A Ghost Is Born
Wilco juxtaposes its fearlessly experimental side with, as the Los Angeles Times put it, “a bottomless well of melodic invention” evocative of Dylan, the Band, Hendrix, and the Beatles. U.K.’s The Guardian calls A Ghost Is Born “a dramatic, ambitious album that dares you to rise to its challenge.” Winner of the 2004 Grammy Awards for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Recording Package.
At the time of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot's non-traditional 2001 "release," I was in the midst of a two-year exile ...
It's hard not to wonder if Wilco's breakthrough 2002 release, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, would have been such a critical success and so eagerly embraced by the indie rock community if it hadn't become such a cause célèbre thanks to the band being unceremoniously dropped by Reprise Records, and then signed by Nonesuch after the album had become a hot item on the Internet.
A Ghost Is Born, like R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People, is a refreshingly instrumental work.