Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Tomorrow night Wilco plays its only Chicago gig of the year, headlining a sold out Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. As I wrote in last week’s paper, the group’s latest record, Sky Blue Sky (Nonesuch), has been subjected to a broad and surprising backlash because on the surface it sounds much more straight ahead than the group’s last two ballyhooed albums, Yankee Foxtrot Hotel (2002) and A Ghost is Born (2004). But to my ears it’s as strong as anything the group has ever produced. The off-kilter stuff is subtler, but the careful patterns sculpted by drummer Glenn Kotche and the harmonically rich guitar playing of guitarist Nels Cline (Sky Blue Sky is his first studio effort as a member of the band) distinguish the music from what Pitchfork unfortunately called “dad rock.”
Nels Cline Singers, “Confection”
