Wilco: A Ghost Is Born (2LP) [NONESUCH]

Why you'll love it

This 20th anniversary reissue spreads A Ghost Is Born across two LPs, giving the long songs room to breathe. The album won Wilco the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album, and its opening week was the band's best sales week up to that point.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 20th anniversary edition
• Stereo mix

About the album

Following Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was never going to be simple. Wilco's answer, recorded from November 2003 under the working title Wilco Happens, was to hand Jeff Tweedy the lead guitar and let him loose. Jim O'Rourke, who had mixed Foxtrot and played with Tweedy and Glenn Kotche in Loose Fur, produced, and he pushed Tweedy to work out his solos rather than improvise them.

The method was new too: the band played the songs live, edited and arranged them in Pro Tools, then performed and recorded them again with very few overdubs. Tweedy has called the guitar at the end of "At Least That's What You Said" a musical transcription of a panic attack. "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" locks into a long, krautrock-style groove, "Hummingbird" is pure pop sunshine, "Handshake Drugs" sways and "Theologians" bounces along on piano. Pianist Mikael Jorgensen joined for these sessions, and every member built a synthesizer part for the fifteen-minute "Less Than You Think."

Nels Cline and Pat Sansone joined for the tour that followed, settling the lineup that still plays today. "The Late Greats" closes the record with a cheerful song about the best band you'll never hear, which is a lovely thought for a record shop to sell.

Also at Kops: more Wilco on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Nonesuch, a reissue of the 2004 album.