VS 
#7 Harvey Danger- Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? vs. #10 Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Again, two albums that were randomly matched have a lot in common, at least for me. These two albums, perhaps more than any others in my collection, transport me to specific times and places (both, perhaps unsurprisingly, having to do with girls). when I was in the throws of my first serious unrequited crush the summer after 8th grade, it was Harvey Danger who helped me through it. It wasn't the only album I turned to for comfort, but it was the first time I can remember feeling like a song had been written for me, for my situation (in this case, "Wooly Muffler") and listening to it in the intervening years never failed to bring me back. But i could still listen, which was not always the case with YHF. Introduced to me by my first great love (and great heartbreak) of college, the album was inextricably linked for me with that time, the good when it was good, and later, the bad when, for me, it was very bad. If we had had enough of a relationship to merit a song, it would have been "Radio Cure" (and infer from that what you will). Though I got over the heartbreak, Wilco was so a part of that time that I couldn't listen to it without being flooded with the feelings that I never wanted to have to deal with again, and it was basically removed from my rotation for the better part of the next 4 years. My loss.
The Arguments: Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? was part of my first attempts to discover my own musical identity...breaking from my parents collection and from the blind buying of anything they played on MTV (sheryl crow anyone?) and trying to navigate through what i actually liked and wanted to explore. And like another band from that era that is still near and dear to me, The Smashing Pumpkins, I can trace a lot of my current likes and dislikes back to Harvey Danger...from nascent punk and emo ("Carlotta Valdez" and "Wooly Muffler") to my penchant from clever wordplay ("Old Hat"). Those songs meant a lot to me back then, and have held up remarkably well with age. Whereas with other favorites from that time (where have you gone, Eve6) the gild came off the lily fairly quickly, and those that are still around are still around only for nostalgia's sake, Harvey Danger has grown with me, and new songs have taken on the meaning that I had placed on other cuts (I've had a fantasy for about a year now that out of the blue I would call up Matt Dipane and leave "Private Helicopter" on his voicemail in its entirety. Not because of what it meant to me then, but what it means now). The strength for Sean Nelson and co. (like the band he would later join, fellow Seattlites the Long Winters) is in his lyrics, whether its painting a picture, or just turning out a couple of good one-liners..songs that reference Vertigo or Moby Dick as in-jokes are decidedly nerdy, and much of the imagery is to (only a math geek would fully appreciate the sentiment of "like a zero drowning in a sea of higher numbers" right?) and while the rapid-fire banter wore a little thing on the one and only single ("Flagpole Sitta", obvi), when spread out a little more evenly and with some sentinment behind it, it makes for some good listening. But listening through it again, its clear its not a masterpiece. Its a good album, but one by a young band who had a lot of room to grow and change, and one that is very much of a cookie-cutter piece with the times it was made in. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes it less than unique certainly.
Most Wilco fans seem to be of the rabid variety, fans that have been with them since Uncle Tupelo or know all the drummer's side projects or have I Am Trying To Break Your Heart memorized (the film, not the song). There's nothing wrong with that, I mention it simply to say I have always been a decisively casual Wilco fan. This may be due in part to the aforementioned pain of listening to Wilco (the same girl gave me Summerteeth, and I couldn't even bring myself to rip it to my computer for a good three years later), but also that I recognize the greatest in Yankee Hotel Foxtrot but it never seemed to translate to a hunger for more, and the other albums that I explored (Summerteeth, Mermaid Ave., Sky Blue Sky, and A Ghost is Born) yileded a few great tracks and a lot of skippable ones (for me. I know that for most people thats blasphemous). But slowly I've been rediscovering the genius that is YHF, what made people so enamored with that album in the first place (my cursory research on wikipedia showed it received a number of perfect reviews, including Pitchfork, who basically called it a perfect album). I'm not sure it's perfect, but it is pretty damn great. What strikes me now is how balanced an album it is, for every wandering and experiemental sounding track there's a grounded upbeat pop song and for everyone of those theres a beautiful haunting string-laden ballad. It's all over the map sound wise and subject wise, but, and I suppose this is a testament to Tweedy and cos.' "greatness" they handle all of them equally well (well, perhaps not "equally", i have quite a bias towards the beatuy and melancholy of tracks like "Radio Cure" and "Jesus, etc.") Lyrically, Wilco is another band that can turn what seems like nonsense and make it profound..."our love is all of God's money" or "It's hot in the poor places tonight/I'm not going outside" don't necessarily mean a whole lot on their own, but in context and in phrasing, they seem like beautiful gems of prose. And by the same token, they can turn around a spit out a phrase so straightforward it should be too sappy, and yet when Jeff Tweedy moans "Cheer up, honey I hope you can" on "radio cure" or whispers "How can I convince you its me I don't like" they seem like much more than the ripped-from-diary entry lyrics they could be. Its the way they are phrased, and balanced against the various strings, guitars, and, err, twinkles? (what is playing in "Ashes of American flags", and, for that matter, is it a toy piano in "radio cure"?) For all my Wilco non-fandom, I do sincerely enjoy this album, but more than that, I recognize the perfection everyone sees in it as well.
The Score: See, I told you it would happen. As much as it pains me to do this to Harvey Danger, we have our first upset, sports fans.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot d. Where Have All the Merrymaker's Gone 81-72
Representative Tracks:
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