There's a new Wilco record about to drop? Really?

Kalefa Sanneh explores the brilliance of--and the unrelenting hype surrounding--Wilco.

I've avoided listening to the new record until I buy it in stores tomorrow, but I am reading Greg Kot's Learning How to Die-- a chronicle of how Wilco got to where it is today. Sanneh is dead on in his/her (I have no clue as to the gender of Sanneh) assessment of the book ("invaluable but infuriating") and delivers this excellent dig at Kot:

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was eventually released by Nonesuch, which was known, Mr. Kot writes, "for putting out beautifully packaged, pristinely recorded albums that found an audience the old-fashioned way: through word of mouth, with an occasional assist from National Public Radio and the more adventurous Triple-A commercial stations." Ah yes, "the old-fashioned way," when rock 'n' roll fans would sit around the campfire listening to "All Things Considered." There must be something about Mr. Tweedy's strained and battered voice that makes fans nostalgic — sometimes indignantly so — for an imaginary past.

I love when critics get called out on that faux-nostalgic b.s.
More Wilco coverage from me at a later date.