A critic once noted that Wilco is "always thinking they're weirder than they actually are." And if you're wondering why more than two million listeners have fallen in love with them, that's as accurate a read as any.

Their most celebrated album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, might be subsumed by static and noise, but beneath the maelstrom are relatively simple songs about communication breakdown. Beyond its schizoid motorik jam and 12-minute migraine simulation, the lion's share of A Ghost is Born is swoony and melodic.

Even at the most extreme end of their critically acclaimed deconstructionism, Wilco can't help but remain fundamentally listenable and accessible. (OK, the delightfully bizarre "Common Sense" might push that envelope.)

Part of this is due to Wilco being a band of musical wizards — guitarists Nels Cline and Pat Sansone, bassist John Stirratt, keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen, and drummer Glenn Kotche can gracefully toggle from sweet and sophisticated to white-knucklingly chaotic at the drop of a hat. But the core, of course, is Jeff Tweedy's emotionally and psychologically incisive songwriting and prickly-pear voice.

Time (and sinus surgery) has imbued Tweedy's once-nasal pipes with luxurious new dimensions; his one-liners puncture deeper than ever. (Here's a good one from their next record: "Everything can shine/ Even the devil sometimes."

That line's from "Ambulance," a gem from Wilco's upcoming album, Cruel Country — out May 27. Their first double album since 1996's Being There, the 21-song collection is pitched as being a whole-chested embrace of a genre tag critics pigeonholed them with early on. (Hint: it's in the title.)

And the sound of lead single "Falling Apart (Right Now)" — as well as track names like "Country Song Upside-Down," "Sad Kind of Way" and "The Plains" might conjure this hyper-eclectic band donning Nudie Suits and committing themselves to one thing.

Spoiler alert: there's barely any country in it at all. In fact, it's often more far-out and psychedelic than its one sheet suggests. which proves this almost three-decade-old band remains agile with curveballs, fake-outs and fresh twists. Perhaps Cruel Country represents a reversal: For once, Wilco proved to be weirder than their self-projection.

To ring in the impending release of Cruel Country, here are 28 past songs to help beginners get into Wilco — one for every year they've graced the universe.

"I Must Be High" (A.M.)

Debut album, opening song, first take, first-ever performance by Wilco: what better place to start?

"Box Full of Letters" (A.M.)

Much of A.M. feels like an offshoot of their twangy mother band, Uncle Tupelo — naturally so, because all of that band, pointedly excepting co-leader Jay Farrar, made it into Wilco's first lineup. "Box Full of Letters" is a highlight for its distinctive tint of '70s power pop, like Big Star.

"Misunderstood" (Being There)

Lashings of tom-toms and feedback give way to one of the finest small-town underdog anthems of the '90s, climaxing with Tweedy's hollered "I'd like to thank you all for nothing / Nothing! / Nothing!" (The live version from Kicking Television contains 35 "nothings.")

"What's the World Got in Store" (Being There)

The band's Rubber Soul to a degree, Being There was a giant leap into sophistication and stylistic diversity — and far from their last. This is a low-key highlight among many, hung on aching banjo.

"Sunken Treasure" (Being There)

Tweedy eventually developed a straighter, Travis-picked variation of "Sunken Treasure" live. But there's something to be said about the more languid approach on Being There — this "Treasure" is a hangdog masterpiece.

"She's a Jar" (Summerteeth)

"There wasn't really a band, just two guys losing their minds in the studio," then-drummer Ken Coomer once said of Summerteeth, helmed by Tweedy and his then-foil, the late Jay Bennett. The result was sunshine pop with fangs: in the elegant "She's a Jar," the line alluding to domestic abuse still shocks.

"A Shot in the Arm" (Summerteeth)

Wilco's been pointedly opening post-lockdown shows with this tune, but there's way more to it than that easy joke. Not only was it a quantum leap from Americana into radiant pop, but every line is perfect — from "the ashtray says you've been up all night" to the "C/sea/D/sea" rhyme to the quietly harrowing "bloodier than blood" section.

"Via Chicago" (Summerteeth)

The band's ultimate hometown ode is just three cowboy chords, a dreamt murder scene. a waterfall of exquisite verses, and a torrent of noise like two planets colliding. Arguably the most tactile yet inscrutable line: "Crawling is screw faster lash."

"My Darling" (Summerteeth)

Lest you think Summerteeth can be pigeonholed as the Beach Boys gone bloodthirsty, "My Darling," a bedtime song from parent to child, exudes tender, uncomplicated affection.

"I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)

How does Wilco nail that nexus between outré and open-hearted? "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" is a case study: beneath the dadaist lyrics and between-nine-radio-stations production is a melody and progression that couldn't be simpler.

