Holy shit, this is a great album. When you hit that trifecta of authenticity, catchiness, and beauty, you know you've made a good record. I imagine Wilco fans would say this isn't nearly as good as A Ghost is Born (which I've own and like) and Yanke Hotel Foxtrot (which I've never heard), but for the past few months I've been coming back to A.M. off and on and everytime I do it just feels really, really right.
I dunno, I think if I were a professional musician, I'd be proudest of an album that flies under the aesthetic radar and hits you directly in the heart. I'm prone to admire really intellectual music (and create such) but I just think it's interesting that the albums I always return to are the ones that are highly emotional. Spine-tingly and tear-jerking are consistently underrated by me as a music maker and a music fan.
I don't really have any decent description of this album other than it's a great way to get into Tweedy's post-Uncle Tupelo stuff. Writing about music is always hard for me, but it's that much harder when the songs hit you in an unexplored area of the heart. How do you communicate a mystery you're still trying to figure out yourself?
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