WILCO Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 20th Anniversary Expanded Edition ( Nonesuch )
A lot of water has gone under Wilco ’ s figurative bridge since the 2001 arrival of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot . During that time , Jeff Tweedy and his band have reaped the reward for remaining true to the vision captured within these songs . After being sent back to the drawing board by Reprise Records for creating an album that was deemed to be not suitably commercial , the band acquired the rights to the album . Yankee Hotel Foxtrot originally reached the public in the tumultuous days following 9 / 11 as a free stream by the band , designed to thwart digital bootleggers from distributing inferior-sounding tracks . Tweedy and company ultimately took the album to Nonesuch , which released the album in the spring of 2002 and helped the band notch its biggest commercial success . With Yankee Hotel Foxtrot , Wilco cemented acclaim as an American band with pop savvy and experimental fearlessness on par with Radiohead . The album is loaded with songs that are straightforward and relatable roots-pop fare at their essence but are rendered as otherworldly pocket masterpieces through sonic detours and off-kilter deconstruction crafted in the studio . “ War on War ” is a hippie folk strummer gliding atop John Stirratt ’ s burbling bass groove until the arrangement is upended with the kernel panic of distressed synthesizers . The reassuring “ don ’ t worry baby ” sentiment of “ Jesus , etc .” nearly escapes unscathed as warmly subdued R & B but is eventually twisted into new shapes with twanging pedal steel juxtaposed against stately chamber strings . The ambling “ I ’ m the Man Who Loves You ” splits the difference between the Lovin ’ Spoonful and Three Dog Night but applies a brash and fractured acid rock guitar solo before incorporating Sgt . Pepper brass alongside newcomer bandmate Glenn Kotche ’ s inventive drumming .
Tweedy applies similar inventiveness to his lyrics , surrounding relatable sentiments with sometimes inscrutable lyrics . The album ’ s sweetest and sparkliest pop song celebrates nostalgia for summer nights spent headbanging at heavy metal concerts by the lake . Thousands of Chicagoans have raised their voices at Pritzker Pavilion to sing the onomatopoeic head-scratcher “ I am an American aquarium drinker , I assassin down the avenue ” during the opening verse of “ I Am Trying to Break Your Heart .” And so it continues for the album ’ s 52 minutes . In his book Let ’ s Go ( So We Can Get
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