"Jesus, Etc." (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)

Many Wilco fans consider this the time-capsule song for a reason: Pitchfork nailed it 20 years ago when they deemed it "sad, celestial and lovely." (Today, you can hear its influence in Japanese Breakfast's "Kokomo, IN" — which Tweedy covered.)

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"Ashes of American Flags" (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)

This windswept, devastated ballad acts as something of a centerpiece to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. "I know I would die if I could come back new," Tweedy confesses in the chorus — and the instrumentation all but drops out, leaving spectral howls in its wake.

"Reservations" (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is an album of garbled and obfuscated transmissions — it doesn't contain elements of the mysterioso Conet Project for nothing. But at the end, Wilco cuts through the haze with "Reservations," an arresting song of naked vulnerability.

Listen on decent headphones in the dark, and you’ll never forget it: aside from the Beatles' "A Day in the Life," it's hard to think of another song that decays like this.

"At Least That's What You Said" (A Ghost is Born)

Praise be to Tweedy, the undersung lead guitarist: before Nels Cline joined in 2004, Tweedy snarled Wilco songs with angular clusters of notes. And at the end of the raw-nerved opener to Wilco's most tormented record, Tweedy throws down with a "musical transcription" of a panic attack.

"Hummingbird" (A Ghost is Born)

The paranoid chemical fog of A Ghost is Born gives way to a sunburst: "Hummingbird" is a bouncy piano shuffle — and bittersweet story song — reminiscent of Randy Newman or '67 Beatles.

"Handshake Drugs" (A Ghost is Born)

A circuitous Möbius strip of vagueries about bad habits and burning daylight, "Handshake Drugs" is the kind of tune you grasp instinctually rather than literally — and you won’t want it to end.

"Wishful Thinking" (A Ghost is Born)

The essence of A Ghost is Born is jagged edges juxtaposed with gossamer moments — and "Wishful Thinking" is delicate, sensual and probing.

"Impossible Germany" (Sky Blue Sky)

In the 15 years after Sky Blue Sky was hit with unfair "dad-rock" characterizations, Wilco has made their critics eat crow with night after night of spectacular, inventive Nels Cline solos on "Impossible Germany." The pejorative implies clichéd blues licks with pinch harmonics; rather, this is the next evolutionary step from Television.

"Side With the Seeds" (Sky Blue Sky)

Ditto on the Tom Verlaine tip, with one of Tweedy's finest-ever vocal performances and a flabbergasting solo. Most prescient line for today: "You and I will be undefeated/ By agreeing to disagree."

"Wilco (The Song)" (Wilco [The Album])

Wilco's sorta-self-titled kicks off with this barrelling theme song, more of a cheeky commercial for the band than anything deeper. But it not only works, it endures — if you feel oppressed or repressed or downright down in the dumps, you have at least six friends in your corner.

"You Never Know" (Wilco [The Album])

"I know it sounds like someone else's song/ From a long time ago,” Tweedy sang in an old deep cut from Being There. In the best way possible, that applies to "You Never Know," a jubilant rip of George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" with an irresistible, kiss-off chorus. Among other things, Wilco excel at making the old brilliantly new.

"Art of Almost" (The Whole Love)

After the somewhat divisive Sky Blue Sky and Wilco (The Album), Wilco offered some prickly, experimental moments on The Whole Love. Opener "Art of Almost" sets the bar high, offering almost everything there is to love about left-field Wilco in seven minutes — with distinct fingerprints from all six band members.

"One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)" (The Whole Love)

Also bookending The Whole Love is an astonishing first for the band: a 12-minute, autumnal, cyclical meditation on the fraught relationship between a father and son.

"Taste the Ceiling" (Star Wars)

Surprise-released for free, the zippy, concise, sometimes sarcastic Star Wars was a breath of fresh air for Wilco. Gems abound, but the breezy "Taste the Ceiling" is worth highlighting for its effortlessness — you get the sense it just fell out of Tweedy's voice and hands.

"Magnetized" (Star Wars)

A less-discussed aspect of Star Wars is its occasionally morose lyrics, hinting at relationship discord. The thrumming, tick-tocking "Magnetized" provides resolution at the end: "I sleep underneath a picture that I keep of you next to me/ I realize we're magnetized."

"If I Ever Was a Child" (Schmilco)

This subtle highlight of Wilco's creepiest, most casual album shows how they don't need to erupt into guitar histrionics — or even toss out a particularly spicy line — to stun you.

"Before Us" (Ode to Joy)

Hushed and shellshocked, Ode to Joy was a deeply personal response to political hysteria, blowing on the remaining embers of brotherhood and decency. 

"Alone with the people who have come before us," Tweedy and company intone over a death-march by Kotche, sounding haunted by time and ancestry.

