Average Rating: 
Rating:  - ok, you'll like summer teeth if...
This disc is so across the board, you truly can't really pin it down to a certain group of people's tastes. so i guess i'll try to pin it down.if you're a fan of the beatles/the beach boys/the kinks/the byrds/any good 1960s pop band: you'll like SUMMER TEETH's melodic, catchy, hook side, sort of experimental side. Familiar sounds might be 12 string electric on hook heavy "can't stand it" and the great pop of "nothingsevergonnastandinmyway(again)" and mellotron on the previous mentioned along with "she's a jar" and "my darling" (with beatles and beach boys influences clearly evident) and backward piano on "how to fight loneliness". also, note the timpani on "a shot in the arm". if you're a fan of elvis costello/devo/80's pop: you'll like SUMMER TEETH's use of angular song forms and synths on songs like "a shot in the arm", "im always in love" and "elt". if you're a fan of beck/radio/experimental 90's stuff: you'll like all the previously mentioned songs have the element of the computer's effect on music today. almost all the songs on here sound like they were ran through protools. which they probably were. if you're a fan of britney spears/nsync/shaggy: um...you NEED SUMMER TEETH :) all these "if you likes" sort of have a common denominator: they're all sort of an influence, by each other and together. well, not the last one. A HEADPHONE RECORD ALL OVER THE PLACE - A 90s "REVOLVER".
Rating: - Surprise! The Hoopla is Worth It.
I love Uncle Tupelo. Unlike so many people who have been drawn to Son Volt and Wilco through the emergence of "altenative radio", I have been listening to Uncle Tupelo for a long time and I have always hated Jeff Tweedy. Jay Ferrar was always the romantic, Neil Young inspired tunesmith (what a horrible word!). Through all of their records, I found myself ignoring all of Tweedy's harder-edged contributions to that incredible band. So when I picked up "Summer Teeth", I did so grudgingly (for want of anything else in the store at the time)and then felt like such a misdirected fool. This record is so dense, so immediate, so seemingly heartfelt and direct that I had to go back and re-evaluate all of my attitudes. This is an incredible pop album influenced by hard core country sentiment, rock & roll experimentation (which probably bummed me out so much about Jeff Tweedy's work in UT), and just great heart-felt songwriting. What incredible songwriting! The arrangements are intelligent and (should I sound stupid) overwhelmingly daring for a band birthed from American roots-rock. Jeeeze. The first couple of songs cruise though, then "A Shot in the Arm" hits. You can just feel this one. Then the perfect pop of "I'm Always in Love" (nice baritone guitar and Moog) and "Nothing's evergonnastandinmyway (again)". Then "Via Chicago" rolls through. Wow. This is an album for people who listen to their music, for people who want to feel something. Tweedy's voice just drips with emotion and loss and I buy it. The production is, again, dense and relevant. Moogs, guitar noise (a bad thing done so without intention), and strings all play together amazingly. I, for one, amhumbled by how well this record is crafted. And it is crafted: everything works, everything drives the songs forward. This is one of the best albums of the nineties and maybe (we'll see) one of the best of all time. I still love Son Volt and UT, but if Jeff Tweedy keeps throwing out stuff like this, I'll have to reevaluate the importance of those bands. Right now, with each Son Volt album mining the same roots rock seam, Wilco, with it's experimental bent is forging a future even this UT fan can't argue with.
Rating: - It had to have been made
Upon "Summer Teeth"'s release in 1999, Wilco had been playing the stripped-down, folk-tinged rock card to excess. Their two previous albums, the unnoticed "A.M." and the poppier double-album "Being There", were good, but hardly distinguishable from frontman Jeff Tweedy's first band, the seminal Uncle Tupelo. The songs off the first two releases were, for the most part, good to exceptional, but the country-esque lullaby production was getting rather redundant. Here, it seems, multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennet's pop influences have more presence. By using a more Brit-pop approach to their catalogue here, Wilco created their first masterpiece album.
It's surprisingly consistent, too. From the organ-driven first track "Can't Stand It" to the Kinks-like hidden closer "Candyfloss" everything here is outstanding. Even the folk songs like "She's a Jar" and "We're Just Friends" (the former of which is Wilco's best lyrical song to date) seem to have a new life when put into this masterful collection.
After this came Wilco's finest hour, the Amazing "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot", and by listening to "Summer Teeth" it's not difficult to see where they were headed.
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