“I Care that I don’t Care”: Post-postmodernism in ‘Wilco (The Album)’

“Meh.

…I wish I didn’t mean that.”

Welcome to post-postmodernism, a new reaction to believing in epistemic tragedy: that is, that nothing can be known-for-certain.

In the period loosely described as post-modernity, men like Foucault and Nietzsche asserted that timeless, absolute knowledge was nonexistent. During—and despite—the subsequent relativism, the 60’s produced angry songs about industrialism, and the 80’s about the travesties of nuclear weapons. The hippies cared enough to become Communist; the punk rockers enough to become anarchists.

In the 90’s, apathy took over and music turned inward (see Elliott Smith or Nirvana.) This introspection continues, but with a new twist, in Wilco’s latest album release, Wilco.

Wilco (The Album) is raw, minimalist, and candid—yet is also produced, complex, and confusing.

The sound is professional, intentional, and jarring. Nels Cline’s use of  distorted, discordant guitar solos presses the listener into a surreal world of clashing colors and glistening spider webs: deconstructive construction, both carefully crafted and unsettling.  The lyrics reveal a heavy ‘production’ (obvious in careful syntax, irony, and vivid imagery) while still conveying an emotional ‘rawness’. Jeff Tweedy’s words are vulnerable and blunt:

Are you under the impression this isn’t your life?
Do you dabble in depression?
…Have you had enough of the old?
…Wilco will love you, baby.

The serious trials of life are presented genuinely, yet climax with the empty suggestion, ‘Oh well, Wilco loves you.’ Tweedy sings later, “This is all of our arms open wide, / Sonic shoulder for you to cry.” A cynical distancing, yes, but one that resonates with our experience of isolation.

Musically, many of Wilco’s songs use tone repetition, the tones only varying in degree of distortion and discontinuity, revealing a minimalist core.  These simple patterns are then layered to create rich, complex sound. Rythmically, Wilco’s music confuses by mixing multiple modalities and time signatures, or by inserting abrupt pauses throughout songs (see “Deeper Down” or “Sunny Feeling”). Yet all the chaotic characteristics transmit their message that knowledge is not absolute.

It is this sort of agnosticism that lends itself to the cynical, apathetic ‘meh’ that characterizes so much of the contemporary culture and the music that defines it.  From “You Never Know”:

Every generation thinks it’s the worst,
thinks it’s the end of the world.
It’s a secret I can’t tell, there’s a wish down a well.
I don’t care anymore. I don’t care anymore…
I don’t care anymore that you never know.

Compare with philosopher Noam Chomsky:

If there is a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a well-guarded secret.

However, there is a constant tension in Wilco between the postmodern “Meh” and the desire to escape agnosticism.  Nor is the tension limited to Wilco. In Bright Eyes’ song “Waste of Paint,” Conor Oberst concludes, “And I have no faith / but it’s all I want, / to be loved / and believe in my soul.”  Or Wilco:

Once I thought without a doubt I had it all figured out.
The universe with hands unseen; I was cold as gasoline.
It took too long to see that I was wrong to believe in me only.

That which is so candid and clear to others eludes the speaker, or at least, he thinks it does. The postmodern cannot comprehend how others find knowledge so convincing.

Wilco is an interesting album not because the music or lyrics are phenomenal, but because it gives an accurate reflection of the current state of mind in the ‘subculture’ that is the burgeoning indie scene. Moreover, Wilco is still classic alternative rock, going strong for fifteen years with talented music and better lyrics.  They may not have anything particularly ‘new’ to say, but that might be the point: there is nothing new, only the ‘same old’ question of “why ‘this’?” and a growing propensity to shudder after the apathetic answer, “Meh.”

*edit* The Evangelical Outpost extends thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of Jay Bennett, former member of Wilco, who unexpectedly died last Sunday.