Lowell Kaufman wrote:
> I like Wilco, particularly live. I like Summer Teeth a little, but I'm
> not that enamored by it because while he's being more poppy, perhaps more
> accessible to sell more records (Wilco may sell alot for an "alt-country"
> band, but they don't sell that many records in the giant picture), he's
> not that great at doing the pop arrangement thing. There's quite a few
> smalltime poppy bands I enjoy more (bands like Cotton Mather, Richard
> Heyman, and other "power pop" folks), but it IS interesting how Wilco
> combines this pop with some bleak moods - something alot of power pop
> doesn't do very often.
Yeah, the way in which this new record is "pop" is a bit oversold, I think,
but that's coming from a big devotee of those "smalltime poppy bands I enjoy
more". "Bleak" and pop of that style are strange bedfellows, though one of the
best pop records of the decade, Velvet Crush's TEENAGE SYMPHONIES TO GOD, is
lyrically rather depressive at times, as is a lot of critic's favorite pop
name-check Matthew Sweet's material.
I'm not sold, yet, on the congruence of the lyric bleakness of SUMMERTEETH
with the relative pop sounds it makes, but I'm still listening and I'm still
interested. BEING THERE had lost me already at this point.
> So there's a few thoughts. Wilco can do what they want for whomever
> will listen - even if the end
> result (I feel) with Summer Teeth is a so-so pop record that's gonna be on
> alot of top 10 lists which will make me shake my head as I play Cotton
> Mather's Kon Tiki and The Orange Humble Band's Assorted Cremes (This
> record sounds ALOT like Summer Teeth to me, but it's much better I
> think) more than I do Summer Teeth.
Well, folks who like the new direction of Wilco who are unfamiliar with Cotton
Mather (who apparently don't have records for sale in Austin?, or at least the
stores I shopped) or even more obscure Orange Humble Band should certainly
check out those records. Or the new Walter Clevenger, or the new Bill Lloyd,
or...
b.s.
n.p. Bil Lloyd STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS
