The Ashtray Says You Were Up All Night: Wilco’s Summerteeth Turns 20

As part of The Ringer‘s coverage of the music of 1999, I made the case for Wilco’s surpassingly peculiar mood storm Summerteeth as the best album released that year. Check it out when you have a chance! 

In the late 1990s, a vogue for ’60s nostalgia permeated rock music’s hipper circles, ranging from Elliott Smith’s heart-on-sleeve McCartney-isms to the Flaming Lips’ acid-drenched psych-redux to the historical recreationist lo-fi of groups like Olivia Tremor Control. While Summerteeth’s throwback aesthetics positioned it as a part of that wave, perhaps the album’s finest virtue was the integration of nostalgic reference points with modernist and avant touches, signaling a working knowledge of the canon and a willingness to alchemize its elements into something daring and novel.