Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the fourth studio album by the American rock band Wilco, originally self-released on September 29, 2001, on Wilco's website as streamed audio, and later as a retail release on April 23, 2002, through Nonesuch Records. 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 was mostly completed by early 2001. The album showcased a more atmospheric and experimental sound than the band's previous work, and has been described as art rock and indie rock 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 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 29, 2001, 11 days after the planned release date. 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 and of all time. It is also Wilco's best-selling work, having reached number 13 on the Billboard 200 chart. In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 225 on its updated "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.

Background and recording

Wilco was touring to promote Mermaid Avenue Vol. II in May 2000 when lead singer Jeff Tweedy was invited to play at the Noise Pop Festival in Chicago. The festival promoter offered to pair Tweedy with a collaborator of his choosing, and Tweedy decided to perform with Jim O'Rourke. Tweedy frequently played O'Rourke's album Bad Timing in his car while he traveled during the previous winter. O'Rourke was an accomplished producer as well as a musician, and had produced over 200 albums by the time that Tweedy requested the collaboration. O'Rourke offered the services of drummer Glenn Kotche, and the trio performed at Double Door for the festival on May 14, 2000. Tweedy enjoyed the performance so much that he suggested that the trio record an album together. They chose the name Loose Fur, and recorded six songs during the following summer.

By the end of the year, Wilco had recorded enough demo tracks to release a fourth studio album. Its working title was Here Comes Everybody, which was later scrapped in favour of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Australian band Spacey Jane later released an album titled Here Comes Everybody in 2022 in tribute to the working title, for which they sought approval from Wilco prior to release. Despite having enough songs for an album, the band was unhappy with some of the demo takes. This was attributed to the inflexibility of Ken Coomer's drumming. According to American Songwriter, "virtually every attempt [Tweedy] made to steer Coomer toward the percussive sound he had envisioned for the record sparked a fight." The band decided to bring Kotche into the studio to record with the band. Wilco officially replaced Coomer with Kotche in January 2001, a decision originally proposed by Tweedy and almost immediately approved by the rest of the band.

Guitarist Jay Bennett and Chris Brickley served as the audio engineers, and agreed with Tweedy that O'Rourke would be a good choice to mix the album, after a failed attempt to mix a few of the songs at the Chicago Recording Company and after hearing O'Rourke's "audition mix". One of the conflicts, exhibited in the film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco, was over the ten-second transition between "Ashes of American Flags" and "Heavy Metal Drummer". Bennett attempted to explain to Tweedy that there were several slightly different ways to approach the transition, each of which would yield slightly different results, but Tweedy explained that he just wanted the problem fixed, and was not concerned with understanding the different approaches. Bennett focused on the individual songs, while Tweedy focused on larger conceptual and thematic issues—a tried and true division of labor that had worked well on the four releases on which they co-wrote the material.