When the Americana heroes Uncle Tupelo broke up during the Clinton administration, they left two unbelievably different rock institutions in their wake. While Wilco spent album after album racing to the brink of experimental chaos before pulling back in the 2000s, Son Volt remained staunchly devoted to the core components of rock 'n' roll storytelling — words, melodies and chord progressions.

Flash forward more than 30 years: The pandemic has given Son Volt’s leader, Jay Farrar, more time to write songs and check out vintage gear. "I had more time to be looking at equipment," the singer/songwriter tells GRAMMY.com. "I came across two amplifiers — one called Electro, the other one Melodier — and I felt like that was emblematic as a title for what I was going for with this record: An emphasis on electric, uptempo, melodic songs."

Farrar couldn't have found two words that better sum up Son Volt's latest, which arrives July 30 via Thirty Tigers. The album is a sequence of well-crafted, warmly-recorded tunes for fans of Tom Petty, the Replacements and Bruce Springsteen. And it's bound to be catnip for those who believe a guitar, a tube amp and a pen comprise the ultimate form of human expression.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Farrar to discuss the road to Electro Melodier, dive into every song on the record and discuss everything from COVID-19 to his 25-year marriage to the civil rights upheaval of 2020.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

You mentioned in the press release that the title comes from the names of two vintage amplifiers. Is an electric guitar through a cranked-up tube amp all one needs to genuinely express themselves?

It is if you had the background I had, yes. If you had the background I had, all you need is an acoustic guitar and a small amp and an electric guitar. It took me a while to realize what I would call the Keith Richards method of using small amps to record. You know, you get a bigger sound. On the very first Son Volt record, there's a small amp pictured on the cover.

This time around, with the pandemic, I had more time to be looking at equipment. I came across two amplifiers — one called Electro, the other one Melodier — and I felt like that was emblematic as a title for what I was going for with this record — an emphasis on electric, uptempo, melodic songs. 

What other gear have you been checking out lately?

On the new recording, I used a baritone acoustic guitar, which is an Alvarez. I've also adapted some new guitars to my live [performance] — when I get back to playing live. I recently had some rotator cuff shoulder surgery from playing too much guitar. Forty years of acoustic guitar took its toll, so like a pitcher in baseball, I got the rotator cuff repair. 

I was told to maybe find a thinner-bodied guitar, so I came across an old Kay Speed Demon guitar that I just put some acoustic pickups in and it sounds like an acoustic guitar. So, that's what I'll be going for whenever we start playing live.

Your debut album Trace just celebrated its 30th birthday. What feelings or memories about its making come to mind?

You know, I was living in New Orleans at the time and I had a lot of my equipment in St. Louis. Some of the other guys in the band were in Minneapolis, so I spent a lot of time driving north to south, up and down Highway 61. I used to take the 55 and the 35, just kind of soaking up those parts of the country. 

I also remember that I think I hooked up a U-Haul trailer to a Honda Civic — one of the hatchbacks — so I would fit all the equipment in there. Crazy things like that that I wouldn't do now, but I did it. [Chuckles]. I put the expenses for that record on my girlfriend's credit card and away we went.

When you mentioned Highway 61, I remembered that tune ["Afterglow 61"] from Okemah and the Melody of Riot. Is that a place you continually return to in your mind?

Yeah, it runs right along the Mississippi here, near St. Louis, as well as in New Orleans and all the way up from Minneapolis. It's a thread that follows the river and, usually, good music follows the river and the road.

To connect the timeline to Electro Melodier, where would you place this record on the arc of your overall development?

That's a good question. It's hard to put it in context, I guess. Since it was a pandemic record, it was a much more hybrid approach to recording. We started doing this Zoom, remote-type recording on the song "These Are the Times," and sort of realized that some of that synergy and chemistry was lost over recording through a computer in a remote location.

