Success has not always felt guaranteed, however. When Tweedy formed the band in 1994, it was his old partner in Son Volt, Jay Farrar, who was widely expected to have the more significant career. Wilco\u2019s progress for a decade was one of incremental triumphs achieved in the face of daunting challenges, both personal and professional. Their second two decades have been less tempestuous, with a long-stabilised lineup, but no less creatively rewarding. Hence the challenges of selecting their ten best albums: a band notable for their consistent excellence, in perpetual musical flux. \u201c[The Beatles] were pushing to express themselves in ways they’d never heard anybody express themselves,\u201d said Tweedy in 2020. \u201cThat’s basically art. That’s what I want. I want to try and find that.\u201d<\/p>\n
10.<\/p>\n
Kicking Television (Live In Chicago)<\/p>\n
NONESUCH, 2005<\/p>\n
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If Wilco\u2019s first ten years were marked by interpersonal volatility \u2013 Jay Bennett\u2019s tenure being especially frictional \u2013 the ensuing 19 have been strikingly solid: the lineup that came together just before these 2005 Chicago live recordings a constant ever since. Those gigging years have only seen Wilco\u2019s flexible virtuosity increase, alongside the Grateful Dead-like command of their whole catalogue. But\u00a0Kicking Television\u00a0presented a band also starting at the top of their game, with Nels Cline and his needlepoint guitar lines establishing a Verlaine\/Lloyd-style rapport with Jeff Tweedy.\u00a0Yankee Hotel Foxtrot\u00a0songs beefed up impressively, and there was a plaintive version of soulman Charles Wright\u2019s 1969 peace anthem, Comment: \u201cIf all men are truly brothers\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
9.<\/p>\n
Cruel Country
DBPM, 2022<\/p>\n
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Tweedy\u2019s longtime exasperation with the Americana tag has led him to some musically extreme places, and in 2005 he told me, \u201c[Alt-country] has become a very conservative movement that\u2019s not really a movement. It\u2019s stagnant.\u201d The 12th Wilco studio album, however, archly leaned in to concepts of American roots music \u2013 and into ideas about the state of their nation. An opportunity, then, to showcase the band\u2019s casual mastery of classic folk songwriting, but also to be slyly subversive, as they slipped an understated avant-jam into Bird Without A Tail\/Base Of My Skull (think: Sonic Youth, acoustic).\u00a0Cruel Country\u00a0was a strategic double bluff: a self-proclaimed \u201ccountry\u201d record that was often as far as ever from being a conventional one.<\/p>\n
8.<\/p>\n
Wilco (The Album)<\/p>\n
NONESUCH, 2009<\/p>\n
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Another pet gripe of Tweedy \u2013 that his fans required him to be tormented as a default \u2013 was challenged head on by the bright, liberated, sometimes rather goofy seventh Wilco album: \u201cA sonic shoulder for you to cry on,\u201d he promised in the self-referential power pop of theme tune, Wilco (The Song). While a fraught motorik workout (Bull Black Nova) did make the cut, Cline afire, other songs on\u00a0g\u00a0were Tweedy\u2019s most Beatles-adjacent efforts since\u00a0Summerteeth. The twist this time being that the sentiments of, say, You Never Know (a vibrational\u00a0All Things Must Pass<\/a>\u00a0stomper) were ruefully optimistic rather than spiked.<\/p>\n 7.<\/p>\n Ode To Joy A political concept album of sorts, though way subtler and more artful than the norm,\u00a0Ode To Joy\u00a0initially sounded like groggier kin to 2016\u2019s mostly acoustic\u00a0Schmilco. But beneath Glenn Kotche\u2019s martial drums, a lot more was going on. \u201cThe idea of making a rock record is distasteful to me at this moment,\u201d Tweedy told me. \u201cWe wanted to make really, really small music gigantic.\u201d Hence \u201cmonolithic folk\u201d songs that were both sombre and humane, anthemic by stealth, and packed with micro-detail and invention deep in the mix. Moving, too: \u201cRemember when wars would end?\u201d Tweedy sings in Before Us. \u201cNow when something’s dead\/We try to kill it again.\u201d<\/p>\n 6.<\/p>\n Star Wars A surprise release, given away online, and the band\u2019s shortest album at only 33 minutes,\u00a0Star Wars\u00a0could easily be misconstrued as marginalia: even the sleeve art, a kitschy cat painting from the kitchen wall of their Chicago studio, signalled irreverence. But while the songs often veered towards sparky garage art-rock, they were terrific sparky garage art-rock. Cranked-up experimentation came compressed into three-minute gobbets and cut with nagging hooks; cf Random Name Generator, their catchiest tune since\u00a0Yankee Hotel Foxtrot\u2019s Heavy Metal Drummer. And alongside frenetic post-punk (Pickled Ginger) there were more conventional Wilco triumphs, notably the cumulative intensity of You Satellite.