"Love is Everywhere (Beware)" (Ode to Joy)

"I was thinking a lot about how to maintain hope right now, how to not feel guilty for having joy in my life," Tweedy told Uncut amid the horrors of the late 2010s. "How do you deal with having personal feelings when you know something very destructive is going on and there are real people being hurt every day in awful ways?"

Tweedy explains how in "Love is Everywhere (Beware)," a song about holding onto what's important without growing complacent, insulated or blasé. "Sadness wants me/ Further away from the scene," he sings.

This line seems to sum up Tweedy's and Wilco's vital art, which was weathered addiction and loss and interband strife to create one of the most intrepid, elusive and poignant songbooks in American music. To quote a famous artist important to Tweedy and his loved ones: beware of darkness.

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"That always confused me, when they were like, 'This is the most experimental album ever!'" says Mikael Jorgensen, Wilco's keyboardist of two decades, with a chuckle. "I mean, what's your reference point here? Have you not listened to Whitehouse, or any music that's reviewed in The Wire?"

Jorgensen's talking about 2004's A Ghost is Born — Wilco's jagged, spectral follow-up to their masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and his first album as part of the group. (For the attendant tour, guitarists Pat Sansone and Nels Cline would join, and cement their lineup that remains to this day.)

Indeed, critics and fans have always discussed A Ghost is Born with hushed tones — characterizing it as the experimental peak of the ex-"alt country" outfit. Some of its dark reputation is deserved, albeit tiresome to recapitulate: frontman Jeff Tweedy was at the nadir of his opiate addiction — a rough patch that he survived, and has discussed publicly, repeatedly, at length.

Plus, certain moments on A Ghost is Born undoubtedly represent their avant-garde apogee. It's the only Wilco album with Tweedy as the lead guitarist, which alone makes it singular; Cline is a masterful player, but Tweedy's skronky, untechnical, Lennon-meets-Shakey attack was captivating in its own way.

Tweedy is arguably responsible for A Ghost is Born's most extreme moments. He was famously painting pictures of his panic attacks and migraines — the former in the guitar crescendo of "At Least That's What You Said," the latter in the atonal, 12-minute coda of "Less Than You Think."

In short, A Ghost is Born is considerably out there. But to solely paint it with that broad brush would do it a disservice: the album also features some of Wilco's gentlest, prettiest material — as well as mellow gems like "Hummingbird," a skipping stone of a piano-led pop song.

A Ghost is Born was met with critical acclaim upon release on June 22, 2004, and even won Wilco their only GRAMMY to date — for Best Alternative Music Album. (At press time, they've been nominated for seven.) To ring in its 20th anniversary, here's a track-by-track breakdown of the album.

When you consider the enveloping, sound-effects-laden Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, it's still bracing to hear A Ghost is Born stir to life like a sleeping beast — just a little bit of electric guitar and piano rumbling around.

Eventually, Tweedy's near-silent, mumbled confessional erupts into a twisted, serrated, sparks-emitting Tweedy solo. (Seriously: we celebrate his songwriting, his wit, his authorial voice, and so much more: give the man his flowers as an electric guitarist.)

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"'Hell is Chrome' — that was really powerful in the studio, to record that," drummer Glenn Kotche tells GRAMMY.com. (A Ghost is Born was his second album with Wilco; he had joined for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.)

That power was the quiet kind: "Hell is Chrome" is an eerie, spare, piano-led lament; each twist of Tweedy's tenor is goosebumps-inducing. And, accordingly, that howling first note of his guitar solo hits like a blast of a freezing draft.

"Spiders (Kidsmoke)" is another recording where I feel like you can hear my condition pretty clearly," Tweedy wrote in his 2018 memoir, Let's Go (So We Can Get Back).

As he explains, the mother of all migraines was squeezing his skull; they had to strip the composition to basics just so he could get through it. "This allowed me to just recite the lyrics and punctuate them with guitar skronks and scribbles to get through the song," he recalled, "without having to concentrate past my headache too much."

A spiky motorik jam reminiscent of Can or Neu!, "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" is Wilco's first great extended guitar workout — which, with the arrival of Nels Cline, would gather good company.

The hushed "Muzzle of Bees" tumbles forth so naturally, so patiently, that you wouldn't know it was one of the hardest to record.

"That was a tough nut to crack, for reasons that are still unclear," Jorgensen says with a laugh. "We did take after take, and version after version, and it kept changing, and the arrangement kept moving."

Whatever extra effort was required paid off: "Muzzle of Bees" is enchanting — with images of a random-painted highway, and treebanks playing catch with the sun. And the instrumentation sounds lush yet hardly there at all — like a treebranch scraping your window.

Critics love to compare "Hummingbird" to the works of Randy Newman, which isn't that far off — a character study shot through traditionalist pop.