So, some of us got together with masks in the studio and brought that chemistry back. Yet, at the same time, it made sense for Mark Spencer, who's the multi-instrumentalist, to add his parts because he has his own studio in Brooklyn. It was kind of a hybrid approach that I felt worked on this recording. I think the pandemic made the ingredients for this record to sound and be different.

At the very least, remote recording means the bassist and drummer can't look each other in the eye. You lose the pocket.

Yeah, absolutely. There were myriad communication-type problems since everyone had a computer with speakers and you're in different studios with audio monitors. We were just trying to mute the feedback loops from the microphone to the speaker, whether it's a computer, headphones, microphone… It was just too much.

Son Volt. Photo: Auset Sarno

Think we could go track-by-track to see what each song kicks up in your mind?

Sure, we can give it a shot.

Let's start with "Reverie."

I think that song represents what the recording is about: Getting back to basics. It starts with a melody. The song itself is just an exercise with wordplay. There's a baritone electric guitar on that song kind of inspired by Glen Campbell's work on "Wichita Lineman."

What can you tell me about "Arkey Blue"?

There's a bar in Bandera, Texas, which is outside of San Antonio, that I visited once. Its claim to fame was that Hank Williams, Sr. played there and carved his name in a table. So, I had some time off, went there, took a photo of the place. I have a sign in my music room where I play music. So, when I was writing that song, I just sort of used that Arkey Blue bar name as a placeholder title for the song itself. 

A lot of lines from that song are directly from a speech Pope Francis gave, talking about turbulent rains never before seen, essentially saying that the pandemic is Earth's way of fighting back. That just sort of blew my mind, the Pope saying that, so that wound up in the song. Ultimately, I just sort of felt like the subject matter in the song has kind of a Noah's Ark vibe, so "Arkey Blue" stuck even though it has meanings that go off in different directions.

Did Hank really carve his name in the table, or was that a rumor?

Ah… well, it's there. It definitely looks the right part. The whole place is straight out of a time warp when you go in there, so it's totally believable that it was Hank, Sr.'s name carved in there. They do have it kind of roped off so people don't mess with it.

How about "The Globe"?

That song, I think, was written through a period of turmoil, both in this country — George Floyd's death protests, Black Lives Matter — and looking at news across the globe. People in Belarus or wherever getting clamped down and their freedoms being curtailed. I think the gist of that song just came out of "We're all in this together across the world." A nod of solidarity to those in this country and across the world.

And "Diamonds and Cigarettes"?

I guess that one could have been called "Ode to a Long-Term Relationship." The clock just turned 25 years of marriage for me. I think the pandemic also made one realize the people around you are incredibly important. So, that was one takeaway. Laura Cantrell sang backups on that one. I've known her since about 1995. She was interviewing when we were playing the first Son Volt shows back in 1995.

What do you appreciate about her approach to the tune, or just her voice in general?

It kind of blew me away. Again, Mark Spencer, who's the multi-instrumentalist in the band, also plays with Laura Cantrell as her guitar player, occasionally. They had a rapport. I know Laura and her husband, Jeremy, so it was an all-in-the-family type of experience. I felt that she really did a great job.

Where does "Lucky Ones" fit into the puzzle?

There were always cross-currents of R&B, soul and country music that I've always liked, whether it was Dan Penn, Charlie Rich or the Flying Burrito Brothers. That was my take, or my attempt at tapping into that aesthetic via rhythm and blues and country soul.

I remember the old cover of the Burritos' "Sin City," so obviously, that DNA runs deep.

[Shyly] Yeah, yeah. For sure.

And "War on Misery"?

A couple of years ago, some kids in town in St. Louis had put a manifesto in my mailbox called "War on Misery." It was kind of a self-published socialist manifesto. I could concur. I could relate. So, that title kind of stuck with me. I was trying to go with a Lightnin' Hopkins type sound. Lightnin' Hopkins would often perform with a regular guitar tuned way down, so he had this deep, baritone sound.

How about "Livin' in the USA"?

