Summerteeth

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Summerteeth
Summerteeth cover
Studio album by Wilco
Released March 9, 1999
Recorded August 1997, November 1998
Genre Alternative rock
Length 52:50
Label Reprise
Producer Wilco
Professional reviews
Wilco chronology
Mermaid Avenue
(1998)		 Summerteeth
(1999)		 Mermaid Avenue Vol. II
(2000)

Summerteeth is the third studio album by Chicago alternative rock band Wilco. Released through Reprise Records on March 9, 1999, the album was heavily influenced lyrically by twentieth century literature, as well as singer Jeff Tweedy's marital problems. Unlike previous albums, Summerteeth was heavily overdubbed in the studio with Pro Tools. Tweedy and Jay Bennett created most of the album in the studio, a contrast to the band's previous albums.

The album sold approximately 200,000 copies, a modest number compared to the sales of 1996's Being There. This was despite critical acclaim from outlets such as All Music Guide, The Chicago Tribune, and The Village Voice. Wilco agreed to remix one of the songs to cater to radio stations, but the single failed to attain substantial airplay.

Contents

[edit] Production

Wilco released Being There in 1996 to a considerably higher level of critical and commercial success than their debut album, A.M.. After the promotional tour to support Being There, Wilco began to record tracks for a third album. The initial Summerteeth recording sessions occurred in November 1997 at Willie Nelson's music studio in Spicewood, Texas. Lead singer Jeff Tweedy was particularly emotional during the sessions because he was upset that he was unable to spend time with his wife and son because of the constant touring schedule.[1] As a result, the songs recorded reflected an introspective view that was also influenced by literature that Tweedy was reading at the time. While touring, Tweedy would read books by Henry Miller, William H. Gass, and John Fante. According to Tweedy:[2]

“ I definitely wanted to get better at writing, and those things happened simultaneously with trying to read better. I would write tons of stuff in my head, and forget. Some songs on Being There, I don't think I ever wrote any lyrics down ... To fight that, I started writing words on paper and making up melodies to go with them. By writing things down, and putting more words into my head, it put more words in my mouth when I turned on the tape recorder to sing. ”

The sessions yielded a number of songs, including "I'm Always in Love", "She's a Jar", and the Henry Miller-inspired murder ballad "Via Chicago".[1] Tweedy's relationship with his wife Sue Miller became the inspiration for several of the songs, although she was portrayed mostly in a negative sense. Miller was reluctantly willing to give Tweedy the creative license to write songs, but was concerned about lyrics such as "she begs me not to hit her" from "She's a Jar". To complement the "bold, but depressing" lyrics of Summerteeth, Tweedy relied more heavily on the production skills of multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett. However, before the album was completed, Wilco decided to collaborate with Billy Bragg on the album that would become Mermaid Avenue.[3]

Once the Mermaid Avenue sessions were completed, Wilco entered Chicago's Kingsize Soundlabs with engineers Dave Trumfio and Hike Hagler to finish Summerteeth. Tweedy and Bennett wanted to start the recording sessions over by experimenting with a new approach to mixing the songs. Unlike previous material, which was performed live in the studio, the pair heavily overdubbed many of the songs with Pro Tools. As a result, the contributions of other members were diminished.[4] To complement the lyrics, Bennett played on a variety of instruments, including Mellotron, tambourine, synthesizers—he even played the bass guitar and drums when bassist John Stirratt and drummer Ken Coomer were not in the studio.[5] Coomer was not pleased about a reduced role in the band:[6]

“ It was a circling of the wagons, and John and I felt left out. It was Jeff and Jay feeding off each other not just musically, but other vices. There was a bonding going on, and it didn't just involve music. Jeff didn't go into rehab [for an addiction to painkillers], but he should've, [sic] in my opinion. Jay was taking painkillers, antidepressants, and wasn't in much better shape. The band was different. There wasn't really a band, just two guys losing their minds in the studio. ”

After a series of personnel changes, Reprise Records sought to release a hit single from the album to increase album sales. Wilco agreed to do this "once and once only" on the basis that they wanted to cooperate with the label.[7] The band and Reprise executives agreed to re-mix "Can't Stand It" to make it more radio-friendly. Within one day, the song was remixed into the version that appeared on Summerteeth, cutting out portions of the bridge and adding bells.[8] "Can't Stand It" failed to cross over from Triple-A to modern rock radio stations.[9]