The vivid details — "a fixed bayonet through the great Southwest," "the deep chrome canyons of the loudest Manhattans" will take you away, but it's the elegaic chorus that resonates most: "Remember to remember me/ Standing still in your past/ Floating fast like a hummingbird." And with that, a sweet, aching fiddle solo brings it home.

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Few songs capture aimless, urban wandering like "Handshake Drugs," a choogling, circuitous highlight; it feels like two parallel and inverted arrows, facing forward and backward.

Lyrically, Tweedy shows his mastery of conversational, sneakly profound, ouroboros-like bars: "It's OK for you to say what you want from me/ I believe that's the only way for me to be/ Exactly what you want me to be." A cracked Midwestern-ness that typifies Wilco. 

One of the out-and-out prettiest songs on the album, "Wishful Thinking" should get more love in the Ghost discourse.

"Fill up your mind with all it can know/ Don't forget that your body will let it all go," a devastated-sounding Tweedy sings in the verse. And the chorus simmers down to a heartbeat-like pulse: "Open your arms as far as they will go/ We take off your dress."

A little more lightweight than other Ghost songs — but variety and dynamics are what make the extreme moments pop. The meaning of "Company in My Back" is elusive, but that earworm of an arpeggio, along with Kotche's sparkling hammered dulcimer, make it fit the album like a glove.

"I've always had a particular fondness for 'Company in My Back,'" Jorgensen says, before directing readers to the half-speed, instrumental outtake: "That was just such a wonderful, hot, mysterious universe of sound." 

Wilco get a battery in their back for "I'm a Wheel," a snotty blast of post-punk that points to gonzo future rockers like "Random Name Generator." Come for Tweedy rhyming "nein" with "nine," stay for "I invented a sister/ Populated with knives." With all he was going through, it's good to hear him having fun.

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Tweedy returns to the instrumental palette of "Hummingbird" to ponder matters of the soul. Before concluding "Illiterati lumen fidei/ God is with us every day/ That illiterate light/ Is with us every night."

When "Theologians" blasts off, it feels like the thesis of the album: "No one's ever gonna take my life from me/ I lay it down/ A ghost is born/ A ghost is born/ A ghost of the born."

"I thought I was going to die," Tweedy wrote in his memoir. "I mean that in all seriousness… Every song we recorded seemed likely to be my last. Every note felt final." Yet "Theologians" pulses with life — and resolve.

Most talk about "Less Than You Think" naturally zeroes in on that alien, mechanical drone, which subsumes most of its runtime.

"Even I don't want to listen to it every time I play through the album," Tweedy once said. "But the times I do calm myself down and pay attention to it, I think it's valuable and moving and cathartic. I wouldn't have put it on the record if I didn't think it was great."

Partly why it hits so hard is that the preceding music is so magnificent — a devastated, naked ballad with Kotche's hammered dulcimer sparkling overhead.

"I wanted to make an album about identity, and within that is the idea of a higher power, the idea of randomness, and that anything can happen, and that we can't control it," Tweedy said in the same interview. Which is exactly what "Less Than You Think" communicates. 

Wilco being Wilco, A Ghost is Born doesn't crumple into a heap: it finds a ray of hopeful light. The tumbling rocker "The Late Greats" turns over rock history to examine the underside:

"The best band will never get signed/ The K-Settes starring Butcher's Blind," Tweedy sings. "They never even played a show/ You can't hear 'em on the radio." And, as he concludes before the triumphal little finale: "The best song will never get sung/ The best laugh never leaves your lungs."

Looking back, "It's kind of hard to quantify," Jorgensen says. "Is it a rock record? Yeah. Is it a folk-rock record? Yeah, I guess. Is it an experimental album? There's certainly a component of that. It is all these things, but not one thing.

"So, I guess I identify with that part of it," he concludes. "It's a constellation." Indeed, across A Ghost is Born, there's a star for everyone: for its 20th anniversary, dust off the album, lie awake, and count them.

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Richard Thompson remains something of a cult rocker rather than a bona fide rock star — but there are few similarly worthy candidates for the genre's personification on earth.

First of all, he's one of rock's undersung triple threats. "Richard's been one of my favorite guitar players for a very long time," said Jeff Tweedy, who produced and played on Thompson's 2015 album Still. "When I think about it, he's also one of my favorite songwriters and favorite singers."

Thompson's 2021 memoir, Beeswing, renders him something like rock's Forrest Gump: By the tender age of 19, he'd co-founded Fairport Convention, seen Hendrix shred and turned down a birthday invite from Paul McCartney.

He had also pretty much solidified his artistry as an emotion-forward, English-Scottish yawp who was equally virtuosic on acoustic and electric guitar. And Thompson's probing lyrics continue to twist the knife, again and again.