It didn't start out as an intentional thing, but in retrospect, I see it as a nod to songs like Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" or Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World." Both of those songs have a similar thematic thing going on. I feel like those songs establish a thematic tradition, so I was just kind of taking it and running with it.

 But yeah, again, a lot of turmoil going on and looking around and seeing things that don't add up and putting them into the song.

Both songs are antimatter national anthems. Widely misunderstood, too.

Yeah, exactly. There could be some of that that happens with this one as well.

How about "Someday is Now"?

We started to veer off into prog-rock land a bit with that one, but we consciously kept in check. There were a few times in the recording when we had to pull it back from sounding too much like Rush but I think it ultimately sounded more like Zeppelin.

Has prog always been part of your creative stew?

Not so much for me, but it's in there somewhere, I suppose. Once it gets in there, you can't shake it out completely.

Tell me about "Sweet Refrain."

There are some COVID-19 references, I think, in there. "Looking out the window panes" — I spent a lot of time doing that in the last year and a half. Again, there's some references to relationships and that kind of thing, but there's also a line in there: "Another hero is gone," which references people that passed during COVID, like John Prine. 

That song is also an example of a stream-of-consciousness type, where it kind of goes from one verse to the next and jumps around. The final verse references some of the folks in Benton, Mississippi — [Jimmy] "Duck" Holmes and Skip James. I've used that tuning before and I felt like I wanted to tip a hat to that tuning.

And how about "The Levee On Down"? That symbolism weighs heavy in blues and country.

Yeah. I live close to the Mississippi River, so I've driven up and down the levees. They usually have roads on them. You can drive up and down. I was going to make a bad joke about a Chevy on the levee, but I'm not going to do that. 

I'm going to say that from driving up and down Highway 61 into Cape Girardeau, Missouri, when you go about an hour and a half south of St. Louis, there's the Trail of Tears crossing where the Cherokee Indians crossed. Many died on their way to Oklahoma due to the Trail of Tears forced march, and the person that was part of that was Andrew Jackson. He's on the $20 bill.

Then, we've got "These Are the Times."

That was very much a COVID reference. Changing times, and this is where we're at. Let's try to find our way through this.

We're almost through with the record. "Rebetika."

I came across that word in reference to a certain kind of Greek folk music that was described as being close to blues. It had maybe a similar impetus as blues. I just found that to be kind of fascinating. I took the title "Rebetika" and just kind of ran with it.

Then, after "The Globe / Prelude," we close out with "Like You."

Yeah, that was a stripped-down version—almost like a demo—of "The Globe." We were recording that very much in the [midst of the pandemic]; I think it was when the Black Lives Matter protests were going on. We actually released, I think, on Bandcamp during that time frame.

I always tend to forget about the very last song, but then it sticks in my mind. I guess the way I would summarize this whole project is that I had more time to work on the song structures and arrangements — the writing itself — and more time spent recording the vocals. Really, all of it. 

It spanned the course months where often, in the past, the recording would happen between the gigs. With that song, Jacob Detering, who did the engineering, played a sort of drone, a Mellotron-type instrument on that. More time, more team. I think those were elements that went into the making of this record.

Gary Louris Of The Jayhawks On Barely Listening To Roots Rock & His First Solo Album In 13 Years, 'Jump For Joy'

As the axiom goes: surround yourself with people you can always learn from. This encapsulates the dynamic between Jeff Tweedy and Wilco. The beloved, enduring, four-time GRAMMY-winning group has been a vehicle for Tweedy's incisive songwriting for nearly 30 years.

Outside of Wilco, Tweedy is masterful: 2018's and 2019's raw-nerved, lived-in Warm and Warmer are proof positive of this. But although 99 percent of Wilco songs are Tweedy's, they've never been merely his backing band. Every incarnation of Wilco has contained visionaries and virtuosos.

