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It was shaping up to be a rainy Sunday afternoon here in Stumptown and something that always brings a smile to my ears is Wilco.  Add in a dash of Fleet Foxes covering The Band’s “I Shall Be Released” (whah? That’s a Dylan song!  Mon dieu! No, it was written by Dylan, performed by many but perfected and recorded first by The Band.) and the rain can’t hold me down.

This was recorded during the stop in Spokane, Wash. on Aug. 21.  Jeff Tweedy really goes for those high notes made famous by Richard Manuel and Fleet Foxes provide sumptuous backing harmonies (though I think I’ll always prefer Levon Helm and Rick Danko).

Mp3: Wilco and Fleet Foxes - “I Shall Be Released”

For Comparison’s Sake

Here is The Band performing “I Shall Be Released” during The Last Waltz. Not exactly fair given the shear musical genius on stage during this performance. But who said life was fair?

Mp3: The Band - “I Shall Be Released”

On a not so random note, I’m hoping the future Mrs. Oyster will let me name my first son Danko.

This one seems to be going around all the music blogs, only a day after Wilco’s set at Lollapalooza. Which means it wasn’t like someone found it, so much as it was an intentional leak. Granted the triple-axe building song is a work in progress, it still shows why Nels Cline as been such a huge addition to Wilco. He’s truly taken a great band and put them into the pantheon.  Luckily though their entire set surfaced at Deaf Indie Elephants.

Heather has done it again and dug up a shit ton of live cover songs by Wilco. I can’t wait to dig into these tunes because I love both covers and Wilco. Among the bands Jeff Tweedy and company put a spin to are The Kinks, The Stooges, Daniel Johnston, Kermit the Frog, U2, Carole King, Brian Wilson, The Who, Bob Dylan, and so many others. She found these tunes over at Owl and Bear, but b/c they only deal in FLAC files, Heather has been generous enough to translate them all to Mp3 for your enjoyment.  Grab nearly 29 covers and keep your eyes out for part 2!

Brevity is the devil’s gift my friend. We’ll keep it to a paragraph for each of the following albums. It must be noted ahead of time that we excluded the following albums from consideration:

• Feist - “The Reminder”
• Radiohead - “In Rainbows”
• LCD Soundsystem - “Sound of Silver”
• Arcade Fire - “Neon Bible”

Not because we didn’t love those four albums, we did, but because at this point the fellatio parade has been going on for the better part of a month now. If you are inclined to hear from me, when so many others have put it so much better, just how tasty these albums are, then it shouldn’t be difficult. I figured it’d better to exclude those four and point out four other albums that I particularly loved this year.

If you are scoring at home, and you must know, then LCD Soundsystem was my favorite album this year. James Murphy and Co. really stepped up to craft something that was tighter, more adventurous and more thrilling than their last album. I don’t trust any year end list that doesn’t have this album in one of the top three spots. That’s really all their is to it.

So here are the favorites that kept The Sly Oyster offices rocking in 2007.

12. Tegan and Sara - “The Con” As Whitney over at Pop Candy so noted, “I like my pop songs like my skirts: short and tight.” Nothing was as sort and tight this year or offered such unexpected enjoyment.

11. White Rabbits - “Fort Nightly” Cutting across the grain when so many indie acts so the same, these guys seemed fully formed and unique. Plus no other album had such a dance-ableness and youthful verve as this one did.

10. Wilco - “Sky Blue Sky” Clearly divided most of music fans. You either loved it’s subtle intricacy and deft guitar work from Nels Cline or you thought it was boring. We’re most certainly the former.

9. Apples in Stereo - “New Magnetic Wonder” I think we might be the first publication to include this disc anywhere. Sure it was over long but there were numerous pleasures to be had, with their brand of psychedellic folk pop gems.

8. Kevin Drew - “Spirit If . . .” Probably the best Broken Social Scene record that isn’t actually a BSS full-length. Kevin Drew brought his A-game and it shows on this confident, rocking collection.

7. JJ Grey and Mofro - “Country Ghetto” I’m slowly turning into a redneck country boy, it won’t be long before my top albums consist of Faith Hill, Tim McGraw and Brooks and Dunn. Actually that will never happen.  These guys have a great swamp funk sound, like they’re sitting on their trailer park steps, swatting away the flies and making earnest, provocatively good tunes.  It’s not original but it’s a sweaty slice of goodness.

