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While I am huge Wilco fan, I am not the type of fan who thinks that everything that they release is great or even good. I am also not the type of person who generally likes new releases; I usually need some time to get acclimated in order to really appreciate the music. Wilco's "The Whole Love", has grabbed my attention from the first listen in a way that few albums have ever done and to my ears is the best Wilco album since 1996's "Being There" - YES, it is that good!!Over the last week or so I have listened to this album first as a low res stream via NPR, followed by hearing roughly half the album live in concert, to finally listening to the Deluxe cd version on my main 2 channel rig at home - in all cases I found this album to be amazingly well done and to be incredibly strong from the first to the last song!So what makes it such a great album? Take the simple pop and melodic vibe, coupled with complex musical structures from "Summerteeth", add in some moodiness, experimentation, and excellent song writing from "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot", and the organic musicianship from "A Ghost Is Born" and you start to get what makes "The Whole Love" so special."The Whole Love" takes you on a musical journey that few bands these days can deliver. Over the course of the album Wilco highlights their individual talents and instruments while seamlessly blending everything to create a stream of music that is better than its individual components. Want to hear some melodies - check. Want to rock out with some guitar based songs - check. Want to slow it down and listen to some hauntingly beautiful acoustic guitar - check. Great lyrics? (that aren't dark and brooding as they have been at times in the past) - check again.If I sound as smitten as a teenage schoolgirl, it's because I am. If you are a Wilco fan (either die-hard or casual), get this album immediately and see for yourself how Jeff and the band have created a masterpiece. If you aren't a Wilco fan but love good music, I am extremely confident that this album is worth taking a chance on.I could go on and on, but I want to get back to listening.George
Do you think deluxe package is worth it or just buy the regular cd?
HQ: In addition to mastering The Whole Love, you approved the vinyl test pressings. What do you listen for when approving these?BL: The first priority is that the vinyl sounded as close as possible to my high resolution mastered files. As I sold my lathe years ago, I worked with Chris Bellman from Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood to be sure he would cut it as I would have cut it and indeed I'm 100% satisfied. The test pressings, being that that are cut from high resolution files, sound a little better to me than the CD does which is how it should be. Of course step one is to choose the best pressing plants in the world to manufacture the disks in the first place. So starting from that, I listen for any ticks and pops in the playback that appear at the same spot in several test pressings I have. If they do, it might be on the metal stamper creating the disk which would mean all pressings would have the problem. If that happens, we contact the plant and either have them fix it, or actually go back and re-cut the lacquer to have another go at it. Vinyl disks require infinitely more quality control than compact discs do.
What about those of us who are about to delete all of their Wilco CDs from their electronic database because of the tendency for Wilco songs to deteriorate into pure noise? Are there any songs on this CD where I have to RUN to the remote to skip the rest of the song?