<\/p>\n 5.<\/p>\n Being There<\/p>\n REPRISE, 1996<\/p>\n 1995\u2019s Wilco debut,\u00a0A.M., had at least established Tweedy\u2019s bona fides as a bandleader, away from Jay Farrar in Uncle Tupelo. But it was sprawling follow-up\u00a0Being There\u00a0that vigorously asserted he and his rapidly evolving band\u2019s range and ambition. Alt-country still figured (Forget The Flowers was a pitch-perfect\u00a0Gram Parsons<\/a>\u00a0homage), alongside ragged-assed Stones boogies and questing, less generic pieces like Misunderstood that would form the bedrock of the Wilco canon. Plus, an auspicious newcomer in the ranks alongside Tweedy and bass-playing lifer John Stirratt, in the shape of multi-instrumentalist and powerpop classicist Jay Bennett. His moment would come, soon enough.<\/p>\n 4.<\/p>\n Sky Blue Sky<\/p>\n NONESUCH, 2007<\/p>\n The first studio effort by Wilco\u2019s most enduring lineup \u2013 Tweedy, Stirratt, Cline, Kotche, Mikael Jorgensen (keys) and Pat Sansone (keys\/guitars) \u2013 initially seemed surprisingly safe; mellow craftsmanship that could almost pass as AOR, where many expected radical fireworks. The songs, though, were some of Wilco\u2019s most gorgeous, often co-compositions that gradually revealed themselves to be nuanced, collaborative gems. The fireworks were there, smuggled into the great tunes, Side With The Seeds and especially Impossible Germany opening up into showcases for elevated groupthink, with Nels Cline\u2019s pointillist jazz-rock soloing to the fore.<\/p>\n 3.<\/p>\n Summerteeth<\/p>\n REPRISE, 1999<\/p>\n While Wilco\u2019s 21st century excellence has proved yet again how great art isn\u2019t inextricably bound up with suffering, that myth fixed on to Tweedy circa Summerteeth. Wilco\u2019s third was an elaborate chamber pop confection, bathed in the sunshine possibilities of\u00a0The Beatles<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Beach Boys<\/a>, but earthed in Tweedy\u2019s personal problems: his relationship issues, drugs and, fundamentally, depression. Tweedy and Jay Bennett obsessively piled on the mellotrons to mask the trauma, but the record\u2019s brilliance lies in its light and shade. \u201cI was trying to figure out what the fuck I was feeling,\u201d Tweedy told me in 2020. \u201cBut it was much easier for me to tolerate when I’d layered a disclaimer of ornamentation.\u201d<\/p>\n 2.<\/p>\n Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<\/p>\n NONESUCH, 2001<\/p>\n Another drama on multiple fronts, with protracted record label grief and a power struggle between the traditionalist Bennett and the increasingly adventurous Tweedy that only ended with the former leaving Wilco. Now, though, especially with a mammoth 2022 boxset mapping its evolution and intricacies,\u00a0Yankee Hotel Foxtrot\u2019s brilliance seems ever more distinct from its backstory. New drummer Glenn Kotche brought unorthodox rhythms, while mixer\/co-conspirator Jim O\u2019Rourke facilitated Tweedy\u2019s experiments with process, texture and noise, his desire to escape what he later described as the \u201cpastiche\u201d of\u00a0Summerteeth. But the radio static and conceptual dislocation ultimately complemented rather than distracted from Tweedy and Bennett\u2019s songs: poignant, sonically fragile; a lot more resilient than they first appeared.<\/p>\n 1.<\/p>\n A Ghost Is Born<\/p>\n NONESUCH, 2004<\/p>\n Yankee Hotel Foxtrot\u00a0is often tagged Wilco\u2019s masterpiece, the \u201cAmerican\u00a0Kid A\u201d of popular acclaim. Its follow-up, though, might be even better. Record label support, Bennett\u2019s departure, and the consensual embedding of O\u2019Rourke as producer ensured avant-garde principles were baked into\u00a0A Ghost Is Born. The sound, more organic and less processed than\u00a0YHF, could accommodate Band-like country soul (Theologians) and Krautrock supergrooves (Spiders (Kidsmoke)) as well as fractured guitar improv. But Tweedy had become addicted to painkillers to combat his migraines, adding high anxiety to the spectacularly good songs: Less Than You Think, 15 minutes of uncompromising minimalist drone, was designed to mirror a debilitating headache. A fully realised and moving document of pain and addiction, immeasurably improved by the knowledge Tweedy recovered. Plus, it\u2019s his own great guitar album: those spraying solos, pitched halfway between\u00a0Neil Young<\/a>\u00a0and Derek Bailey, were Tweedy, not the as-yet-unenlisted Nels Cline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last time this writer met up with Jeff Tweedy, at a 2019 show in Brussels, the imminent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-248880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
DBPM, 2019<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/7_Ode_To_Joy-1.jpeg\"\/)
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DBPM, 2015<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/6_Star_Wars.jpeg\"\/)
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