6. Ryan Montbleau Band - “Patience on Friday” Soulful, jazzy, playful, funny, romantic, heartfelt and exquisite. Lots of adjectives come to mind when listening to this disc. This is often times the kind of album that gets over looked when it comes to critical type of lists that are self-important but this one has been on my player non-stop since picking it up.

5. The New Pornographers - “Challengers” Sure we’d like more Dan Bejar and Neko Case, but settling for Carl Newman isn’t such a bad thing. This is a grower of an album, unlike The National’s. Good in the beginning, fantastic in the end, offering similar pleasures to past efforts, but in entirely different ways.

4. Patrick Watson - “Close to Paradise” Classy album all the way. Full of ambient pop gems that sound like Jeff Buckley, the tunes soar and fall and feel so right in between a pair of headphones.

3. Iron and Wine - “the Shepherd’s Dog” Didn’t know Sam Beam had this in him, but I’m sure glad he did. No one elevated their musicianship more than he did with the full backing of a band. He takes African instruments and makes a glorious celebration of life.

2. Lucky Soul - “The Great Unwanted” I kept waiting for the magic of this album to wear off and it never did, I suspect because it’s the real deal Holyfield. The UK band had me shimmy shimmy shaking at the soda fountain and though they appropriated a lot from music in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s there was something about it that sounded so punk. Like we’re going to do something no one else is doing and just not care, but we secretly hope you like. Well like it we did.

1. Spoon - “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga” A brisk album that delivered more in 10 songs than most bands deliver in an entire career. The band has never been more soulful, more packed with energy, more poignant and more spot on. I can’t wait to see what they have planned for an encore next time around, but I’m going to savor this one for a long, long, long, long, long time.

Just when we started to really dig on the subtle, mellow Blue Sky Blue, Wilco’s sixth studio effort, it seems that we won’t be able to enjoy it fully on its own merits. Musically the album seems plucked from country-tinged rock of the early 70’s, with guit wiz Nels Cline providing some awesome solos. His addition to the band has been very enjoyable.

However, we first heard about the use of several tracks from Blue Sky Blue in a series of Volkswagen commercials over at Brooklyn Vegan. And really we didn’t think much of it. Maybe it’s just we’ve become jaded or cynical or just blase over the years, but the whole idea of a rock band not being sellouts is so passe. It’s fairly common and accepted practice for a band to “sellout.”

So Jeff Tweedy decided to allow VW to use some of his tracks in a series of commercials? Big deal. As my reformed punk rock friend would say, bands sell out the minute the sign a record deal with a recording company. Wilco fans are all up in a tizzy. In to step in and defend his brother-in-law is Danny Miller, a writer based out of L.A., over at his blog Jew You Yet?

Regardless, the tagline for the commercials is gonna be: “When you get into a Volkswagen, it gets into you.” Sorta like Wilco’s music.

P4K has a little info behind the commercials.

According to AdAge.com, ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (which is responsible for designing quite a few other VW ad campaigns) created the TV spots, of which there will be six in total. Each one features a different song from the album, and the first– featuring “The Thanks I Get”– is already airing. The campaign will run throughout the summer, and the car company will stream all of the songs used on its website.

Oddly, “The Thanks I Get” is a Jeff Tweedy track, that didn’t make the final Blue Sky Blue lineup. Anyone else think that new guitarist Nels had something to do with the music being used for a German car company? And for that matter, “Impossible Germany” better be featured in one of the commercials.

Enjoy the commericals that have surfaced. The first is for “The Thanks I Get.”

The second is for “You Are My Face.” [update: The ad agency has removed the videos based on copyright and you'll just have to watch yer tv to see it or wait a few months until they legitimately surface on YouTube.]

Glynny over at Greater Freedom tried to predict which albums this year members of his entourage were most looking forward to.  Though he mostly and correctly predicted I’d be looking forward to the new White Stripes disc (even though I didn’t know they were working on one), he forget to add Wilco’s Blue Sky Blue to the mix.

Three tracks from the album have surfaced over at Shameless Complacency (via Stereogum).  Be sure to grab em.  It sounds as if Wilco is returning to their alt-country ways circa A.M. with some R&B tossed into the stew.  Gotta love good’ole Jeff Tweedy for forever keeping his Wilco acolytes on their toes.  Both “You Are My Face” and “Either Way” sound like cuts off of Being There or Summerteeth.  “Walken” has a slinky piano and slide geetar sound.

Blue Sky Blue drops 5/15 on Nonesuch.