Wilco
– Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Some albums feel like they were meant to happen, like they existed somewhere in the ether just waiting for the right hands to pull them down. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is one of those records. It’s the sound of a band unraveling and reinventing itself at the same time, breaking apart Americana and piecing it back together with static, distortion, and just enough melody to keep everything from floating away.
Jeff Tweedy’s songwriting has never felt more fragile or more fearless. His voice wavers between resignation and revelation, drifting through lyrics that feel like half-remembered dreams. The band—especially guitarist/sonic architect Jay Bennett and drummer Glenn Kotche—builds a world around him that teeters between beauty and collapse. Songs swell and fracture, melodies dissolve into white noise, static crackles like a ghost in the mix. But beneath the deconstruction, the heart of these songs beats strong. Jesus, Etc. aches with warmth. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart staggers through its own wreckage, somehow becoming one of the most unforgettable album openers of the decade.
The story of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot—rejected by their label, leaked online, eventually self-released before finding a home at Nonesuch—is well known, but even without the backstory, the music tells you everything. It’s an album about uncertainty, disconnection, and the strange comfort of knowing that nothing lasts forever. And yet, twenty years later, it still sounds timeless.
Choice Tracks
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
A song that falls apart as it moves forward. The drunken drum loops, the detuned piano, the guitars that crash in like a car skidding on ice—it’s all a beautiful mess, held together by Tweedy’s hazy storytelling.
Jesus, Etc.
The album’s most immediate moment, and maybe Wilco’s most perfect song. The strings sigh, the melody glides, and Tweedy delivers one of his most tender vocal performances. Somehow, it still feels like a warning.
Ashes of American Flags
A slow-motion collapse. Sparse and haunted, with lines that feel both deeply personal and eerily universal. The kind of song that stays with you long after the last note fades.
Heavy Metal Drummer
Nostalgia wrapped in distortion. It’s a memory of summers past, of simpler times, but the way it’s delivered—wistful, distant, almost regretful—keeps it from being just another feel-good anthem.
Poor Places
A song that builds and builds, adding layer upon layer, before dissolving into radio static and disembodied voices. It’s unsettling and hypnotic, a perfect setup for the album’s closing moments.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot isn’t just an album—it’s an experience. It bends, it fractures, it sounds like it could collapse at any second. And yet, somehow, it never does. It just lingers, waiting for the next time you need it.