Hearing things is something label execs do. They like to hear hits, they like to hear radio-friendliness and they like by extension to hear money. When Jeff Tweedy first took what was to become Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to theirs it resulted in a reaction few had anticipated; hearing absolutely nothing that they liked, the label summarily kicked it – and them – into the long grass.
The rest is an unlikely happy history. In a moment during which the music industry en-masse was sticking their heads in the sand about the digital revolution taking place around them, Tweedy and co. gave their record away, streaming it for free before the notion had occurred to most artists. Onlookers sneered that this commercial folly would damage sales on release; such was chutzpah around it however when they did plenty were left red-faced, as this orphaned work of broken genius performed beyond all expectations.
If you’re looking for a strictly critical evaluation of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, literally hundreds of thousands of words have been spilled across the internet and in print on the subject, and none of it is hard to find. This vast reissuing however makes a feature of the songs evolving through different sessions, not the irrelevant “It took me six takes to get this bass sound right”, but with many appearing in highly contrasting forms to those which made the album’s original version. You should hear something. You’ll probably like it.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 