So it’s rare that I buy albums even though I spend hundreds of dollars a year on music between iTunes and the Amazon music stores.  Nevertheless, a few albums get through.  Last year I was excited about Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” and Beck’s “Modern Guilt.”  I think “In Rainbows” is a masterpiece but a year later I have to be in a bad mood to listen to it with the exception of the opening track which helps me when I’m working out.  I tell my fiancé that Radiohead was the music I listened to when I was single and sad all the time.  Beck’s album, while poorly reviewed, was one of his most consistent albums in years.  I agree that there’s something empty about it but several of the songs are pleasantly surprising when they pop up on shuffle play today.

This year, I was excited about the new Wilco album which is released today but has been available via the band’s web site for months.  I’ve been a fan of Wilco since a friend of mine had me score a scene in her travel documentary with “California Stars.”  Years afterward I found “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” in a local music store (remember when we had those?) and I still consider one of my favorite albums of all time.

“Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” led me to explore Wilco’s entire back catalog and even side projects like Tweedy’s work with the Minus 5 and Loose Fur and his previous work with Uncle Tupelo.  Tweedy is an incredible songwriter and his body of work is remarkably consistent, his voice is one of my favorites because it’s appealing and yet not that intimidating.  I feel like I can sing along when I’m listening.

I was a bit disappointed by “A Ghost Is Born” I thought that they took the experimentation of “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” too far.  There are some great songs on there but many of them descend into noise…too much noise.  While one can skip over the noise at the end of “Reservations” at the end of “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” putting noise in the middle of the album makes it hard to get through it.  But the heartache of songs like “Wishful Thinking” and the killer bridge of “Theologians” bring me back to this album a track at a time when putting together playlists.

“Sky Blue Sky” got rid of the noise but also got rid of the rock.  To say the album is mellow is putting it lightly.  Some of the songs like “Impossible Germany” and “Side with the Seeds” have a nice payoff eventually but you have to stay awake to get to those points.

The newest album “Wilco (The Album)” finds  a perfect balance between the too much noise on “A Ghost Is Born” and the too much mellow on “Sky Blue Sky.”  The guitar solos that dominated “Sky Blue Sky” are used just enough to avoid stealing the show.  The songwriting, as always, is top notch and as an album it’s distinctly listenable.  Highlights for me include “Wilco (The Song)”, “You Never Know”, “I’ll Fight”, and “Country Disappeared.”

The album does not approach the perhaps impossible heights of “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” but it’s a terrific mix of melody mixed with just enough darkness and depth to make this a great album that doesn’t make you feel depressed to listen to it.

Let me be clear, I don’t recommend this movie. It’s not really funny and it misses more than it succeeds and yet there’s something magical about the film and it comments appropriately on some of the themes I’ve blogged about here before.

If you don’t know anything about this movie, Jack Black and Mos Def work in a video store. When all the tapes are erased, they must scramble to recreate the movies with themselves playing the parts. Their failing business starts to succeed. Michel Gondry directs.

Some of the themes of the film as I see them:

• Filmmaking plays a significant part in our collective conscious. In the film, the neighborhood’s pride in their history is embodied in the film within the film that opens and closes th movie.
• A tradition of oral storytelling survives. The medium of videotape is temporary but the stories they tell are permanent as long as we continue to retell them. When the vidoe tapes are erased, they must be recreated in order to restore memories and remember history.
• Filmmaking is most powerful when it reflects its audience. Success grows exponentially as the neighborhood residents are given opportunities to act in their own films. We like to see ourselves reflected onscreen.
• Mashups are the future. It is the copyright attorneys who are the bad guys in this film. The recreation of published works without permission is a violation of copyright law and the movie recreations are confiscated.The movie clearly supports the creation of new laws for the twenty-first century that allow for the legal remixing of copyrighted works.As an independent filmmaker I’ve experienced how hard it is to get permission to use copyrighted material even when you ask. For theatrical productions there’s a very clear way to apply for and pay for royalties. However, for films, characters, and music contained within movies, it is hard to know who to write to and how to get the rights.

  At a time when revenues are dwindling for those industries, wouldn’t we all benefit from a “Copyright iTunes” where you could purchase music and video samples to use in your own digital storytelling projects for a price set depending upon how you would use it.

On a personal note, the characters’ adventures in recreating the movies reminded me much of my own filmmaking through elementary and middle school and the work I do now with elementary students.

So this was not a great film or even a very good one but it did have something to say.

View Trailer