Take the complicated and inventive Jay Bennett, Tweedy's foil for their first three masterpieces: Being There, Summerteeth, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Or Glenn Kotche, a key member since 2001 — not just a drummer and percussionist, but a 360° musical thinker.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Wilco's current lineup, solidified since 2005, is stacked with masters.

Such as bassist John Stirratt, who's provided their subtle emotional undercarriage since their formation. And Nels Cline, one of the preeminent experimental guitarists of the 21st century. With each release, guitarist Pat Sansone and keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen's colors and shapes grow more iridescent.

On Sept. 29, Wilco will release their 13th album, Cousin — their second in just over a year, after 2022's Cruel Country. That self-consciously rootsy double album felt totally natural — essentially falling out of Tweedy's mouth and guitar.

But speaking to GRAMMY.com, Tweedy explained that Cousin would manifest like "an odd shape in the desert" — and it certainly does. Produced by consummate tinkerer Cate Le Bon, songs like "Infinite Surprise," "Levee" and "Meant to Be" coat Tweedy's rumpled, weatherbeaten tunes with a gently alien, digital feel.

As Tweedy put it in the press release, "Cate is very suspicious of sentiment, but she's not suspicious of human connection." Which makes her an ideal fit for a legacy band often preoccupied with distance, disorientation and loss in translation.

With Cousin on the horizon, GRAMMY.com took a spin through Wilco's discography — loosely trisected by era, and leaving out side projects and collaborative albums.

Uneasy Alt-Country (1994-2000)

A.M. (1995)

Yes, the title refers to the form of broadcasting — hence the vintage radio on the cover. But the sunny, uncomplicated A.M. feels like the dawning of an important American band.

At the time, A.M. was unfavorably compared to Trace, the debut album by Son Volt — led by Jay Farrar, Tweedy's partner in the band Uncle Tupelo. (When they split in 1994, Tweedy got multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston, bassist Stiratt, and drummer Ken Coomer in the divorce.)

Read More: Jay Farrar On Son Volt's New Album Electro Melodier & The Lifelong Draw Of Electric Guitars, Words & Melodies

But 28 years later, the story of this rivalry has lost its luster: A.M. is a perfectly solid American album. Today, rootsy, power-popping tracks like "I Must Be High," "Box Full of Letters" and "Passenger Side" are perfectly enjoyable on their own terms.

Twelve albums later, A.M. remains the first and last Wilco album to feature basically no experimentation — a model that would dramatically flip in the next calendar year.

Being There (1996)

Sure, a few cuts on the double-disc Being There could snugly fit on A.M. — like the burbling "Forget the Flowers," the swaggering "Kingpin" and the rollicking "Dreamer in My Dreams."

But on the main, Being There is their Rubber Soul; while it shares superficial characteristics with their earlier creations, the band's works abruptly accrued a sense of windswept majesty.

This is obvious from the jump: where A.M. began with a friendly drum fill and some steely twang, Being There's opener, "Misunderstood," fades in with booming toms, thunderclap crashes and clamorous feedback.

So many of its small-town images stick in your craw: the taste of cigarettes, the promise of a party, the state of being "short on long-term goals."

"Misunderstood" ends with that unforgettable repetition of "I'd like to thank you all for nothing! / Nothing! / Nothing!" et al: the 18 ensuing songs seem to emanate from that wellspring of lonesome beauty.

The banjo-led "What's the World Got in Store" is aching and lovely; the spare, seven-minute "Sunken Treasure" is a canyon of feeling; baroque-pop "Outta Mind (Outta Sight)" foreshadows Summerteeth.

All these nascent ideas would take flower on ensuing albums, but Being There retains its partisans for very good reasons.

Summerteeth (1999)

Summerteeth holds a unique distinction in Wilco's catalog: it's the most candy-coated and the most harrowing. Imagine Sgt. Pepper's with several variations on "I used to be cruel to my woman and beat her," and you're somewhere within spitting distance.

After zippy single "Can't Stand It" notes the arbitrary nature of divine blessings, the icy "She's a Jar" ends with a still-startling twist: "She begs me not to hit her."

