The Whole Love

Wilco | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 27, 2011)
• Original Release Date: 2011
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: dBpm/ANTI
• ASIN: B005EHNEDO
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,142 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

This CD boasts a vinyl-styled package with gatefold and cardboard wrap and includes a 20 page booklet.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

89 of 104 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wilco's The Whole Love is a whole slab of awesome September 27, 2011

By Brian E.

Format:Audio CD

Wilco is one of those bands you can never sleep on.

Nearly a decade removed from their most esteemed album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, circumstances have changed for the Chicago-based rockers. There was a time in which Wilco couldn't do anything without causing everyone to stand up and take notice.

My senior year in high school was the year A Ghost Is Born came out, and everyone was talking about that record. It was everywhere. You couldn't escape the buzz from that album if you bought real estate under a giant boulder.

But if you were one of those, like me, who soon tired of the Wilco hype, you eventually got your wish. It wouldn't be fair to say the hype died, but I don't remember the previous two albums generating the same level of hysteria we saw with Ghost.

But now it is 2011 and I've got to eat my words. I finally decided to give Wilco an in-depth listen, and I see what the big deal is. If there's a new wave of hype over the latest Wilco record, don't expect to see me run for cover. Because if there's any justice, The Whole Love should start a revolution of its own.

The Whole Love seems to strike a medium between the two extremes the band painted in the 2000s. It's certainly more level headed than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born, but is more adventurous than their last effort, Wilco (the album). The opener, "Art of Almost," builds up slowly, leaving you wondering what exactly this album has in store for you. But when the extended guitar solo kicks in, you know you're in for a truly unique ride.

As a listener who appreciates variety, The Real Love is an easy sell. This album has it all, from sprawling epics to clashing rockers and well crafted pop nuggets....

"I Might" sees the band combining pop and rock styles like second nature. You are treated to strong hooks that are punctuated by guitar pyrotechnics going off left and right. When Jeff Tweedy's voice kicks in during the chorus, I can't help but notice he sounds a bit like John Lennon.

And speaking of Beatles influence, another treat comes on "Sunloathe." It's dreary at first, but picks up as it goes along. The second half reminds me of the Abbey Road medley, particularly in regard to the harmonies and drum fills.

One fact Wilco fans should be well aware of is that there's nothing quite like the effect of a dynamic frontman. There are few tracks that better accentuate that than "Standing O," a rollicking rocker on which Tweedy confidently asserts himself -- "Maybe you've noticed I'm not afraid of everything that I've done / Maybe you've noticed I'm not the same as almost anyone."

And if you like Wilco's lyricism, "Dawned On Me," will also be high on your favorites list. I enjoy the aggressive attitude and the way the words wrap around each verse. Look at the second verse:

"I've been lost
I've been found
I've been taken by the sound"

It's simple, but dramatic when delivered the way Tweedy does it. This is the song most deeply ingrained in my head right now.

"Black Moon" and "Rising Red Lung" are mellow, quiet, and thought provoking. They're the two songs on The Whole Love that best reflect on Wilco's alt-country roots, and they're the two songs that best represent my state of mind when I'm ready to chill out.

"Capitol City" has a jovial, bouncy, show tune-y feel to it. "Open Mind" is an emotional ballad, with lyrics that tug at your heart strings. Then you have "Born Alone," one of my personal favorites. At first glance it's your typical pop/rock gem, but near the end it gets reflective and really rocks out.

The Whole Love comes to a close with "One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)" a devastatingly vivid 12 minute chronicle on the deterioration of a relationship between father and son. Pay close attention to the lyrics and it'll produce a lump in your throat.

