Rock.com® – The Official Site of Rock Music®

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – Wilco

2002: Perhaps a portent of what was to come, few stories encapsulates the inevitable downward spiral of the once almighty music industry quite like the woefully inept treatment given to Wilco’s heralded Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

Hoping to expand their global reach and profit margins, record label Time Warner merged with then internet giant AOL and set in motion a series of events (most notably the replacement of longtime supporter Howie Klein with megalomaniac David Kahne, who was allegedly obsessed with producing a radio friendly single) that would eventually lead to the dismissal of Wilco from Reprise Records, a subsidiary of the newly formed mega-conglomerate.

No longer tethered by a contract, Jeff Tweedy and company sought to release the album through another label, eventually landing at Nonesuch Records, which operated under the umbrella of AOL Time Warner.

That’s right, they essentially paid Wilco twice and at a substantially higher asking price the second time around, for the rights to an album they originally had ownership of.

As for the music, “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”, “War on War”, and the poignant “Jesus, Etc.” (whose lyrics evoked eerie similarities to the attack on the World Trade Center), easily rank amongst the best songs written in the past decade.

Runner Up:  Sea Change – Beck