Being There

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Being There
Amazon.com
Marketplace (98 New & Used)
  1. Audio CD: Release Date 1996-10-29
  2. Publisher: Reprise / Wea
  3. Artist: Wilco
  4. Sales Rank in Music: #7573

Product Review

Wonderful and varied 2 CD set. Tri-fold mini-sleeve has a little rubbing. Scuffing on discs will not affect play - graded just FAIR.

Amazon.com essential recording

Wilco's follow-up to A.M. impresses first with its size: 19 tunes fill the double-CD package, and the packaging unfolds like a larger-than-life 1970s-era gatefold album cover. But the love affair with the artwork is short-lived, fading as the music takes center stage, making plain the band's overwhelming stretch into innumerable styles. Jeff Tweedy's love of pop and the mechanics of making pop albums is clear almost immediately, as he and his cohort utilize the studio to create and manipulate undertows and snaky recorded elements throughout many of their tunes (a keyboard touch, a guitar's flair, a cymbal's unexpected crash). There are the plainspoken acoustic numbers, recalling Tweedy's tenure in Uncle Tupelo, and there are also unwinding swoops of tinted, guitar-heavy rock--one of which collapses into chromatic jabs at a piano only to resolve in silence on "Sunken Treasure." Oodles of influences fill Wilco's collective mind, and they're perfectly content to pile the trace elements atop each other and make scrambled pop perfection. --Andrew Bartlett
Title Tracks for Being There

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (95 customer reviews)

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars (4.5 Stars) A little bit country..but mostly rock n' roll, August 20, 2004
B (Rochester, NY United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Being There (Audio CD)
Six years before the much lauded masterpiece "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot", Wilco released "Being There", an ambitious double album that utilized many of the foundations of rock & roll, yet made them sound fresh. Also, if you heard "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and scratched your head at the whole "alt. country" label they're saddled with, it may make more sense after listening to this.

First off, I should say that "Being There" could've fit onto one disc. But once you hear it, you'll see why they put it onto two. For instance, "Misunderstood" and "Sunken Treasure" open Disc 1 and 2, respectively. Each one clocks in at nearly 7 minutes, and utilize similar structures; slow building epics that climax in blasts of psychadelic/avant-garde guitar noise. They both function as centerpieces, and simply work a lot better, aesthetically, as opening songs.

"Monday" is a hard rockin' Rolling Stones pastiche if you'll ever hear one. Deliciously catchy and fun, it'll be stuck in your head...Read more


24 of 26 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars 'Being There' better than anything it references, May 13, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Being There (Audio CD)
Wilco is probably capable of making a great album of just about any genre imaginable, but on Being There they went with a genre that is impossible to describe. Often said to 'borrow' from various great records of the late 60s and early 70s, Wilco really does sound more different than you'd get the impression they do. No song is made up simply of one influence, and influence never goes ahead of pure songwriting genius.The opening track on Being There, 'Misunderstood,' as with many other tracks on the double CD, has been compared countless times to other songs and records. However, with every reviewer thinking it sounds like one thing, it's hard to imagine Wilco ever really just went out and made any songs based on just one person's music. 'Misunderstood' is an amazing way to start off an album, but it shines not just because of the noticeable influences, but mainly because of Jeff Tweedy's lyrics and voice along plus the incredible talent of the rest of the band. If you...Read more


15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Experimental Alt-Country, July 16, 2002
Steven R. Seim "Steve Seim" (Beaver Dam, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Being There (Audio CD)
"Being There" is often called Wilco's masterpiece, but in many ways it is merely a precursor of things to come. Not yet in full Brian Wilson mode, and still working within its country roots, "Being There" is a highly enjoyable blend of American styles. The album features some of their most convincing hard rock, not to mention the achingly beautiful "Far Far Away."My only complaint (and the reason "Being There" doesn't merit 5 stars) is that some of the material should have been left out. The first disc is strong from start to finish - a virtual masterpiece. However, around the middle of the second disc, the music becomes rather tedious - the rockers grating, the ballads uninteresting. With some careful editing, "Being There" could have easily been a single-disc masterpiece.

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