re: Son Volt or Wilco?

Both are great.

Trace is my favorite album from either band but, other than Straightaways, Son Volt is pretty inconsistent.

Wilco has gone to shite, imo, but their first 5 albums were all incredible and the 6th ain't too shabby.

Overall, Farrar has stayed much more in his comfort zone while Tweedy, overseeing a band with so much turnover, has seen Wilco kind of go all over the map musically. In other words, both bands offer a lil something for everyone.

Wilco guy here

Am isnt even a top 5 wilco album.

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For me personally

YHF
Ghost is born
Summer Teeth
The Whole Love
Being There
Sky Blue Sky
AM

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Wow.

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Son Volt, of course. While I like some of Tweedy's work, he's a real POS.

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Jay is more of an a-hole than Tweedy, particularly in the last 10 years.

ETA: On a related note, Tweedy's new memoir is a really good read.

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I definitely prefer the time I went to acl and Tweedy was stoned out of his gourd

Goes without saying.

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I saw them at Jazz Fest one year and he kept introducing songs by saying some version of "Well, we're not really a jazz band, but this song I guess is kind of jazzy..."


Anyway, Wilco > Son Volt. Actually shocked how many people are saying Son Volt and hating Wilco. This board is Bizzaroworld.

A Ghost is Born is a top 5 album for me so.. Wilco. By a mile. Also, Nels Cline and Glenn Kotche are tremendous musicians in addition to Tweedy.

That was interesting. I think this highlights why I like Farrar's various works so much more that Tweedy's:

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You can boil down everything you need to know about the difference between Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar (as songwriters, at least) to how you read that iconic A.P. Carter line that inspired their first album and became a mantra for Uncle Tupelo: “I’m goin’ where there’s no depression.” Farrar, like Carter, meant capital-D Depression. “He was always zoomed out by a power of ten to a height that outlined the edges of a big picture I could never quite make out from where I stood,” Tweedy writes. “I don’t remember feeling as negative about where we lived until I met Jay and we started writing songs, and he wrote about factory towns and unemployment and alcoholism and things like that. I mean, he wasn’t wrong, Belleville was a depressed community economically and psychologically.”

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Whike we are on articles, I think a double shot of Farrar and hold the Tweedy is a good read.

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In a story that surfaced during an interview recently Mr. Tweedy admitted that the proverbial straw that broke the back of Uncle Tupelo was probably due to the fact that he was making advances on his bandmate’s girlfriend. (Jay Farrar has since married this lovely lady and they have two children.) While it would be pure hypocrisy of me to admonish stealing someone’s girlfriend, I would like to go on record that any man who “throws shite” on another guy just to get a girl is a complete fricking pussy.

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and while it didn’t work on the future Mrs. Farrar he did offer Jay a damn fine reason he no longer wished to share the stage with a fricktard of the highest order. I like to apply the Transitive Property when it comes to Jeff Tweedy and Wilco…If you are a Wilco fan then you love Tweedy, and if Jeff Tweedy is a complete fricking pussy for talking shite about his buddy to steal his girl, then all Wilco fans are complete fricking pussies. It’s simple math folks.

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it's not even close .... Wilco has had an incredibly diverse catalog and continues to play respected venues across the world. I did like Son Volt's last album, but the body of work isn't in the same realm

in the last year or so i saw both:

Wilco sold out show at the fabulous Fox in ATL
Son Volt played to about 75 folks at the HOB parish room