October 2019

The Record of the Month for October was Ode To Joy, the newest record from Wilco, pressed on white vinyl exclusively for Magnolia Record Club!

The album comes about three years after their last effort, Schmilco, and helps remind us to measure our joy in our own way, and that joy is something that should be celebrated and not ignored. 

“There MUST be more love than hate. Right?! I’m not always positive we can be so sure. In any case, I’m starting to feel like being confident in that equation isn’t always the best motivation for me to be my best self – it can kind of let me off the hook a little bit when I think I should be striving to contribute more love outside of my comfortable sphere of family and friends.”

– Jeff Tweedy

“Following his two solo albums, WARM and WARMER, and memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), Tweedy gathered Wilco to The Loft in Chicago. While all six members of the band can be heard on every song, Tweedy and Glenn Kotche were the launching pad from which most of the songs on Ode to Joy materialized – Kotche’s percussion propels the music forward while Tweedy’s measured words flesh out the cleared paths. As a result, the album is comprised of “really big, big folk songs, these monolithic, brutal structures that these delicate feelings are hung on,” as described by Tweedy. Across the entire album, drums pound and plod with a steady one–two pulse, meant to mimic the movement of marching—a powerful act utilized on both sides of the authoritarian wall. There’s also a sense of comfort that comes with the rhythmic marching sound.”

I remember when I first heard about Wilco.  They were beasts from Chicago.  They played music that was ferocious, with teeth that were delicate in the way of all sharp things.  Their songs, and the narrative of their fierce artistic ambition, helped me to understand how to approach my own troubled soul, my own creative drive, my own dreams of personal transcendence. 

 

I pictured Wilco, the band, as hunter gatherers against a canvas of midwestern time-space, discovering one day a burning branch and carrying it with them.  But to carry that fire you needed a container, and the albums, like Ode to Joy, are the only vessels strong enough to carry the sweet and acidic mixture of pity and laughter, loneliness and trepidation, heartbreak and cautious optimism that is Wilco’s music.  

– Josh Ritter