The violence rolls on: "A Shot in the Arm" has a gory, hammering outro: "Something in my veins/ Bloodier than blood." At the top of centerpiece "Via Chicago," Tweedy has a recurring dream of committing homicide, and watching his victim bleed out.

But these lashings of aggression are well-timed, and in a vivid balance with the instrumentation: Summerteeth isn't an uncomfortably bleak listen, but an eclectic and unforgettable one.

"I'm Always in Love" is a sugar rush that threatens to shake apart. "My Darling," Bennett's ode to his niece in demo form, reads as a bedtime song from Tweedy to his son, and carries the paternal poignancy of John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy."

Despite the conspicuous advancements on Summerteeth, closer "In a Future Age" is its truest arrow to what was to come — despite it being a few chords, awash in atmosphere.

"Let's turn our prayers/ Into outrageous dares," Tweedy sings; the music feels like a blank page, ready for anything to be drafted on it.

Drummer Ken Coomer described Summerteeth as "two guys losing their minds in the studio," and that dynamic would come to a head very soon.

Uncharted Territory (2001-2006)

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

From interband drama to label warfare to 9/11 extrapolation, it seems like everything there is to write about Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has been written.

But besides every outtake you can imagine being available — via the GRAMMY-winning 20th century deluxe edition — a documentary being made about it, the album's actual making feels paradoxically enigmatic.

"They were replacing parts all the way up into the mix," Cheryl Pawelski, the compilation producer for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: 20th Anniversary, tells GRAMMY.com. [Mixing engineer] Jim [O'Rourke] would send Glenn out and say, 'Play something like a marching band over the section.'"

The lush, abstracted production throughout Yankee Hotel Foxtrot gives it much of its character. But the spectacle wouldn't mean much without unforgettable songs.

Despite, or because of, its fragmented wordplay, "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" digs into the center of your chest: a "Bible-black predawn" is many times more evocative than "early morning." "Radio Cure" is an extended hand through staticky space, a signal faintly perceptible in the noise.

From there, not a single track, or moment, feels out of place. The shivering, lovely "Jesus, Etc." is Wilco's most famous song for a reason. The admission "I know I would die if I could come back new," in "Ashes of American Flags," remains devastating.

It all ends with the astonishing "Reservations," one of Wilco's most vulnerable and guileless creations; the drone decays and decays, refusing to let go.

When Wilco played "Reservations" live for a run of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 20th anniversary shows, Tweedy was lain flat by the experience.

"The audience just really calmed itself down and stayed with it for this long, drawn out fade-out," he told American Drunkard. "And that was the whole point of the record ending that way. It's gone and you're left with your interior thoughts.

"That response made me really proud, but also, it made me sad," he continued. "Every night. I cried every night." Two decades later, "Reservations" — as with all of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot — still reverberates through our bones.

A Ghost is Born (2004)

True to the album art — a single egg, balancing in a vacuum — Wilco followed their most visionary album with their most fragile: A Ghost is Born. 

Counterweighing tunes of levity and light — like the bouncy, yearning "Hummingbird," the swinging, downtown-ish "Handshake Drugs" and the cult rock fan manifesto "The Late Greats" — are some of their most devastated, naked works.

"At Least That's What You Said" begins barely audibly, with Tweedy less singing than sleeptalking — then erupts into a seizure of electric guitar, performed with abandon by Tweedy himself.

If you subscribe to the Neil Young with Crazy Horse school of the instrument, A Ghost is Born is a treat: this is where we hear Tweedy let loose. "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" is their first true motorik workout; Tweedy's guitar punctures its even keel like a kitchen knife through office paper.

But as always with Wilco, the violence is counterweighed by a sighing beauty: "Muzzle of Bees" and "Wishful Thinking" are featherlight and swaddling; the side-eyed "Company in My Back" and punky "I'm a Wheel" are a reprieve from the album's tortured circumstances.