What makes Wilco great is the sincerity of everything they produce, coupled with the unique musical ideas that seem to turn up on each of their records. The Whole Love is the perfect album if you're looking for something refreshing, or for anyone who's a fan of great songwriting. Read more ›

41 of 49 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wilco - The Whole Love September 27, 2011

By Rudolph Klapper VINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD

It would have been so easy for Wilco to just fade away. No one would have begrudged them any; Yankee Hotel Foxtrot still engenders enough goodwill in the music community ten years after its release that if Jeff Tweedy decided to spend the rest of his years writing paeans to fatherhood and singing sweet, insubstantial love songs with Feist, everyone would simply nod their heads and go along with it. But what Wilco has always done best is growth, from Being There's epic expansion of classic Americana to the unapologetic power pop of Summerteeth to A Ghost Is Born's startling abrasive rock classicism. Through it all the constant was Tweedy, suffering through a recurring painkiller medication and the woes of growing old, his biting lyricism continually well tempered with fine melodies culled from the best folk tradition, from Cash to Young to Bragg. Yet as a first single, "I Might" was disturbingly coy; for all the lyrics about parental discord and setting children on fire, it was fairly rote late-period Wilco. That is to say, boring and not particularly memorable. In the context of The Whole Love, however, it's one heck of a red herring. It's the most conventional song on here, an old-fashioned rock `n roll respite cleverly placed after the delightfully unconventional opener "Art of Almost." That is the song that sets out the mission statement of The Whole Love - an unassumingly complicated drumbeat propelling a foggy atmosphere of discordant electronics and haunting strings, Tweedy himself practically a ghost in the background, all the elements swirling around each other without falling apart.... It's a harkening back to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot territory, at least until Nels Cline rips in with a guitar solo that stretches the song to nearly seven and a half minutes and serves notice that this is not the same Wilco that made that seminal 2001 release. It's the biggest mark Cline has made since joining the band, and the only tragedy is it's taken them three albums to finally realize this incarnation of Wilco's potential.

It's hard to pinpoint just what The Whole Love does best. There's hints of Summerteeth-esque pop bliss on crunchy guitar numbers like "Dawned On Me," where Tweedy's charmingly imperfect voice gives the chorus all the pizazz it needs. The countrified ballad "Open Mind" finds Tweedy at his most confessional, the campfire vibe recalling Uncle Tupelo and the lyrics Tweedy's most unashamedly direct. "Capitol City" is a bit more ill advised, a disposable little vaudeville exercise that sounds like a Beatles outtake circa Sgt. Pepper's, but what still captivates is just how well crafted it is. Mikael Jorgensen's jaunty keyboard, Cline's lilting pedal steel, Glenn Kotche's waste-not/want-not drumming (the man is brilliant in giving even the wispiest rhythm a very real substance and gravity): it's all greater than the sum of its parts. That is perhaps the enduring lesson of The Whole Love; for all of Tweedy's evocative songwriting and pained, autobiographical stories, Wilco is a band, first and foremost. More so than perhaps any other album in Wilco's catalog, The Whole Love succeeds because the band isn't evolving exponentially or diving headfirst into musical waters unknown. For all its weirdness, "Art of Almost" isn't exactly indicative of what's to come, per se. It's how the band members interact on "Art of Almost" and "Capitol City" and the deceptively simple title track that makes The Whole Love such an improvement over lackluster previous outings. There's so much going on here that even the most straightforward of tracks has a subversive flair about them that an initial listen might not catch. The buzz saw lower-end distortion in the otherwise sunny "I Might" and the understated bass rhythm from "Rising Red Lung" are just two examples, and the fact that they both involve John Stirratt is no coincidence - he is the unsung hero of The Whole Love. But it's more than any one man's contribution, more than Tweedy's forlorn vocals, more than Cline's elegant guitar licks, more than Kotche's economical drumming. It's Wilco the whole band, a unification of talents so seamless you wonder why every Wilco album doesn't come out so brilliantly (and so effortlessly) put together.

Perhaps nothing encapsulates what makes Wilco such a special band at this stage of their career than closer "One Sunday Morning (A Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)." It's not a song that reinvents the wheel; stylistically it would feel just as home on 1995 debut A.M. as it does here. It picks a destination and it sets out for it, riding the back of an irresistibly simple fingerpicked motif and a syncopated hi-hat. "This is how I'll tell it / Oh, but it's long," Tweedy sings, and he isn't kidding; at just a hair over twelve minutes, it's one of the longest in Wilco's catalog. But it never feels that way, despite the song's unerring consistency. Embellished by strings and piano, it stays its course and gradually dissipates over a long outro, but the experience is timeless. For twelve minutes Wilco isn't some institutional rock group, testing the outer boundaries of pop and creating something new and exciting. This is a song in the great American tradition of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, painting a picture of old dust roads and melancholy sunsets, Tweedy bemoaning at the end "bless my mind, I miss being told how to love / what I learned without knowing / how much more I owe than I can give." It's a celebration of the art of storytelling, a tradition and a template that Wilco have always been deeply indebted to. That's what The Whole Love is all about, telling a story and sticking to it, crafting a mix of sound and lyrics that best symbolizes the music that beats under American highways and floats around American campfires. Wilco have had their peaks and valleys, but they have never sounded as confident as they do on The Whole Love. For a band with eight studio albums and coming up on eighteen years running, I can't think of anything more impressive. Read more ›