His guitar work has inspired scores of imitators, but nobody's played the instrument like Thompson. In retrieving the bagpipe's drone, his music didn't become old-timey or quaint; rather, it enabled him to tear the roof off.

Crank up his introductory calling card "Roll Over Vaughn Williams"; his roiling last album, 13 Rivers; and anything in between: Thompson's electric guitar will spin your head like a top. And on the acoustic, he's muscular, searching and incisive: both his Acoustic Classics discs will ravish you.

Happily, Thompson is still making some of the strongest music of his career. His new album, Ship to Shore, is a taut yet spacious new offering. After the sturm und drang of the modern-rocking 13 Rivers, mellower, rootsier tracks like "Freeze," "The Day That I Give In" and "Life's a Bloody Show" seem to loop back to the artist's essence.

With a whopping 19 studio albums since the early 1970s — six with his ex-wife Linda Thompson — to boil down Thompson's discography into essential tracks is a bit daunting. From here, seek out underrated '80s albums like Hand of Kindness; middle-of-the-road yet satisfying '90s works like Mock Tudor, and of course, his inspired work in the 2010s and 2020s.

But for now, if you're a Thompson newbie, read on for 10 songs you must hear by the three-time GRAMMY nominee.

"Roll Over Vaughn Williams" (Henry the Human Fly, 1972)

"If [Henry the Human Fly] was a statement of intent, then the opening track was the distillation of the statement," Thompson wrote in Beeswing.

Indeed, while "Roll Over Vaughn Williams" isn't the strongest song he ever wrote, it's a perfect opening salvo: a 22-year-old Thompson, emancipated from English folk-rockers Fairport Convention, sounds his strange, beautiful clarion call.

"Live in fear," Thompson commands between bramble-like guitar runs — a thesis he'd fully air out on I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, his first classic album.

"The Calvary Cross" (I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, 1974)

I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is typically bandied about as Thompson's masterpiece, with or without Linda. Arguably, that honorific might go to Shoot Out the Lights; when Thompson's age caught up to his precocious, world-weary persona, the results were pure magic.

That's nitpicking, though. Front to back, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is phenomenal, and a crucial entryway to Thompson's musicality and worldview.

Every song is terrific, but the doomy, circuitous "The Calvary Cross" is the first to smack you in the face. (It also invents Jason Molina, right down to the fragile whine in the Magnolia Electric Co. frontman's tenor.)

"The End of the Rainbow" (I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, 1974)

Probably the darkest non-metal song ever written by a 23-year-old, "The End of the Rainbow" begins with Thompson addressing "you little horror/ Safe at your mother's breast."

The unknowing infant has no idea what they're in for: your father is a bully, your sister is a whore, tycoons and barrow boys will take everything you've got. "Every loving handshake is just another man to beat," Thompson sings, steely-eyed — knowing too much, too early.

"Night Comes In" (Pour Down Like Silver, 1975)

The year I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight dropped, the Thompsons converted to Sufism. Their faith would inform a couple of inessential albums, like 1978's First Light and 1979's Sunnyvista — but first, they'd release a work of gobsmacking potency and spirituality.

Pour Down Like Silver is the only Thompsons album that truly goes toe-to-toe with Shoot Out the Lights. Its first masterpiece, "Night Comes In," is a long walk home — a majestic meditation on Thompson's Sufi initiation.

"Lose my mind in dance forever," he sings, as the languid verse flows into the vertiginous chorus. "Turn my world around."

"Dimming of the Day" (Pour Down Like Silver, 1975)

Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, David Gilmour, and others covered this astonishing ballad for very good reasons.

"Dimming of the Day" is a love song genuinely worthy of the Old Testament, sung with quiet power by Linda, accompanied only by her husband's acoustic guitar, backing vocal, banjo, and other light overdubs.

Has there ever been a lyric of romantic devotion like "You pull me like the moon pulls on the tide"? Or "I'm living for the night we steal away"?

The track concludes Pour Down Like Silver with a perfect denouement in a solo guitar performance of James Scott Skinner's "Dargai." Six years later, the Thompsons would smack down their romantic dream for good.

"Shoot Out the Lights" (Shoot Out the Lights, 1982)

"I know people call Shoot Out the Lights a break-up album, but I can honestly say that was never the intention," Thompson later told Uncut. "[The songs] were all written a year before we split up, so people can think what they like."

Luckily, this pesky fact doesn't undermine the unique power of Shoot Out the Lights — a perfect, eight-song monument to disillusionment featuring Richard's sharpest writing and Linda's most empathetic singing.

The title track, one of Thompson's ultimate guitar showcases, is an unquestionable highlight. The lyrics, about some sort of crepuscular gunman sneaking through the night, are beside the point; his neck-snapping soloing tells the entire story.