[edit] Reception

Summerteeth peaked at number seventy-eight on the Billboard 200, failing to exceed the chart success of Being There.[10] However, it was their first album to chart in the top forty in the United Kingdom.[11] As of 2003, it had sold only 200,000 copies.[12] The album placed eighth on the Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 1999, and Pitchfork gave it position thirty-one in its list of the best albums of the 1990s.[13][14]

The album received mostly positive reviews upon its release. Jason Ankeny of All Music Guide gave the album four-and-a-half stars, lauding its "lush string arrangements and gorgeous harmonies." Ankeny also compared the music on the album to The Band in their prime.[15] Pitchfork Media writer Neil Lieberman praised how Wilco "craft[ed] an album as wonderfully ambiguous and beautifully uncertain as life itself," and how Bennett "paint[ed] the album in Technicolor."[16] Robert Christgau gave the album a two star honorable mention, calling it "old-fashioned tunecraft lacking not pedal steel, who cares, but the concreteness modern popcraft eschews."[17] Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot championed the album on his review of the album and ranked it the year's best album, calling it "pop so gorgeous it belies the intricate studio experimentation that brought it to life."[18][19]

[edit] Track listing

  1. "Can't Stand It" (Tweedy, Bennett) – 3:46
  2. "She's a Jar" (Tweedy, Bennett) – 4:43
  3. "A Shot in the Arm" (Tweedy, Bennett, Stirratt) – 4:19
  4. "We're Just Friends" (Tweedy, Bennett, Stirratt) – 2:44
  5. "I'm Always in Love" (Tweedy, Bennett) – 3:41
  6. "Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway(again)" (Tweedy, Bennett, Stirratt) – 3:20
  7. "Pieholden Suite" (Tweedy, Bennett) – 3:26
  8. "How to Fight Loneliness" (Tweedy, Bennett) – 3:53
  9. "Via Chicago" (Tweedy) – 5:33
  10. "ELT" (Tweedy, Bennett) – 3:46
  11. "My Darling" (Tweedy, Bennett) – 3:38
  12. "When You Wake Up Feeling Old" (Tweedy) – 3:56
  13. "Summer Teeth" (Tweedy, Bennett) – 3:21
  14. "In a Future Age" (Tweedy, Bennett) – 2:57
  15. Untitled (silence, hidden track) – 0:23
  16. "Candyfloss" (hidden track) (Tweedy, Bennett) – 2:57
  17. "A Shot in the Arm" (alternate version, hidden track) (Tweedy, Bennett, Stirratt) – 3:54

[edit] Personnel

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Kot 2004. p. 138
  2. ^ Kot 2004 p. 136
  3. ^ Kot 2004. pp. 140-1
  4. ^ Kot 2004. pp. 154-5
  5. ^ Kot 2004. p. 156
  6. ^ Kot 2004. p. 157
  7. ^ Kot 2004. pp. 163-4
  8. ^ Kot 2004. p. 165
  9. ^ Kot 2004. p. 166
  10. ^ "The Billboard 200", Billboard, March 27, 1999. 
  11. ^ UK Top 40 Hit Database. everyhit.com. Last accessed August 3, 2007.
  12. ^ Kot 2004. p. 167
  13. ^ "The 1999 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll", The Village Voice.  Last accessed August 3, 2007.
  14. ^ Top 100 Albums of the 1990s. Pitchfork Media. Last accessed August 4, 2007.
  15. ^ Ankeny, Jason. Summerteeth (review). All Music Guide. Last accessed August 3, 2007.
  16. ^ Lieberman, Neil (March 1, 1999). Summerteeth (review). Pitchfork Media. Last accessed August 3, 2007.
  17. ^ Christgau, Robert. CG: Wilco. robertchristgau.com. Last accessed August 3, 2007.
  18. ^ Kot, Greg. "Greg Kot's Top 20 Albums of 1999", The Chicago Tribune, December 5, 1999. 
  19. ^ Kot, Greg. "Summerteeth (review)", The Chicago Tribune, February 28, 1999. 

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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