Moving beyond A.M.’s Uncle Tupelo-oriented country-rock, Wilco’s double-length BEING THERE explored the sonic vistas of the Stones and Big Star. SUMMERTEETH takes things a step further. A loose, inspired masterwork of rootsy power-pop in the grand mid-’70s tradition, it’s the greatest album Alex Chilton never made. With perfect pop melodies and a knack for throwing things askew via left-field sonic elements, this is as far from the country as Wilco could be.

Jeff Tweedy’s ragged-but-right voice is the essence of rock & roll – the travails detailed in the lyrics seem undeniably his own. Though his days of paying homage to Acuff-Rose seem long gone, Tweedy and his compatriots still sound engagingly organic on SUMMERTEETH. Even if they’re closer to Badfinger after a few beers than to the post-Tupelo alt-country of Tweedy’s former partner and Son Volt leader Jay Farrar, Wilco are still treading the same path they started years ago, obviously headed in the right direction.

Tracklisting
1. Can’t Stand It
2. She’s A Jar
3. A Shot In The Arm
4. We’re Just Friends
5. I’m Always In Love
6. Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway (Again)
7. Pieholden Suite
8. How To Fight Loneliness
9. Via Chicago
10. Elt
11. My Darling
12. When You Wake Up Feeling Old
13. Summer Teeth
14. In A Future Age
15. 23 Seconds Of Silence
16. Candyfloss (Hidden Track)
17. A Shot In The Arm (Hidden Track)

Professional Reviews
Spin (4/99, p.160) – 7 (out of 10) – “…built from pieces found rusting by the roadside of the Americana Dream, seemingly at random….Tweedy’s best songs are sweet as ever….”

Entertainment Weekly (3/12/99, p.70) – “…TEETH is packed with poignant mid-tempo ballads that would’ve seemed right at home on a top 10 list in 1975. These days, though, pronouncing them merely transcendent will have to suffice.” – Rating: A

Q (1/00, p.86) – Included in Q Magazine’s “50 Best Albums of 1999.”

Q (4/99, p.107) – 4 Stars (out of 5) – “…Wilco’s chiming bells, echoey piano, feedbacking guitar, mellotrons, handclaps, wafting strings, lounging horns, masteruflly directed harmonies and psychedelic swirls shoe-horned into three-minute symphonies…”

CMJ (1/10/00, p.3) – “…propels Jeff Tweedy & Co. out of rootsw rock canon and into the classic pop milieu, smartly investigating rock’n'roll’s past…to elegantly invigorate its future. A complex, beautifully bedraggled masterpiece.”

Mojo (Publisher) (3/99, p.87) – “Another winner from Wilco….Exuberant, uplifting and elegant all at once, SUMMER TEETH sounds like the perfect soundtrack for the coming spring.”

NME (Magazine) (4/3/99, p.41) – “Perhaps the most cheerful record about dreaming of killing your girlfriend ever made…”