• Reviews around places (1.15 of 5)

    Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

    • Upbeat poppy songs like Heavy Metal Drummer flow seamlessly into country-like songs such as Jesus, Etc. and darker songs like Poor Places.
    • It is the centerpiece of the album."Kamera" ," Jesus Etc","poor places",and "pot kettle black" are great songs in their own right
    • Poor Places" (10/10)
    • But Wilco also shows maturity in songs such as Ashes of the American Flag, and Poor Places, as well as Jesus Etc., showing the band is capable of the same esoteric lyrics and metaphors as their British counterpart, but never losing touch with the audience
    • Keep listening to it until Poor Places blows your mind, then maybe you'll understand what every critic in the world is thinking.
    • I tended to skip over "I am trying to break your heart", "Ashes of American Flags", and "Poor Places"
    • On "Poor Places", abstract lyrical metaphors mixed with a cacophony of buzzes and sounds while piano and acoustic guitars swirl to a climax of a computerized voice repeating over and over the album title's code words (which are actually part of the short hand radio's phonetic alphabet)
    • Who Loves You" sounds halfway to Simon & Garfunkel which, for those who don't know, is a compliment as Paul Simon is one of the most highly revered songwriters of the 20th century.- "Poor Places" is . .
    • Of the more pensive numbers, "Radio Cures"-which makes the bittersweet observation that "distance has no way of making love understandable"-"Jesus, Etc.," a song that just exudes heartache, and "Poor Places" are the standouts.
    • Ashes.." and "Poor Places" are especially poignant and rewarding
    • Particularly cool is the reference to / sampling from the The Conet Project (most notably in Poor Places), to give an expansive feeling to the misunderstood, frustrating emotional distance between two lovers uncertain about their destiny
    • Poor Places gets awfully squawky at the end, but trim about 1:30 and do a
    • I like to think of "Poor Places", in addition to being one of the greatest tracks on the disc, as a sort of transition between the beautiful catchiness of "Pot Kettle Black" to the deep, liquid ambience of "Reservations".
    • The last two tracks of the album make it shine, with the poetic "Poor Places," and the heartbreaking "Reservations
    • Only a few seemed a little too aimless for my taste, like Pot Kettle Black and some of Poor Places
    • Then, upon talking to a friend whose favorite cut was the slow, somber "Radio Cure," I decided to go back and give a new try to the tracks I didn't normally listen to, particularly "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart," "Radio Cure," "Poor Places," and "Reservations."
    • "Radio Cure" and "Poor Places" are perfect--just perfect--for when you're sad.
    • Others are much slower and atmospheric, such as "Poor Places" and the opening track
    • It is great to see Tweedy & Co. stretch out in the studio, and in the album's unquestioned masterpiece, Poor Places, take their songwriting to the stars and beyond
    • Ok, so if I tried to make comparisons to other artists I would suggest trying to imagine what Elliott Smith, Bob Dylan, Robert Smith (The Cure), and Brian Eno might sound like all rolled together!My favorite track is "Poor Places".
    • As "Poor Places" drifts into ambient HAM radio transmissions, you start to see that this record is all about communication, about reaching out for something to hold onto in the darkness
    • "Poor Places" breaks down in the end with distortion, it's a bit of a chaotic climax before the warm down of the last song.
    • But the real treasures are songs like Poor Places and Radio Cure which start off kind of drab and unimpressive, until we realize we're on a long journey which would be overwhelming without the building of tension.
    • Jeff Tweedy's fragile vocals lend to a emotional tinge to the songs, especially on songs like "War On War", "Ashes of American Flags", and "Poor Places"
    • The songs flow quite seamlessly into one another, even though there are several changes of tone, from the quiet drift of "Radio Cure" to the upbeat pop-rock of "Heavy Metal Drummer" to the soaring journey of "Poor Places
    • Its experimentation (expanses of white noise acting as segues, bleepy synths) is coated with pop sensibility without sounding like a compromise, and the more adventurous tracks like Trying To Break Your Heart and Poor Places are balanced by top-drawer pop on the order of Pot Kettle Black, War On War, and Kamera
    • The last two tracks of the album make it shine, with the poetic "Poor Places," and the heartbreaking "Reservations
    • The album has a few mildly catchy tunes -- "Poor Places" and "Heavy Metal Drummer" come to mind -- but is a pale imitation of more inventive artists like Beck and Yo La Tengo.
    • Who Loves You" even brings a little brass back into the mix."Pot Kettle Black", though great, comes off with the least impact, while "Poor Places" is the last (and best) in the previously mentioned song cycle
    • "Radio Cure" may be one of the most beautiful songs ever written, and "Poor Places" with its driving minor counterpoint is another one of my favorites.
    • The ghostly sample of the broadcast repeating "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" over the end of "Poor Places" sounds like intentional jamming of the narrators' message, also a common occurrence in the shadowy world of number stations
    • Poor Places" is another that never really seems to grab onto me at all
    • In twenty years I'll still be putting the head phones on and listening to "Poor Places"
    • The highlight here in my opinion is "Poor Places", the piano is simply beautiful as it twirls with Tweedy's sad/optimistic lyrical sway
    • Track 10: Poor Places
    • NARAS really needs to listen to "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and especially tracks like "Poor Places" and "Pot Kettle Black"
    • Poor Places (5/5)11
    • Often towards the end or in the middle of a song a catchy acoustic guitar fill will come out of nowhere and hit you just right, or a piano will start playing a catchy fill and keep building and building like the end of "Poor Places".
    • However, after multiple listens, the highlights of the album are "Ashes of American Flags" and "Poor Places", both lyrical masterpieces
    • Ashes of American Flags" and "Poor Places," for example, are fairly interesting noise studies, but they are not groundbreaking, plus they lurch along at sleepy, incredibly boring paces, pumping their modest melodies for all that they're worth
    • (Poor Places, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart)
    • Ashes of American Flags" and "poor Places" are also emotional standouts, alongwith the upbeat pop of "Kamera" and "Heavy Metal Drummer
    • The album is one of the best of our time, from the beautifully dreary "Poor Places" and "Reservations" to the more upbeat and happy "Kamera"
    • The only problem I have with them is the abnormally long length of their songs...both Reservations and Poor Places, my two favorite songs on the CD, are over 5 minutes in length
    • Lyrically, this album is pitch-perfect- one only needs to listen to "Poor Places" to realize that- but the total idea of this album, formation and disentegration, is so brilliantly pursued in the "noise" aspect that it is difficult not to realize the symphonic genius of Wilco
    • If you have a chance to hear just one track from the album, perhaps the most representative is Poor Places
    • In a way, it has these funny messages to it, as of on'Ashes of American Flags', where it sems to be a breaking news report going on; or on 'Poor Places', where you hear a strange voice just keep saying the album tilte over and over again, strange huh
    • The Conet-infused flurry of white noise at the end of "Poor Places" is my personal favorite moment, although "Ashes of American Flags" is another high point in my book.
    • Whereas "Poor Places" builds up for a minute and a half and then explodes gently into musical enchantment
    • The alternate takes of Poor Places, Kamera and Cars are just great as are the unreleased Not for the Season and Venus Stop the Train.
    • Tweedy is an accomplished songwriter with a distinctive voice, but he is not a visionary, and his material is nowhere near as strong as that belonging to songwriters such as Will Oldham, Mark Everett, or even to Radiohead, the band to which Wilco is so often compared
    • Put it all together seamlessly, as pure as