I could write a long post that would analyze each track, etc., but that would be boring. (I'm so done with music journalism, for many reasons that I won't enumerate now.) Instead, I'll compare it to someone else's recording history: Neil Young. Now, the two artists don't sound alike necessarily, but their creative trajectories are relatively similar.
So:
--"AM" was like a Buffalo Springfield album, in that Tweedy had not yet sloughed off the "Uncle Tupelo" brandings that were inevitable, and Young clearly wanted to focus on his solo career as well.
--"Being There" was like "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere," and not only because both are double albums.
--"Summerteeth" was like "On the Beach." The latter is occasionally a crude recording, but also had polished pop songs like "Walk On." The former has both "Via Chicago" and "Pieholden Suite."
--"Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" was like "Trans," but not like you'd think. Both were avant-garde sonic experiments with good intentions but very different results. Wilco's album was and is a masterpiece that deals with miscommunication, or actually non-communication, in a relationship. Young was trying to find a way to get through to his disabled son (with cerebral palsy), but it was more personal than artistic, which is a distinction that can denote transcendence, or, in this case, aimlessness.
--"A Ghost Is Born" was like "Ragged Glory," because both had brave fuzzy bursts of feedback next to bouncy ballads.
--"Sky Blue Sky" was like "Harvest Moon." Both have soft, majestic songs, in Young's case motivated by tinnitus and, in Tweedy's case, a recovery from addiction to painkillers.
This brings us up to date, for the most part, and I think "Wilco (The Album)" is like "Greendale." Wilco want to offer themselves up as a remedy for nearly any kind of psychological anguish, and Young wanted to show the world that everything would be all right because it had been previously.
I'd ramble on longer, but one of the reasons I got away from music journalism was that most of it was boring as shit, and not at all enlightening. Hopefully this simple piece cuts to the chase.
Rick
ADDENDUM: This album is hysterically funny. Something very new and shocking lurks below, though, I think.