"Wall of Death" (Shoot Out the Lights, 1982)

Much like Thompson, rock heroes R.E.M. knew how to conjure pop catharsis from the shadows; it's no surprise they recorded a killer version of "Wall of Death."

Shoot Out the Lights' astonishing closer tosses Richard and Linda into a highly metaphorical fun fair. There's Noah's Ark! The mouse! The crooked house! But the doomed couple opt to whirl in a loop, caught in centrifugal force, wherever it may lead.

The best part of "Wall of Death" is when Thompson launches into his solo, cracking like a bullwhip, as the ride cymbal doubles up, barrelling the album — and this musical couple — toward its end. The Tunnel of Love ends here.

"1952 Vincent Black Lightning" (Rumor and Sigh, 1991)

For all of the absolute bangers and weepers above, Thompson's most revered song by some margin actually came along during the '90s.

After his requisite '80s wilderness period, Thompson slugged out the deliciously new wavey Rumor and Sigh, which gave him a hit with the jangly sardonic "I Feel So Good." The other lynchpin track was "1952 Vincent Black Lightning," a popular knockout despite never being a single.

The fictional story of James' bequeathment of the titular motorbike to Red Molly re-cemented Thompson as a consummate storyteller, his avuncular voice and percolating guitar driving it all home.

"The Ghost of You Walks" (You? Me? Us?, 1996)

As with many Thompson deep cuts, he bettered "The Ghost of You Walks" on the must-have Acoustic Classics Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. But this version on You? Me? Us? will do similar heartwork on you, from its butterflies-inducing arpeggios to Thompson's tender chorus.

"Blue murder on the dance floor / French kisses in the rain," Thompson sings, at a relationship's dimming of the day. "Blood wedding in the water 'til I see you again / Dutch courage is the game." Plainly, "The Ghost of You Walks" is one of the most beautiful songs Thompson ever wrote.

"She Never Could Resist a Winding Road" (Still, 2015)

Jeff Tweedy has found himself on the shortlist to give lifers a jolt in the studio; he's helmed albums by Bill Fay, Mavis Staples, Low, and more. Still arguably holds up the best, possibly because Thompson's personality permeates it completely.

Still has a lighter touch than most of the albums that surround it, which means Thompson's sticky melodic instincts take the forefront.

The opener, "She Never Could Resist a Winding Road," makes an ancient-sounding melody gloriously unspool, culminating in an exhilarating solo by Thompson.

Still's title says it all: Thompson isn't simply an old master still doing the thing. As on the wondrous Ship to Shore, he's revered equally for what he's creating right now.

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"We don't get the applause. That's later."

That was an offhand comment from Sarah Jensen, the Senior Executive Director for the Recording Academy's Midwest Chapter — ahead of a conversation between Cheryl Pawelski and Jeff Tweedy. But given the nature of the ensuing chat, it's oddly apropos.

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Wilco's seminal Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, four-time GRAMMY winners Tweedy and Pawelski chatted before a hometown audience at the Rhapsody Theater in Chicago. Pawelski produced and curated Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition), which won Best Historical Album at the 2024 GRAMMYs; Pawelski accepted the golden gramophone on their behalf.

Today, 2002's ambitious, deconstructionist Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is just about universally revered as a watershed for alternative music. But in a David-and-Goliath story told and retold since its release — especially in the documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, Yankee was rejected by its label, Reprise.

Wilco left their label, published Yankee on their own website, and it became a tremendous hit. Nonesuch — which, like Reprise, operates through Warner Records — picked them up, meaning the same record company, in effect, paid Wilco twice.

Ever since, the applause for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot — the one with the immortal "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," "Jesus, Etc." and "Ashes of American Flags" on it — has been unceasing. And, naturally, a hefty chunk of Pawelski and Tweedy's conversation — for the Recording Academy's "Up Close & Personal" interview series, and MCed by Chicagoan family music artist Justin Roberts — revolved around it.

According to Tweedy, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was a pivot point, where they decided to move away from any sort of pastiche.

"There are a lot of things on the boxed set," he said — referring to the plethora of alternate versions of well-known tracks — "where I would listen to them now and go, 'That was good enough.' But it wasn't satisfying… Rock and roll was built on that thing, above all else… be yourself, without any apology, and on purpose."

The "Up Close & Personal" session didn't start with Yankee, though; it started with How to Write One Song, Tweedy's 2020 treatise on the process of… well, writing one song. Which gets as psychologically and spiritually incisive as Tweedy fans would expect.

"I think music in general is a safe place to fail," the prolific songwriter stated. "When you take your ego out of it and you look at it as a daily practice of spending time with yourself in your imagination… once you do it for a long time, it really makes the notion of failure almost quaint or something."

When it comes to songwriting, the 11-time nominee said "nothing's really ever lost. You learn something about yourself writing terrible songs. I know myself better because of the songs that you've never heard."

