Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot [2002] [FLAC]

Number 493 of the ROLLING STONE "500GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME"

Artist: Wilco
Release: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Discogs: 392632
Released: 2002
Label: Nonesuch
Catalog#: 7559-79669-2
Format: FLAC / Lossless / Log (100%) / Cue / CD, Enhanced
Country: Germany
Style: Rock, Alternative Rock, Country Rock

Tracklisting:

01. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (6:57)
02. Kamera (3:29)
03. Radio Cure (5:08)
04. War On War (3:47)
05. Jesus, Etc. (3:50)
06. Ashes Of American Flags (4:43)
07. Heavy Metal Drummer (3:08)
08. I'm The Man Who Loves You (3:55)
09. Pot Kettle Black (4:00)
10. Poor Places (5:15)
11. Reservations (7:22)
Video. Heavy Metal Drummer (3:27)

Credits:

Arranged By [Strings, Horns]: Jeff Tweedy
Arranged By [Strings, Horns]: John Stirratt
Engineer: Chris Buckley
Engineer: Jay Bennett
Engineer [Additional]: Jim O'Rourke
Engineer [Additional]: Jonathan Parker
Mixed By: Jim O'Rourke
Producer: Wilco
Written-By: Jay Bennett (2 to 6, 8 to 10)
Written-By: Jeff Tweedy

Album Controversy
Dismissal from Reprise Records
In 2001, AOL merged with Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner. Time Warner's market share of the music industry had dropped by almost five percent from the mid-1990s, and the new executives ordered the termination of six hundred jobs. One of those jobs was Reprise Records president Howie Klein, who had been a big supporter of Wilco on the label. Klein's dismissal caused head A&R representative David Kahne to be in charge of deciding whether to release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Kahne assigned A&R representative Mio Vukovic to monitor the progress of the album. Vukovic was unhappy about the album because he felt that his suggestions were not being considered. Kahne wanted a radio single from the album, but he felt that none of the songs were suitable for commercial release. In June 2001, the album was officially rejected and Vukovic suggested that the band independently release the album.

Josh Grier, Wilco's lawyer, was able to negotiate a buy-out of the band from Reprise. The band would keep the rights to the album if they paid Reprise $50,000. Before Wilco could accept the deal, Reprise called the band and changed their offer to give the band the rights to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for free. Despite Reprise's efforts to accommodate Wilco's departure, the process marred public relations after an article in the Chicago Tribune described what had happened. Both David Kahne and Mio Vukovic were fired by AOL Time Warner's CEO for their involvement in Wilco's departure from the label.

Wilco had planned on releasing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on September 11, 2001, but Tweedy did not want a change in record labels to significantly delay the release of the album. Within weeks of being released from the label and Jay Bennett leaving the band, MP3s of all tracks from the album began to appear on file sharing networks. In a decision aimed at discouraging the pirating of lower quality MP3s and having some control over how the album was distributed, on September 18, 2001, Wilco began streaming the entirety of the album on their official website. The wilcoworld.net website registered over fifty thousand hits that day, eight times as much as typical daily traffic. Traffic to the website quadrupled the normal traffic over the next few months. The following tour was a success financially, and members of Wilco observed that fans sang along with unreleased songs on the album.

Release on Nonesuch Records
Both independent and major record labels bid for the right to release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, including Artemis Records and Nonesuch Records. Tweedy denied the bids of record labels that did not have a roster of signed artists that matched his liking. He also decided to ignore small independent companies because he wanted to be able to put the album out for a large audience and felt that they would be unable to produce more than 100,000 records. Wilco decided to sign with AOL Time Warner subsidiary Nonesuch Records in November 2001, basing the decision on the label's small size and artist-friendly atmosphere. Wilco recorded and produced Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with Reprise, received the rights to the album for free, and then sold it back to a different AOL Time Warner affiliate.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was commercially released by Nonesuch Records on April 23, 2002. The album sold 55,573 copies during its first week of release, peaking on the Billboard 200 album chart at number thirteen. The album was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America and has sold over 590,000 units. The album received positive reviews from media outlets such as Rolling Stone and BBC. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was voted as the best album of the year in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll. The album was voted as the 100th "Greatest Album Ever" in a 2006 Q Magazine poll.

Almost all major publications gave a high rating to the album. Brent Sirota of Pitchfork Media gave the album a perfect 10.0 rating, noting that the album was "simply a masterpiece." David Fricke wrote for Rolling Stone praised its resemblance to psychedelia while All Music Guide writer Zac Johnson lauded its musical complexity. Trouser Press was one of the few major media outlets that did not give the album a good review, stating that "more time spent in the songwriting lab might have yielded material more suitable to the evident studio effort invested and brought Wilco closer to making a truly great album." Robert Christgau gave the album a one-star honorable mention rating, stating that he found the lyrics to be boring.

Though Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was recorded before the September 11, 2001 attacks, critics perceived references in the album to the attacks. For example, Jeff Gordinier of Entertainment Weekly compared the two towers of Marina City to the World Trade Center towers.

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