Racking Up Plays: “I Might” by Wilco

These are the posts where I gush about some song that I’ve got a huge crush on at the moment, and you put up with it and listen because you’re a good friend.

“I Might,” Wilco

“Wow,” I literally said aloud upon hearing the first single leaked from Wilco’s upcoming eighth studio album, The Whole Love. “This song kinda kicks all kinds of ass.”

It’s not that I was surprised to hear America’s premiere guitar-based experimenters seriously rocking out. Despite what some sneering reviewers would have you believe, the Chicago band hasn’t been been all acoustic mellowness in recent years. There have been a few tracks with strong backbeats and snarls of noise on its last few albums. But this song has a freewheeling energy to it that harkens back to the band’s heyday, when Jeff Tweedy et. al. deftly balanced Americana, pop and experimentalism on a trilogy of near-perfect albums: Being There, Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

Maybe it’s that distorted, elastic bass line sproinging all over the place, or maybe I’ve just on a four-on-the-floor kick lately, but I’m more excited about a new Wilco release than I have been in years. We’ll see if the rest of the album is up to the challenge laid down by this track once it’s officially (self-)released in September. In the meantime, it makes me proud to be a Wilco superfan.