2007: Sky Blue Sky - Wilco

Looking back at 30 years of music | Wilco

Maybe this is the best Wilco album. Maybe it’s not. Either way, it’s got a whole bunch of my favourite Wilco songs on it.

As far as I can tell, there aren’t any bad Wilco albums. I don’t even think there are really any bad Wilco songs. Sure there are some that I like more than others, or some that I get more than others, but this one is just filled with great Wilco songs. Either Way, You Are My Face, Impossible Germany, Sky Blue Sky, Shake It Off, Please Be Patient with Me, Hate It Here, Leave Me (Like You Found Me), Walken and What Light are all here. The list of great songs goes On and on and On. There are so many good songs here that there wasn’t even room on the finished album sequence for The Thanks I Get, one of the very finest songs they wrote and recorded at the sessions.

This album takes all the best aspects of the previous five Wilco records - Jeff Tweedy’s incredible way with words, the band’s knack for finding and settling into an unexpected groove, their blending of traditional forms and styles with the more avant-garde or experimental - and stretches them to their outer limits.

All long-standing bands go through line-up changes in their lifetime, and joining Tweedy, Mikael Jorgensen, Glenn Kotche and John Stirratt for the first time here are multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone and the miraculously great guitar player Nels Cline.

Both help to flesh out the songs on Sky Blue Sky, adding layers that you didn’t realise were missing from the groups previous records. Sansone adds warmth and depth on the Hammond organ to songs like Either Way or a gentle Chamberlain on Sky Blue Sky whilst Cline’s fingerprints and guitar work are evident throughout.

There is a moment in the Marquee-Moon-esque Impossible Germany where Cline and Tweedy’s guitars come back from exploring the stars to fall so perfectly into lock-step with each other that to hear it feels almost like having a religious experience. Anyone who has seen the group perform this song live will know that Cline certainly looks as if he has been taken over by a higher power when he tests just how far his guitar is willing to let his imagination go in his extended solos on this song.

Other moments from this album that I adore include the whole of Either Way; the moment about a minute and a half into You Are My Face when the entire song upends you, Nels Cline’s stabbing and slicing guitar cutting through what had been a pretty ballad up to that point and changing the entire direction of the song into something far grungier, grittier and more angular.

The gentle beauty of title track Sky Blue Sky with its aching and hopeful lyrics, whisper-sung vocals and weeping lap-steel swelling beneath the understated acoustic guitar part, bass and drums. I love the 1950’s slow-dance solo in the middle of the song, and the step up to the D#dim7 in the refrain.

With a sky blue sky this rotten time
Wouldn't seem so bad to me now
Oh, I didn't die, I should be satisfied
I survived, it's good enough for now

I love the inverted funk of Walken. All bouncing piano at first, with the joy of the lap-steel dancing around the movement in the electric guitars. It’s infectiously fun and playful. I love when it breaks out into one of the best instrumental sections across the whole record; a swirl of guitars, pianos and drums that reaches a chaotic cacophony at it’s crescendo.

I love the audacity of the never ending refrain in What Light where Tweedy and co sing the same lines on loop for what feels like eternity.

I like that the melody for the final song On and on and On, which sounds almost identical to the melody from I’ll Fight from their next album, and gives you a reminder to put that record on as soon as you’re finished listening to this one.

That next release, Wilco (The Album) and The Whole Love directly after it are my two other favourite Wilco albums. What a run they were on starting with Sky Blue Sky. What a run they’ve been on since their 1995 debut A.M.

Thinking about it again, maybe this really is the best Wilco album; the most complete and dynamic. The more I think about it, the more I know it’s true.

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Norah Jones - Not Too Late

Rihanna - Good Girl Gone Bad

Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Trip the Light Fantastic

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Up next: A few words in defence of Randy Newman.

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