Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the fourth studio album by American rock band Wilco, first released commercially on April 23, 2002, though released on their band’s website on September 18, 2001. Recording sessions for the album began in late 2000. These sessions, which were documented for the film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, were marred by conflicts including a switch in drummers and disagreements among the band members and engineers about songs. Despite this, the album would be completed in early 2001. The album showcased a more atmospheric and experimental sound than the band's previous work, and has been described as art rock[1][2] and indie rock[3] by music critics. It was the band's first album with drummer Glenn Kotche, and last with multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Jay Bennett.
Reprise Records, Wilco's record label at the time, refused to release the album as they felt unhappy about the end result; this would lead to Wilco's departure from Reprise. The band subsequently acquired the rights to the album and later streamed the entire album for free on their website on September 18, 2001. In November of that year, Wilco signed with Nonesuch Records, who gave the album its first official retail release on April 23, 2002. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot received widespread acclaim from music critics at release, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of the 2000s.[4] It is also Wilco's best-selling work, having reached number 13 on the Billboard 200 chart.[5] In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 225 on its updated "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.[6]
Release[edit]
Original release[edit]
In 2001, AOL merged with Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner. Time Warner's market share of the music industry had dropped almost five percent from the mid-1990s, and the new executives ordered the termination of 600 jobs. One of those jobs was Reprise Records president Howie Klein, who had been a big supporter of Wilco on the label. Klein's dismissal placed head A&R representative David Kahne in charge of the decision whether to release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Kahne assigned A&R representative Mio Vukovic to monitor the progress of the album. Vukovic was unhappy about the album because he felt that his suggestions were not being considered. Kahne wanted a radio single from the album, but he felt that none of the songs were suitable for commercial release. In June 2001, the album was officially rejected and Vukovic suggested that the band independently release the album.[17]
Josh Grier, Wilco's lawyer, was able to negotiate a buy-out of the band from Reprise. The band would keep the rights to the album if they paid Reprise $50,000. Before Wilco could accept the deal, Reprise called the band and changed their offer to give the band the rights to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for free. Despite Reprise's efforts to accommodate Wilco's departure, the process marred public relations after an article in the Chicago Tribune described what had happened.[18]
Wilco had planned on releasing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on September 11, 2001, but Tweedy did not want a change in record labels to significantly delay the release of the album. Within weeks of being released from the label and Jay Bennett leaving the band, MP3s of all tracks from the album began to appear on file sharing networks. In a decision aimed at discouraging the downloading of lower quality unlicensed MP3s and having some control over how the album was distributed, on September 18, 2001, Wilco began streaming the entirety of the album on their official website. The wilcoworld.net website registered over 50,000 hits that day, eight times as much as typical daily traffic. Traffic to the website quadrupled the normal traffic over the next few months. The following tour was a success financially, and members of Wilco observed that fans sang along with unreleased songs from the album.[19]
Retail release[edit]
Both major and independent record labels made bids to release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, including Artemis Records and Nonesuch Records. Tweedy denied the bids of record labels that did not have a roster of signed artists that he liked. He also decided to ignore small, independent labels because he wanted to be able to put the album out for a large audience and felt that very small labels would be unable to produce more than 100,000 copies. Wilco decided to sign with Warner Music subsidiary Nonesuch Records in November 2001, basing the decision on the label's affiliation with a large company, but also Nonesuch's artist-friendly atmosphere. In the end, Wilco recorded and produced Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with Reprise Records (a Warner label), received the rights to the album from Reprise for free, and then had it released by a different Warner label, Nonesuch Records.[20]
The More Like the Moon EP (also called Bridge and Australian EP) was originally released as a bonus disc to the Australian version of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The EP comprised six songs that were recorded but not released during the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot sessions including a re-working of "Kamera". On the one-year anniversary of the release of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco uploaded the EP onto their official website, and offered it for free to anyone who purchased the album. The band would later allow anyone to download the EP for free off the website, regardless of whether they had purchased the full-length album.[21][22]
20th anniversary reissue[edit]
In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the album's release, Wilco performed the album in its entirety for four nights at the United Palace in New York City and three nights at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago. The band was joined by strings and horns sections in an attempt to perform the album as it was recorded. The band also announced reissues of the album, including a Super Deluxe version spanning 11 LPs which includes the original remastered album, demos, rare live recordings, and other alternate versions of the songs. These reissues were released on September 30, 2022. Pitchfork gave the reissue a perfect 10 rating, and naming it "Best New Reissue".[23]