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Star Wars is the ninth studio album by American alternative rock group Wilco. It was self-released for free on July 16, 2015 through wilcoworld.net. It is the second Wilco album that was released on their own label dBpm. A CD version of the album will be released on August 21 and a vinyl version will be released on November 27.
Wilco's 11th studio album, Star Wars, opens with "EKG," a 1:16 burst of skronky guitars that sounds like a few capable grad students imitating early Sonic Youth after a few beers, and if it seems like a goofy way to kick off the record, that's a big part of the album's charm. Wilco released Star Wars as a free download on July 16, 2015 with no advance notice (a day later, the band announced that the physical release would hit stores on August 21), and the element of surprise fits the playful, casual nature of the album. Where Wilco (The Album) and The Whole Love were enthusiastic but artful and crafted with care, Star Wars feels like an album full of experiments and happy accidents, 11 songs where the group members gathered in their rehearsal spot, rolled tape, and let their muse do what it will. Which is not to say Star Wars comes off as sloppy or uncertain; Jeff Tweedy's songs are a bit more angular than usual, but the melodies are typically strong and engaging (and often sweeter than their delivery suggests at first glance), and they give the performances a solid backbone. The relatively open spaces of these songs give Tweedy and lead guitarist Nels Cline more room to move than they've traditionally allowed themselves in the studio, and the ringing and buzzing patterns that provide the beds for "You Satellite" and "Pickled Ginger" (as well as the reverse tape loops on "Where Do I Begin") are the work of a band happy to tinker with its traditional framework. (And drummer Glenn Kotche does a splendid job of holding the various elements in place while adding thoughtful shade and color of his own.) Wilco rock with easygoing but real enthusiasm on tunes like "Random Name Generator" and "King of You" (both of which feature fuzz guitar that would do T. Rex proud), and if there are introspective moments in "Magnetized" and "Taste the Ceiling," compared to the contemplations of life and death on Sukierae (which Jeff Tweedy recorded with his son Spencer under the group name Tweedy), these songs find the group's leader on more comfortable ground, and the tone of Star Wars is that of some good friends tossing ideas against the wall and discovering that a surprising number of them stick. If the noisy sense of play was meant to be therapy for Jeff Tweedy and his bandmates, it seems to have worked; it has been quite some time since Wilco seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as they do here, and handing it out for free makes Star Wars feel a bit like a boombox rehearsal tape passed along to some friends, only with a great songwriter, a world-class band, and a seasoned recording engineer standing in for those beery college kids and a cheap cassette machine.
Wilco rose from the ashes of the seminal roots rock band
Uncle Tupelo, which disbanded in 1994. While
Jay Farrar, one of the group's two singer/songwriters, went on to form
Son Volt, his ex-partner
Jeff Tweedy established
Wilco along with the remaining members of
Tupelo's final incarnation, which included drummer
Ken Coomer as well as part-time bandmates
John Stirratt (bass) and
Max Johnston (mandolin, banjo, fiddle, and lap steel). Guitarist
Jay Bennett rounded out the group, which in 1995 issued its debut album,
A.M., a collection of spry country-rock tunes that followed the course established in
Tweedy's earlier work.
Wilco's sophomore effort, 1996's two-disc set
Being There, marked a radical transformation in the group's sound; while remaining steeped in the style that earned
Tweedy his reputation, the songs took unexpected detours into psychedelia, power pop, and soul, complete with orchestral touches and R&B horn flourishes. Shortly after the release of
Being There, which most critics judged to be among the year's best releases,
Johnston left the group to play with his sister, singer
Michelle Shocked, and was replaced by guitarist
Bob Egan of the band
Freakwater. At the same time, while remaining full-time members of
Wilco,
Stirratt,
Bennett, and
Coomer also began performing together in the pop side project
Courtesy Move. In 1998,
Wilco collaborated with singer/songwriter
Billy Bragg on
Mermaid Avenue, a collection of performances based on unreleased material originally written by
Woody Guthrie.
Their stunningly lush third album,
Summerteeth, followed in 1999 and met with critical acclaim but only average sales, initiating tensions with their label, Warner Bros.
Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 2, which featured more selections from the band's collaborations with
Bragg on
Woody Guthrie's unfinished songs, was issued in 2000. Following this release, longtime drummer
Ken Coomer decided to amicably leave the band and was replaced by the Chicago-based
Glenn Kotche.
Wilco then focused on recording their fourth album,
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which ultimately led to the departure of guitarist
Jay Bennett and further tensions with their label. Unwilling to change the album to make it more "commercially viable,"
Wilco bought the finished studio tapes from Warner/Reprise for a reported $50,000 and left the label altogether. Leaked tracks from the album surfaced on the Internet in late 2001, and the stripped-down lineup of
Tweedy,
Kotche,
Stirratt, and multi-instrumentalist
Leroy Bach embarked on a small tour to support -- or drum up support for -- the unreleased record. Nonesuch Records picked up the album and officially released it in early 2002 to widespread critical acclaim. Meanwhile, an independent film documenting the drama surrounding the album (
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart) followed in the fall of 2002. During the down time after the album was recorded,
Tweedy composed and recorded the film score to the
Ethan Hawke film
Chelsea Walls, which ended up being released around the same time as
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
Wilco toured extensively following the release of
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and in 2003 began work on their next album,
A Ghost Is Born. While sessions went smoothly compared to
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, after the album was finished
Leroy Bach left the band in a split that was described as mutual and amicable; guitarist
Nels Cline, keyboardist
Mike Jorgensen, and multi-instrumentalist
Pat Sansone joined
Wilco for their subsequent tour. Shortly before the album's release,
Tweedy surprised many fans by announcing he had entered a drug rehabilitation facility to treat a dependency on painkillers, prescribed to treat a long history of migraine headaches aggravated by panic disorder.
Tweedy discussed his health problems in depth, along with the often tangled history of
Wilco and
Uncle Tupelo, in
Wilco: Learning How to Die, a biography of the group written by rock journalist
Greg Kot, published to coincide with
A Ghost Is Born's release in the spring of 2004.
The following year, the group released
Kicking Television: Live in Chicago, a 23-track collection recorded in the Windy City's Vic Theater, an album that was later deemed one of the Top 20 best live albums by
Q Magazine. In 2007
Wilco's sixth studio album,
Sky Blue Sky, hit shelves. Less experimental than its predecessors,
Sky Blue Sky peaked at number five on the U.S. album charts and made a strong showing internationally.
Wilco's seventh album, the breezy and laid-back
Wilco (The Album), was released on June 30, 2009, one month after the death of former bandmember
Jay Bennett, who passed away in his home in Urbana, Illinois after accidentally overdosing on the prescription painkiller fentanyl.
At the end of touring that album,
Wilco took a break for much of 2010 (their longest break since formation) and resurfaced in 2011 with their own label, dBpm Records, and the release of
The Whole Love.
Wilco toured extensively in support of the album, including a string of dates with
Nick Lowe, and stayed busy on the road in 2013, taking part in the Americanarama Festival of Music, a package tour that found
Wilco sharing the bill with
Bob Dylan,
Richard Thompson, and
My Morning Jacket. (After meeting on tour,
Thompson would recruit
Tweedy to produce his 2015 album
Still.) In 2014,
John Stirratt's side project
the Autumn Defense released a new album,
Fifth, and
Jeff Tweedy inaugurated a new project,
Tweedy, that found him collaborating with his teenage son
Spencer, who played drums and percussion. The family band released their first album,
Sukierae, in September 2014, with the combo touring in support. The year 2014 also marked
Wilco's 20th anniversary, and the group celebrated the event with a pair of archival releases --
What's Your Twenty? Essential Tracks 1994-2014, a two-disc set that collected the band's best and most popular tunes, and
Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rare Tracks 1994-2014, a four-disc set of obscure and unreleased material.
Wilco also celebrated their first two decades with a series of multi-night stands in several cities, including a six-night residency at the Riviera Theater in Chicago. And on July 16, 2015,
Wilco gave their fans a pleasant surprise -- they released a previously unannounced new studio album,
Star Wars, as a free download from the group's website.
Star Wars was available gratis online for four weeks, with a CD edition released by dBpm on August 21 and a vinyl LP following on November 27.
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