Speaking of: the most important moment of A Ghost is Born might also be the most skippable. At the end of the collapsed "Less Than You Think" is 13 minutes of noise, intended to represent Tweedy's migraines while addicted to painkillers.

"Even I don't want to listen to it every time I play through the album," Tweedy admitted. "But the times I do calm myself down and pay attention to it, I think it's valuable and moving and cathartic."

From here, the most outré Wilco fan may have braced themselves for a complete leap into the unknown. But Wilco would never pursue this degree of extremity again.

A Solidified Front (2007-present)

Sky Blue Sky (2007)

Featuring new guitarists Pat Sansone and Nels Cline, Wilco's heady, unwieldy 2005 live album Kicking Television whetted fans' thirst for even danker Wilco. As plenty of contemporaneous reviews groused: instead, they got Sky Blue Sky.

Granted, at the time, it felt like a retreat from the verge of something radical. Fueled by increasing suspicion of sound design, Tweedy sought a back-to-basics approach that harkened back to the classic rock that got Wilco going. (And via Nels Cline's chops, a helping of Tom Verlaine of Television.)

Sky Blue Sky is a pure, unadulterated listen — a window into the Wilco we know and love today.

Sometimes, the lyrics feel caught between abstracted musings ("You Are My Face") and quotidian imagery ("Hate it Here") — and when they're presented a la carte, they invite scrutiny.

But when the band simply lets it rip, they communicate more than words ever could; on "Impossible Germany" and "Side With the Seeds," Cline must be heard to be believed.

Wilco (The Album) (2009)

Sky Blue Sky welcomed in a new era of Wilco; as they approached their 15th anniversary, they decided to throw a party for themselves. (Hence the camel's birthday party on the cover.)

The choogling "Wilco (The Song)" remains something of a theme song for the band: the refrain "Wilco will love you, baby," a rallying cry.

What follows is a tour through the Wilco Museum: you get Yankee Hotel Foxtrot-level immersion ("Deeper Down"), a bloody fantasy worthy of Summerteeth ("Bull Black Nova") and a Stonesy rocker beamed from Being There ("Sonny Feeling").

Elsewhere, "You Never Know" is a highly commercial (and lovely) duet with Feist, suggesting a trajectory where A.M.'s simplicity remained the order of the day.

But like Sky Blue Sky, Wilco (The Album) peaks when the band takes flight, as on the majestic, lighters-up "One Wing" and the radiant, All Things Must Pass-like "You Never Know." 

"Every generation thinks it's the end of the world," Tweedy sings in "You Never Know." Wilco (The Album) is permeated with that askance, self-referential attitude — which makes it right on time, another 15 years on.

The Whole Love (2011)

With The Whole Love, the new Wilco was now three albums in — and more simpatico than ever. Their sleek and jagged sides had found a rapprochement; Nils Cline played more in the shadows than on top of the others.

This synergy could suggest a lack of danger, which thrillingly pushed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born over the edge. If not for its first and last tunes in particular: "Art of Almost" and "One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)."

The former is as arcane a composition as Wilco ever dreamt up: the undulating, unpredictable co-creation has shades of Can and electric Miles, and eventually erupts into a string-snapping showcase from Cline.

As for the latter: it shows Tweedy's incisiveness as a writer hadn't dimmed a bit.

In its account of a son's cracked relationship with his late father, "One Sunday Morning" unspools like peak Dylan: it's immediately recognizable to anyone grieving a complicated, controlling parent: "Bless my mind, I miss/ Being told how to live."

In between, Wilco try on various costumes to satisfying results: sleek new wavers ("Born Alone," "Standing O"), '60s-style classicists ("Sunloathe," "Capitol City") and close-miked folkies ("Open Mind," "Rising Red Lung").

Star Wars (2015)

The Whole Love struck a mature balance of eclecticism and cohesion: four years later, Wilco shattered that facade with a shot of irreverence and cheek.

