Classic Album Reviews, Pt. 4

Sky Blue Sky (2007)

What was Wilco saying to us?

Photo by Kumiko SHIMIZU on Unsplash

I think it was their 1999 release, Summerteeth, that made me first notice Wilco. I didn’t exactly love them then; that would happen when I first saw them live (2002?), but regardless, I followed their subsequent albums, from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to A Ghost Is Born, and in their side projects with Billy Bragg and the late Woody Guthrie.

Sometimes we want our bands to be more prolific than they want to be. I remember it feeling like decades between each Neil Young album back in the 70’s, though in reality, new records came every year. 12 months to a high school/college person, though, might as well be 60. All that to say, keeping up with Wilco, amidst so many other must-hear bands proved difficult for me, and so 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, slipped under the door and somehow got lost in my piles of albums and papers.

Or maybe I just couldn’t leave “The Late Greats” behind.

In a 2008 American Literature class, I played some Wilco to kick things off, and afterward, a student I really admired said to me,

“You always know it’s gonna be a good day when you hear Wilco.”

Indeed.