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Being There
10/29/1996 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Bill Holdship
Face it: The number of great double rock `n' roll albums can be counted on one hand--the
Beatles'
White Album, the
Stones' Exile On Main
Street, the
Clash's
London Calling, maybe
Dylan's
Blonde On Blonde, definitely nothing by
Chicago,
Springsteen, or for that matter, the
Who. Nah, double LP sets have almost always been a bad idea and the CD era with its even longer discs made them an even worse one. I mean, when's the last time you listened to anything on Use Your Illusion or
Lucky Town? Which is why when Reprise announced that
Wilco's sophomore effort would be a two-disc set, it seemed like the height of pretention and artistic indulgence. After all, nothing on the band's debut LP,
A.M., indicated that Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy had it in him; in fact, the album led many fans of
Uncle Tupelo, Tweedy's former group, to suddenly believe that Jay Farrar, Tweedy's songwriting partner (who now fronts
Son Volt) in that group, may have been the real talent behind Uncle Tupelo--a band revered by its cult fan base for initiating the "new country rock" revival of the `90s, but a band that has also bored nearly as many listeners by never fully matching any of its greatest influences. So it's best to drop any preconceived notions before diving into the rich musical smorgasbord that is Being There, an actual honest-to-God concept album which presents Tweedy as the ultimate `90s rock romantic looking at the state of, well, rock `n' roll romance (and longing) in 1996. Heck, the guy actually sings here about going to parties where "they still love rock `n' roll" (on the great opening track, "Misunderstood"), as well as lines like "Music is my savior, I was named by rock `n' roll" (on "Sunken Treasures," kicking off the second disc), without sounding the least bit ridiculous! And, sure, there are pedal steel and slide guitars aplenty here--even a fiddle every now and again--but sometimes those brilliant
Gram Parsons-derived morsels metamorphosize into some of the most glorious punk-derived cacophony and feedback to be found on disc this year. "I know this sounds like somebody's else's song from a long time ago" Tweedy knowingly sings on disc two, casting all things "hip" into the wind--and just a few of the choice influences one can pick out during initial listens of Being There include: A lot of
Harvest-era
Neil Young; glam-period
David Bowie ("Monday" totally rips the opening riff from "Rebel Rebel"); the
Beach Boys ("I Got You [At The End of the Century]"); early
Jackson Browne; the
Replacements; the
Grateful Dead;
Pink Floyd; the Fabs; Exile-era Stones;
New Morning-era Dylan; mid-period Who;
Charlie Daniels; the
Eagles ("Hotel Arizona" has to be a deliberate pun) and that band's many superior predecessors. I could go on... Being There kicks off with a track that quotes from a song by Peter Laughner (a `70s rock romantic/tragic figure who helped found both
Pere Ubu and the
Dead Boys) and concludes nearly two hours later with a ballad, one of the finest recorded tributes ever to
Elvis (or Gram Parsons? Or both?) called "The Lonely One," and a rocker titled "Dreamer In My Dreams" (the title says it all), which effectively merges the
Faces at their most raucous with "Country Honk"-type Rolling Stones. In the process, Tweedy and Wilco have created not only the best rock album of 1996, but, quite simply, one of the greatest double rock LPs of all time.
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