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wilco - Cover all bases September 27, 2011

By Red on Black TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Audio CD

There is a danger when you try to satisfy everyone that you satisfy no one. Jeff Tweedy is keenly aware of this since in recent years Wilco has tended to polarize music fans who love their experimental side as evidenced on their masterpiece "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" but are not overly keen on their gentle country rock side as evidenced by albums like "Sky blue sky". But in the world of Wilco the whole is the sum of the parts and in a remarkable career they have become the premier American band by refusing to be pigeonholed and being driven by a sense of sonic adventure. "The Whole Love" is their eighth full album and comes as a single album or a slightly longer special edition with 4 additional tracks. It essentially covers all Wilco bases with a mix of the experimental and traditional. This is most in evidence on the two best tracks which bookend the main album. First up is the powerful 7 minute plus opener "Art of the almost" made up of a wonderful cacophony of pulsing synths, propulsive beats and Nels Cline doing a great impression of Richie Blackmore. As a polar opposite the album concludes with the gorgeous twelve minute plus alt country acoustic epic "One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)" where not one second is wasted and which may be one of Tweedy's finest compositions ever. In between you get some of the best pop songs since Summerteeth and a fine balance between artsy, melodic and country. The single "I might" for example has a throbbing bass, a sub Doors style keyboard line and enough hooks to catch mackerel. Cline's injects the song with ragged guitar lines as Tweedy who is clearly enjoying himself intones that "It's all right/You won't set the kids on fire/But I might".... Following songs like "Sunloathe" the truly lovely "Black moon" and the thing of beauty that is "Open mind" are a trilogy of mellow Tweedy ballads which anchor the album, although it is the later "Rising Red Lung" which impresses most with its haunting ghostly guitar lines in the background.

Along the way the sub Velvet Underground sound of the excellent "Dawned on me" starting with a classic Lou Reed riff and ending with some Nels Cline led feedback. One slip does come in the form of "Capitol city" where Tweedy revisits his Lennon and McCartney enthusiasm on a jaunty sub White Album song that is easier to admire than love. The whimsy however is quickly shattered by the preceding "Standing" with its 60s organs and raw guitar rock as the band cut lose and even introduce handclaps. While the penultimate title track is inevitably overshadowed by the brilliance of the concluding "One Sunday Morning" it is a punchy and jaunty song, which could have happily fitted amongst the hazy pop of Summerteeth. The four extra tracks on the special edition include the ironic blues of "I love my label", the slightly Mexican tinged acoustics of the excellent "Message from Mid Bar" and a slightly different version of the scintillating "Black Moon" where on subsequent listens you detect a clear Elliot Smith influence. It is however the six minute plus instrumental "Speak into the rose" that dominates here as it harks back to "A Ghost is Born" and the pulsing electronica "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" and its slowly building simple, driving rhythm and gradual layers of guitars. Five minutes in the band basically have a great wig out but never lose control. It reminds those who ever described Wilco as "Dad rock" to wash their mouths out and offer profound apologies.

Taken as a total package "The Whole Love" is one of the most enjoyable Wilco albums the band have constructed. Creative freedom might be a factor as its their first album on their own label dBpm Records and yet again recorded in inspired comforts of home at the Chicago loft studio which featured on the Sky Blue Sky videos. Ultimately for long term Wilco fans this album proves that the stability of recent line ups has finally paid off with a set of musicians who could play the spoons for 12 songs and make them sound great. Alternatively were "The Whole Love" to be your introduction to this great Chicago band you would discover an album chock full of so much music that recalls their great history that its almost a "Best Of". Read more ›