Tweedy offered other helpful concepts and strategies, like accumulating enough voice memo ideas — for so long — that you can treat them like the work of a stranger. "I'll go through and listen through a bunch of stuff like that," Tweedy quipped, "and go, 'Who wrote this?'"

Pawelski went on to elucidate her rich legacy in the music business — including her fight to get the Band's deep cuts, like Stage Fright, included in Capitol's music budget. (She's worked on archival projects by everyone from the Beach Boys to Big Star to Willie Nelson across her decades-long career.)

Read More: Jeff Tweedy's Blurred Emotions: Wilco's Leader On Cruel Country & Songwriting As Discovery

Tweedy also discussed the magic of collaboration. "I've gotten really good at being alone with people. So I think that facilitates collaboration to some degree," he said. "What I mean is being as forgiving of myself with other people in the room as I am with myself alone."

What was one of his favorites, Roberts inquired?

"The one that probably will always be the most proud of is getting to work with Mavis Staples and contributing something to her catalog, to her body of work that seems to have resonated not just with her audience or a new audience, but with her that she likes to sing, that means something to her. I think that would've satisfied me without it winning a GRAMMY [in 2011]."

When the conversation drifted to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Pawelsky discussed the foreboding process of digging through the sessions' flotsam and jetsam.

"The world kind of changed during the making of this. The band certainly changed, and also, technology changed," she explained. "So we had everything — we had DATs, we had ADATs, we had tape, we had cassettes, we had CD-Rs."

About her process: "I go backwards and try to reconstruct how things happen, and it's always incomplete and I don't know what I'm missing, so it's extra fun. But this particular record was done and undone in a lot of ways… some of the latter recordings sound like they're earlier recordings."

As Pawelski admits, the prospect of stewarding Yankee was "kind of terrifying" because of how meaningful the record is. "It really was a Rubik's cube. I would get the orange side done and I'd turn it over."

As the talk wound down, the subject of Wilco's latest album, Cousin, came up — as well as Wilco's rare use of an outside producer, in Cate Le Bon.

"I thought that it would be really a catalyst for getting something different out of the songs that I write," Tweedy explained. "I like the idea of working with a woman, which I felt like has not happened that much in rock and roll, from my perspective

"So that felt like an inspired bit of lateral thinking," he continued. "that felt so right to me to get to — and that she wanted to do it, and that we were friends, and it did."

To go "Up Close & Personal" with Tweedy is unlike most interviews; his brain simply works different than most, and you walk away pleasantly scrambled and transformed.

Which is what the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot sessions were like — and thank goodness for Pawelski, who shows it's not merely a masterpiece: in all its alien transmissions, vulnerable one-liners and shattered poetry, Yankee continues to engender GRAMMY glory.

Songbook: A Guide To Wilco's Discography, From Alt-Country To Boundary-Shattering Experiments

If you’re a music fan looking to restock your library with some new reads, you’re in luck. With the second half of the year comes a dearth of new music books recounting the life and times of some of the most celebrated artists in the history of the artform are hitting shelves. 

From Britney Spears' much talked-about memoir that tackles the tabloid tumult of her life and Barbra Streisand’s highly anticipated autobiography (which clocks in at nearly 1,000 pages), to tomes that recount the lives of Tupac Shakur and Dolly Parton, it’s time to get reading. Read on for some of the best music-related new and upcoming books to add to your collection. 

The Woman In Me

By Britney Spears

One of the most highly anticipated books of the year, Spears' memoir has been a blockbuster in the weeks since its release. When it was announced that the singer was writing a book, fans and observers braced themselves for what she would reveal when it comes to her tumultuous life and career. The result is a no-holds-barred look at how an innocent girl from Louisiana became swept up in the tsunami of fame, as well as the resulting wake. 

The Woman in Me details Spears' halcyon younger years as part of the "New Mickey Mouse Club," her explosive career, the blossoming and collapse of her relationship with Justin Timberlake, and the punishing conservatorship concocted by her father. Spears doesn’t hold back, but also shouts out the figures who provided solace and kindness: Madonna, Elton John, Mariah Carey, and former Jive Records president Clive Calder. The Woman In Me proves to be an unflinching, eye-opening look at the swirling tornado of music, fame, love and family, for better or for worse. 

My Name is Barbra

By Barbra Streisand

Since her early '60s breakout to her current status as a bona fide living legend, Barbra Streisand has lived a lot of life. Streisand's 992-page tome breaks down her humble beginnings growing up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and her subsequent stratospheric life during which she received a whopping 46 GRAMMY nominations and released many timeless songs. Along the way, she also became the first female in the history of moviemaking to write, produce, direct and star in a major motion picture (Yentl). 

