Wilco makes potent statement

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Wilco
Nonesuch Records Somewhere along the way, folk music picked up the wrong connotations. The term "folk" began to describe a sound when really it's meant to describe an aesthetic -- the music of the people and times. It is why the Sex Pistols are as much folk music as Woody Guthrie, and they are exponentially more folkie than the Kingston Trio. If we take this definition to be true, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is folk music for the 21st century and the most acrid statement on our post-Sept. 11 universe that has yet come out. This can be precisely attributed to the fact that the album was written and recorded well before planes started crashing into two national landmarks. The real revelation is that the problems so nakedly exposed now were there beforehand. Albert Camus wrote in The Stranger, "As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world." If songwriter Jeff Tweedy doesn't understand this, he at least adheres to its suggestion. In an album full of jarring transitions, there is fluidity in its reflection of life. Nostalgia stands alongside disappointment uncovering the same loss and emotion. The sound of the album reflects the band's explorations into electronics. But the album doesn't sound as though it was made by electronics so much as it sounds surrounded by them. On "Ashes of American Flags," a piercing feedback mirrors the bewilderment of the world and the words, "All my lies are only wishes / You know I would die if I could come back new." The song is immediately followed by the glorious nostalgia of "Heavy Metal Drummer" -- "Playing Kiss covers / Beautiful and stoned." The power chords becoming overpowered by synthesizer squeaks, a musical denial. "Poor Places" is a stunning new age sea shanty, the sailor being replaced by businessmen -- "It's my father's voice dreaming off sailors sailin' off in the mornin' / For the air-conditioned rooms at the top of the stairs." The song investigates the tragedy of heroes, but finally when it gets too hot, the singer can no longer care. Tweedy condemns the indifference as much as he understands his own country's contradictions. After all, there were vendors selling Ground Zero T-shirts in New York, proving that for every loss there is the cash machine to profit.