as the nearly 11 minutes of the Neu!-meets-Rolling Stones "Spiders (Kidsmoke,)" and the last 2/3 of "Less Than You Think," an expansive, exhausting soundscape that mimics the feel of a migraine, will garner exactly one play from most listeners, if they can make it through the entire piece. The album is carefully constructed to provide a vague narrative to an unspoken story. By the time the simple, but rousing album closer "The Late Greats" rolls around, the listener has gotten far more out of the album than music alone intends - they've been taken on a journey and back again.
When Marillion returned in 1991 with their second album with "new" singer Steve Hogarth, Holidays In Eden, long-time fans decried it as the death of their favorite band. The album was an abrupt shift, dropping the heavily Genesis-inspired prog-rock of their past for a much glossier, more commercial "pop" sheen. With shorter, less involved songs, the emphasis drifted from the complexity of the arrangements and the density of former vocalist Fish's convoluted, twee poetry to emphasize songcraft and structure. The change seemed a very calculated one by a band eager to move on from the limitations of their genre. While fans initially balked that Hogarth wanted to turn the band into a pop-music machine, the album revealed more depth and emotion than the band had ever shown before, and it was clear from the album-ending trilogy "This Town/100 Nights" suite (as it has come to be known) that Marillion still had plenty of prog left in them, a fact they would more than prove with the following album, a 70 minute concept piece that was as anti-pop and anti-commercial as a band could get, as if the band simply wanted to keep fans happy. Who would guess it would take them 13 years to get back to where they started out trying to change, with a cleaner, sharper focus and sound? Since 1991, the band has fitfully been fulfilling its destiny as a prog-rock band as if constrained to the genre and desperately wanting to break free, but fearful of a backlash from fans. The hints had been there all along - after Holidays, the band had included one or two "pop" oddities on each record, and in retrospect it's become obvious that this was the direction the band wanted to go, but feared doing more than simply hinting - testing the waters, essentially. The evolution has been a careful, calculated one, as each release has shed a bit more of that old Genesis-derived sound and has incorporated more of modern rock's influences. The culmination of this process came with 2004's Marbles, the second album whose evolution was funded by fans before it even existed as more than ideas in the heads of the band members. The resulting album is an odd beast - a modern rock concept album with few of the pretentions of the prog-rock that is typically associated with the concept album. It isn't without flaws - the four, short title-track pieces serve virtually no purpose and, in spots, sound as if they were recorded on the fly with no time for corrections or overdubs, as is evidenced by Steve Hogarth's struggling singing on the first installment. Overall, however, it is without doubt that this is the best work Marillion has ever done, and it's impossible to imagine how the band will top this.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
wildly interesting and informative list Tom, thanks! Ihad no idea the Trash Cans were still around and I had almost completely forgotten Grant Lee
2 - DJRadiohead
Tom,
Interesting list- particularly Helmet. I expected so much less and was pleasantly surprised. I can't say I like the album as a whole, but there are a couple of very good songs ("Throwing Punches" has been a favorite of mine since I heard it on the 'Underworld' soundtrack).
3 - Tom
Eric: do check out both the Sinatras as well as the Grant Lee Phillips album - if you liked what they did in the past, you'll like what they're doing now, and probably more, from my perspective. They're that good.
DJRadiohead: I went into the Helmet album with low expectations, too, and still found it to be a disappointment. I'd much rather listen to pretty much anything than this, sadly. I really thought I might like it, as I even like Aftertaste, which I think is unfairly slagged by fans who might have been expecting Betty II.
4 - Henry Porter
I must say you do check out the hard, cold, strange and unusual shit. No Dick Dale and the Deltones for your funky ass. I find your tastes peculiar but your means of expression are immaculate, and I don't think I've had as much fun with a single post since I went skinnydipping with the Bundchen sisters.
5 - Bill Lamb
Fascinating list...I didn't know Einsturzende Neubauten were still around either. I'll have to look that up.
Keep listening to Arcade Fire. It is a truly beautiful album and they are starting to build a buzz.
6 - Mark Saleski
as usual, tom provides a varied list, almost none of which is on mine.
...which is a good thing because now there's more stuff to check out.
particularly that intrumental Mike Keneally cd. yummy.
i do have the Wilco cd and it's pretty cool. is is alt.country? it is music concrete? uhm, yes.
7 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
tom, excellent stuff. i never thought i'd enjoy reading about Marillion, but there you go, suprised am i, as yoda would say, if he too were reading about marillion.
I somehow managed to miss the whole Modest Mouse thing, and it was only after my own list was up that someone reccomended it. It blew me away, is what. Fantastic.
I would add the libertines, of course, to any list of best records of 2004, but thats why we all got our own, i guess.
Brilliant stuff, and whilst i'm wary of instrumental rock opera shindigs, you write about it brilliantly.
8 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
and as a fairly long-time fan of nick cave, having enjoyed pretty much all of his back catalogue, i gotta say the new record (s) is the best thing i've ever heard from the dour sonabitch.
9 - Tom Johnson
Good sir Duke, never fear, the Libertines released a much-enjoyed album, but I had to make a cut-off point somewhere. As I mentioned, it was a really tough job just picking these, and the Libs weren't the only thing I had to sadly leave out of this meandering list.
I may have a "honorable mention" list for those things that just didn't quite make the cut. I realized in retrospect there were a number of things that I really enjoyed that, for whatever reason, the listening tapered off toward the end of the year and they plum got forgotten. ANd there are things like the new U2, which came out so late in the year that I have a hard time calling it a "2004 album," as the majority of it's first full year of life will be spent not in 2004 but in 2004. Anything released in the last couple months of the year is pretty hard to list as a best-of for the entire year, I think. I know my tastes change pretty quickly, and what I favor immediately after buying may well disappear from my listening queue by year's end.
10 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Anything released in the last couple months of the year is pretty hard to list as a best-of for the entire year
I totally agree. I left Eminem's Encore off my list, but i've been listening to it constantly for the last month. It's hard to get a handle on things overnight.