Which starts with a hell of a title. "The album has nothing to do with Star Wars. It just makes me feel good," Tweedy said. "It makes me feel limitless and like there's still possibilities and still surprise in the world, you know?"

Across a tight 33 minutes, Wilco keep the proceedings fat-free, forward-thinking and relentlessly uptempo. "More…" is needle-sharp art-pop, "Random Name Generator" kicks the goofy Marc Bolan energy up to 10, and "You Satellite" builds a heavenbound momentum.

But when Wilco aren't in attack mode, Star Wars achieves an even greater resonance. "Taste the Ceiling" possesses the type of sticky melody that seems to naturally fall out of Tweedy's guitar, and poignantly broaches communication breakdown: "Try the words in sequence/ But that's never how its done."

And the push-pull closer "Magnetized" is plainly one of the most fascinating, emotionally incisive songs in their entire catalog: "I sleep underneath a picture that I keep of you next to me," Tweedy sings — and the swelling instrumentation is like a knot in your throat.

Schmilco (2016)

Imagine the irreverence of Star Wars translated to acoustic instrumentation, and you've got a good handle on Schmilco.

About that flippant, Nilssonesque title: "It's really, to me, inhibiting to take it so seriously, to treat it like it's so precious," Tweedy said at the time. I guess that's just a way to illustrate that, to some degree. Like, 'Hey, Wilco Schmilco, f—, I just wanna keep moving.'"

Schmilco feels like an intentionally minor effort — which isn't a flaw; it gives it an appealing je nais se quoi.

The hushed "If I Ever Was a Child" is a sunbeam gradually peeking over the horizon; "Common Sense" is charmingly lumpy, amelodic and disagreeable; "We Aren't the World (Safety Girl)" flips the cornball charity classic into a sarcastic missile.

Only the roving "Locator" goes electric — which reveals a shared DNA strand with its predecessor, and underlines its nature as something of a Star Wars companion album.

Ode to Joy (2019)

Even before the pandemic, racial spasms and Jan. 6 rattled the world, the news was fairly traumatizing. In response, Wilco made a rattled, whisper-quiet album about finding embers of love in a wasteland.

Several songs on Ode to Joy feel like ragged marches: behind the kit, Kotche opts not to flow, but trudge with grim resolve. Goes Tweedy's first line, from opener "Bright Leaves": "I don't like the way you're treating me." And man's inhumanity to man haunts everything in its wake.

"Remember when wars would end?" Tweedy sings gravely in "Before Us." "Now, when something's dead/ We try to kill it again." And Cline responds with a distant, ominous guitar scrape.

This haunted vibe makes Ode to Joy one of the most resonant latter-day Wilco albums. But levity does creep in — albeit with an implicit threat. "Everyone Hides" wittily prods at the flight side of "fight or flight."

And "Love is Everywhere (Beware)" carries a mightily resonant message: "The song is a reminder to myself to act with more love and courage and less outrage and anesthetized fear," Tweedy said.

Indeed, when world events inflamed our basest instincts, Tweedy dug deep within himself — and wrote a song that belongs in the Wilco time capsule.

Cruel Country (2022)

Cruel Country was cleverly marketed from the outset as "Wilco goes country"; its goofy advance single, "Falling Apart (Right Now)," was honky-tonk straight from the therapist's couch.

But when the album — their first double album since Being There — actually landed, it proved to be a more teeming and complicated beast.

Most of the material wasn't country at all: tunes like "The Empty Condor" and "Bird Without a Tail/Base of My Skull" were actually on Wilco's more outré end. And "Hearts Hard to Find" dealt in yet another side of Wilco: swoony folk-pop for a midsummer evening, a la "California Stars."

Read More: Jeff Tweedy's Blurred Emotions: Wilco's Leader On Cruel Country & Songwriting As Discovery

For all its multitudes, Cruel Country is a flowing, enveloping listen. And what binds this wealth of material is Tweedy's psychological incisiveness ("Tonight's the Day," "Tired of Taking it Out on You"), as well as commentary on America's Music and the nature of patriotism.

