Title:Anodyne By: Uncle Tupelo Released by: Sire Released on: 1993 Rating (out of 10): 7 Date: 06/21/2001
O Uncle, Where Art Thou?
You know what I think about Wilco?
They're good, but they're a little too good. I've got Being There, and every note of it is perfect (if you like that stuff, and lately, I'm finding out that I don't, really). I've got Mermaid Avenue, and for the most part, it's very good (if you like that stuff). So how come I like Jeff Tweedy's old band Uncle Tupelo so much more?
I suppose it's because I got into Uncle Tupelo in the early '90s, not too long before Tweedy and Jay Farrar went their separate ways. I knew Uncle Tupelo as a band, an entity, a collective of songwriters and players that used their individual talents to create a magnificent whole.
Tweedy and Farrar went on to form Wilco and Son Volt, respectively. As rivals, they chose to make their new music as different from one another as possible: Wilco's sound was decidedly poppier and more polished, and Son Volt explored Appalachian country and Neil Young-ish grunge distortion. And although I like both bands (with the recently broken-up Son Volt edging out Wilco), I still feel that the rivalry has hurt their music—Wilco could benefit from a darker, rootsier sound, and Son Volt could have used some help to make the songs more varied. Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne showed the two songwriters working together (as they were meant to) and putting their egos aside.
Anodyne is considered the Nevermind of the alt.country movement: an album that got people hip to what country music was like before The Nashville Network existed ("Acuff-Rose," "Steal the Crumbs") and blended that twang with danceable Replacements-angst ("The Long Cut," "We've Been Had"). Sir Douglas Quintet's Doug Sahm puts in an appearance for a cover of one of his own songs, "Give Back the Key to My Heart," a country-rock stomper. As influential as the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack is for NPR audiences right now, Uncle Tupelo's brand of country revisionism came first, about a decade prior, and reached a hipper audience.
(Digression: Shit like Mermaid Avenue and O Brother kinda make me sick—it doesn't have much to do with the music, but rather the idea of the Angela's Ashes-esque "cultural phenomenon" that "sweeps the country" whenever marketing departments decide that audiences are incapable of thinking for themselves. They did it with Riverdance and Buena Vista Social Club and Chicken Soup for My Dead Pet Turtle. Anodyne never had a national tour, except for those four guys kicking around the country in a van and playing dive bars, and maybe that's why I like it.)
An integral part of Uncle Tupelo's sound was fiddler/banjo player/lap steel guitarist Max Johnston, who is now a full-time member of another fine alt.country band, The Gourds. His contributions help anchor the freneticism of UT's rock leanings, and make Anodyne a bit more suitable for those long, coffee-fueled night drives across the land. The ballads on this album are capable of making grown men wistful, particularly "Anodyne," "High Water," and the last track, "Steal the Crumbs" (an acoustic waltz featuring some gorgeous harmonies by Farrar and Tweedy).
None of this ever seems forced. It seems like music made by music obsessives, people whose record collections are threatening to take over their homes, people who thrive on making emotional connections between their music and their lives. Uncle Tupelo started out as a punk cover band in rural Illinois, and as they became more accomplished they ditched a lot of the noise but retained the 'tude. It was populist music, just like what Woody Guthrie used to write. Now, neither Tweedy nor Farrar seems to have much 'tude left in his music.
The more I listen to Wilco, the more I miss Jay Farrar, and the more I listen to Son Volt, the more I crave Jeff Tweedy's gift for pop hooks. In separate bands, each is disappointing, and together, they really complemented one another quite well. Anodyne exemplifies this.
