Reasons to be cheerful
Marcus Berkmann
Iam an idiot. Last month, in this space, I proffered the usual random selection of favourite albums of the year, not a single one of which had actually been released in 2007, for, like many people (I’d like to think), I can be a little slow on the musical uptake. A day or two after the column had been filed, I was listening to Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky (Nonesuch) for maybe the 78th time when I suddenly thought, ‘Hang on, this came out this year. And it’s as good as anything I’ve heard this year as well.’ Thus proving that I am appreciably slower on a far wider range of uptakes than I had previously suspected.
To be fair, though, Wilco’s album could be an easy one to disregard. The band, led by singer and songwriter Jeff Tweedy, are a cornerstone of the American alt-rock scene and have released a number of jagged, even tortured albums over the years, combining country-rock with misery and mild psychological problems, with increasing commercial success. They have never done it for me, particularly; I’ve had a go, usually following up the recommendations of friends, but after listening to a Wilco album my first instinct has often been to send them an email saying, ‘Have you thought of perhaps going for a walk? Or having a nice long bath? You really will feel much better.’ And to anyone who felt miserable after listening to it, my recommendation would have been: try not listening to it again.
But the strangest things happen in music, as in life, and what no one could have predicted is that Jeff Tweedy has cheered up. Apparently he is married and has children and has given up smoking and may even have kicked the painkiller addiction generated by chronic migraines, and let’s not forget the panic attacks or the major depressive disorder, because he won’t have. But whatever the reasons, life is currently good for Jeff Tweedy, and this has been reflected in the music. Accordingly Bob Harris played a track from the new album on his Radio Two country show in the summer, a wonderful, sunny little tune called ‘Either Way’. Then he played it again the following week and the week after that, never talking it up, which is unusual for him, but then he obviously liked it so much he felt it wasn’t necessary. Harris’s show was actually the perfect place for the song, which is infused with the sound of late-1960s/early-1970s California before the Eagles discovered cocaine and ruined everything. It’s an amazingly joyous record, with a lovely soaring guitar solo, and unlike anything I’d heard from Wilco before.
Some of their fans, needless to say, were furious. I think we know how they feel. There’s a band you love, possibly because they are even more miserable than you, and their lead singer sits at home recording entire albums by himself on Pro Tools, including a 15-minute thing with electronic noises you don’t actually like, because it’s not there to be liked, but you can see why he would want to record it, what with his migraines and everything. Then, three years later, an album comes out that has clearly been recorded by a full band playing together in a room. And there are tunes and soaring guitar solos and the whole thing could easily have been made in 1973. One or two critics called it ‘Dad rock’, a brutal term which, I have to admit, I have used myself for music I didn’t like. But that’s not the real problem they have with Sky Blue Sky. The real problem they have is Tweedy’s obvious contentment. Rock music embraces all the grand, operatic emotions, but it still struggles with the domestic ones. And Tweedy’s album challenges the old saw that you have to be miserable to produce great art. Dare we suggest that some people might do their best work after they have ironed out some of their personal problems? Or did Kurt Cobain die for nothing? Well, now you come to mention it, yes he did. If only for this reason (but also for the tunes), Sky Blue Sky is, on second thoughts, my album of the year.
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