It’s all a long time coming, considering Jackie Onassis first approached Streisand to chronicle her triumphant life in 1984 (at the time, the former first lady was editor of Doubleday and Streisand was a mere 20 years into her iconic career). "Frankly, I thought at 42 I was too young, with much more work still to come," Striesand recently told Vanity Fair. It’s an understatement considering all that’s happened since.

THE LYRICS: 1956 to Present

By Paul McCartney

One of the most celebrated artists of all time, McCartney's genius songwriting is on full, glimmering display in THE LYRICS. Newly released in a one volume paperback edition, the book puts the Beatles' way with words front and center while offering popcorn-worthy backstory. 

Originally published to acclaim in 2021, the updated version includes additional material and insight from Macca himself on the creation of some of the most indelible hits in music history, including the 1965 Beatles hit "Daytripper." 

"The riff became one of our most well-known and you still often hear it played when you walk into guitar shops," wrote McCartney of the track. "It’s one of those songs that revolves around the riff. Some songs are hung onto a chord progression. Others, like this, are driven by the riff." 

Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones

By Dolly Parton 

"It costs a lot of money to look this cheap!" So says luminary Dolly Parton, in a self-deprecating and witty and also patently untrue famous turn of phrase. While Parton’s life story has been recounted numerous times on the page and on screen, Behind the Seams zeros in on not just her trials and tribulations, but her unmistakable style. 

Packed with nearly 500 photographs, the book traces Parton’s looks from the sacks she used to dress in as a child in poverty to the flamboyant visuals associated with her stardom. "I’ve been at this so long, I’ve worn some of the most bizarre things," Parton recently told the Guardian. "My hairdos have always been so out there. At the time you think you look good, then you look back on it, like, what was I thinking?"

Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

By Sly Stone

The 80-year-old reclusive frontman of Sly and the Family Stone has certainly lived a lot of life. From his early days as part of the gospel vocal group the Stewart Four, Stone and his family band later became fixtures of the charts from the late '60s into the mid-'70s; a journey traced in the new book Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), named after their 1969 song of the same name.  

Known for funky, soulful and earworm signature hits including "Dance to the Music" and "Everyday People," the band won over the hearts of America, influencing legions of fans (including Herbie Hanckock and Miles Davis) and gaining a few enemies (the Black Panther Party). The book chronicles those ups and downs (including drug abuse), tracking Stone up to the modern era, which includes receiving the Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Special Merit Award in 2017. 

Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song

By Judith Tick

Ella Fitzgerald is one of America’s most iconic voices and the full breadth of her story will be told in the first major biography since her death in 1996. Known as the First Lady of Song, the 13-time GRAMMY winner is known for her swingin’ standards, sultry ballads, scat and everything in between.

Out Nov. 21, the vocalist’s historic career is recounted by musicologist Judith Tick, who reflects on her legend using new research, fresh interviews and rare recordings. The result is a portrait of an undeniable talent and the obstacles she was up against, from her early days at the Apollo Theater to her passionate zeal for recording and performing up until her later years. 

"Ella was two people," her longtime drummer Gregg Field told GRAMMY.com in 2020. "She was very humble, very shy and generous. But when she walked on stage she was hardcore and didn’t know how to sing unless it was coming from her heart."

World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music

By Jeff Tweedy

Aside from his extensive discography with Wilco and beyond, Jeff Tweedy is the author of three books: his memoir  Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), a meditation on creativity called How to Write One Song, and his latest, World Within a Song. The latter expertly examines a variety of songs by a disparate spate of artists, from Rosalía to Billie Eilish with Tweedy’s singular take on what makes each song stand out along with what he dubs "Rememories," short blurbs that recount moments from his own life and times. 

Much like his songwriting prowess, it’s a book where Tweedy’s way with words shine with shimmering eloquence. "My experience of my own emotions is that they all interact," Tweedy told GRAMMY.com last year. "They aren't individual, isolated things that you experience one at a time, and I think that's a really beautiful thing about being alive."

Tupac Shakur: The Authorized Biography

By Staci Robinson

One of the giants of hip-hop finally gets his due with an official recounting of his life and times. Here his legend is told by the authoritative Staci Robinson, an expert on the star who previously wrote Tupac Remembered: Bearing Witness to a Life and Legacy and served as executive producer of the FX documentary series "Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur."

Here, Robinson reflects on Tupac’s legacy from a modern perspective, and tracks the history of race in America alongside the rapper’s life and times, from the turbulent '60s to the Rodney King riots. Along the way are the stories behind the songs including "Brenda’s Got a Baby." 

"In between shots (of filming the movie Juice) I wrote it," Shakur is quoted saying in Robinson’s book. "I was crying too. That’s how I knew everybody else would cry, ’cause I was crying.’" 

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