Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

The band’s next album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, is considered by many in the music industry to be one of 2002’s best albums, as well as a standout in terms of innovation. What started as an album continuing down the musical and sonic path set by Summerteeth morphed into a monster that would attract plenty of adulation and trouble.

Glenn Kotche replaced Coomer on drums, who would later play with the band Swag, and brought a more musical and improvisational style of playing to the songs. Multi-instrumentalist Leroy Bach also joined so the band could better duplicate their complex arrangements live and in the studio.

The production seemed to go well, though serious rifts formed between Bennett and his bandmates. The situation came to a boil when experimental musician and producer Jim O’Rourke was asked to remix the album over Bennett’s objections. Contrary to popular belief, O’Rourke actually stripped away some of the avant-garde noises recorded by Wilco rather than bring them up in the mix.

Bennett was not pleased with O’Rourke’s involvement, and he was fired from the band shortly after completion of the album. (Bennett later began a project with longtime collaborator Edward Burch and released The Palace at 4 A.M. on the same day Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was ultimately released.)

The situation grew worse when Reprise Records, the band’s label and a Warner subsidiary, rejected the album, sparking a long search to find a new home for the band. In the meantime, Wilco streamed the album from their website after purchasing the master tapes for an undisclosed sum. Ironically, the band ended up at Nonesuch Records, another Time Warner subsidiary, and the album was released in the spring of 2002.

When it was released, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot reached #12 on the Billboard album charts, Wilco’s highest chart position to that date, as well as charting in Australia. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot would later go on to sell over 500,000 copies, and to date remains Wilco’s best selling album.

Some fans were alienated by the noise driven elements of many YHF tracks, but the band did attract new fans who appreciated their new direction. Despite Reprise’s earlier doubts of commercial viability, songs like “Heavy Metal Drummer” and “Jesus, etc.” became staples of alternative and progressive rock radio. More impressively, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot topped 2002’s Pazz & Jop critics’ poll, winning 2328 points over 201 votes. (Second place was taken by Beck’s Sea Change, which won 1506 points over 139 votes.)

Filmmaker Sam Jones caught much of the YHF-era proceedings on film and from that material released the black-and-white documentary, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. The film chronicled the incubation of various songs in the studio, record label difficulties, and creative tensions that led to the departure of Bennett. One pivotal scene involves an acidic argument between Tweedy and Bennett over the mixing of the chaotic transition between “Ashes of American Flags” and “Heavy Metal Drummer”, and ends in Tweedy running to the toilet to vomit (ostensibly due to the chronic migraines he has had since youth). The DVD release contains the movie, with a commentary by the director and the band, and a bonus disc containing extra footage and clips of live performances.

Some samples of recordings from numbers stations and shortwave radio stations that appear on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot put the band in legal troubles. A sample that can be heard at the end of the song “Poor places” was taken from The Conet Project, a four-CD collection of numbers station recordings. The collection’s record label, Irdial, sued Wilco for copyright infringement. The lawsuit was eventually settled out of court with Irdial receiving some undisclosed royalties for the song.

While shooting the film in downtown Chicago, Jones took the iconic photograph of Chicago’s Marina City towers that was chosen for the cover of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

In 2003, Wilco teamed up with The Minus 5 (primarily Scott McCaughey and REM guitarist Peter Buck) to record Down With Wilco. The record, initially intended for release by a major label, was shelved (like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) until it was picked up by Yep Roc Records.