By the time 2015 came around, Wilco had lived multiple lifetimes in the music industry. With artistically daring albums resulting in a cascade of applause from critics, like the alt-country band’s 2002 opus Yankee Foxtrot Hotel, and reaching heartbreaking levels of vulnerability, as seen on 2004’s A Ghost Is Born. From critical and commercial highs to creatively lofty visions coming to fruition, Wilco was at a crucial point in their tenure during 2015, as the pop music pantheon’s slow transition from an obsession with rock music to a newfound love for Hip-hop’s brightest stars unfolded. With the world in front of them and a shifting landscape under their feet, Wilco holed up in their famous Chicago studio, The Loft, and turned to their fans for the next steps.
On July 16, 2015, Wilco released Star Wars on their own dBpm label and exclusively through their website, wilcoworld.net. It marked the second time Wilco released an album under their label, and arrived four years after The Whole Love. The album was made available shortly after fans even knew it existed. The initial news of Star Wars arrived during a live interview frontman Jeff Tweedy gave to Pitchfork at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago the night before Star Wars hit their website. The album was available as a free download, with physical copies released later that year.
The lore behind Star Wars is just as interesting to revisit as the music itself. According to Tweedy, the band had a separate name and cover for their 2015 release, anticipating an inevitable cease-and-desist order from the film franchise. There was also an alternative cover that flipped the famous McDonald’s “M” upside down to represent Wilco. Thankfully, George Lucas and his lawyers let Wilco be Wilco, and the album was released as a CD on August 21, with a vinyl version arriving on October 13. According to an interview Tweedy did with Rolling Stone, the painting of the white cat on the cover was hanging in The Loft’s kitchen for years, with Tweedy saying, “I started thinking about the phrase ‘Star Wars’ recontextualized against that painting—it was beautiful and jarring. The album has nothing to do with Star Wars. It just makes me feel good.”
The recording sessions for Star Wars also resulted in the juxtaposing, atmospheric follow-up, 2016’s Schmilco, and almost as if the 2016 release was the more tame, responsible twin of Star Wars. The 11 songs that comprise Wilco’s ninth studio album are more complex, murky, and rock-oriented, like on the fan-favorite “Random Name Generator” or the chugging simplicity of “Pickled Ginger.” It isn’t all subtle psychedelia; there are some classic twangy Wilco ballads held within Star Wars. “Taste the Ceiling” is a criminally smooth and moving performance, “You Satellite” is cinematic bliss with immersive textures, and the album’s closer, “Magnetized,” is a wistful, swaying closing scene. Even after ten years, the songs and stories behind Wilco’s Star Wars are fantastically mesmerizing and add another layer of individuality to a band whose identity has always been to push their creative and personal limits.