"It's really gratifying to feel like we made something that we very, very profoundly, deeply know we couldn't have made five years ago," Tweedy told GRAMMY.com at the time, "without all the miles that we've traveled together in between."

He then mentioned that the album's successor would contain "songs that really wouldn't fit into the Cruel Country landscape" — that they'd come across like "somebody dropped a weird shape into the desert."

And Tweedy was correct — partly thanks to a visionary outside producer.

Cousin (2023)

Wilco has been a self-contained enterprise for ages. In the congested music industry, they self-produce; record in their private wonderland, The Loft; and mostly disregard traditional album cycles.

Perhaps this could be a double-edged sword — Wilco could have fallen into old habits as their 30th anniversary loomed.

Whatever the case may be, for that "weird shape in the desert," the band drafted Welsh musician and producer Cate Le Bon — to give their tried-and-true aesthetic a refreshing twist.

This partnership paid off handsomely: while Tweedy's songwriting is still very much Tweedy, Cousin has a taste and feel that doesn't resemble any past Wilco album.

"Infinite Surprise" hangs in a droning, digital ether that puts it somewhere in the taxonomy of Joni Mitchell's Taming the Tiger; "Levee" shimmers and sparkles like Wilco songs haven't really in the past; "Pittsburgh" is a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot-level mind movie.

With Cousin, Wilco prove they can still find new avenues and corridors in their three-decade trajectory. And the continual state of guessing is what makes it so rewarding to be a Wilco fan. Or, in their words: infinite surprise.

28 Essential Songs By Wilco Ahead Of Their New Album Cruel Country

Solo albums by famous lead singers can be dicey gambits. They can offer an artist a fresh musical pulpit, or they could divide the group that made them famous. Luckily for Corey Taylor, his solo endeavors haven't interfered with his main metal mission.

With CMFT and CMF2 — the latter of which arrives Sept. 15 — Taylor crafted legitimately interesting albums that also suit the odyssey of his multiple musical personalities. Best known for fronting the GRAMMY-winning metal band Slipknot, Taylor's masked persona has allowed him to vent rambunctious energy on and off stage; his original group, Stone Sour, saw Taylor explore more melodic heavy rock avenues. While his solo work is somewhat aligned with the music that made him famous, it's another animal altogether.

Taylor first began performing solo acoustic shows in late 2011, nearly a decade before 2020's CMFT. The shows completely shed any musical assumptions people would associate with the singer, as he covered songs he wouldn't normally do with his other bands and gave people a look into his true multifaceted identity. His solo performances also included various spoken word segments with spontaneous comedy bits, a nod to his literary instincts (to date, he's authored four books and a comic book series).

CMF2 continues to bring the unexpected. While many of its 13 tracks are heavy, they also span wider genre influences, notably '70s and '80s classic rock sounds. Tracks like "Post Traumatic Blues" and "All I Want Is Hate" bristle with intense electric energy and the acoustic ballad "Sorry Me" taps into introspective territory; the bluesy "Breath of Fresh Smoke" resides between the two sonically, building from a gentle first half into a spirited electric guitar solo at its center. "Dead Flies" closes the album by invoking '90s hard rock vibes – ultimately proving that there's really no rock style Taylor can't tackle.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Taylor in the midst of his recent tour with his solo band to discuss the new album, his artistic progress over the last 30 years, and how his solo ventures are a good way for him to transition into other musical adventures.

While your label is promoting the heavier tracks like "Beyond" from CMF2, there's a bit more nuance here than on your first album, which had some mellower moments.

Absolutely. This is the only way I've been able to describe it — the first album was "I've got all these tunes, let's just see if anybody likes them." There was really no plan, there was really no focus. I'd never really had the opportunity to present the songs that I've written over the years to see if people even like these things.

Once I realized that the audience was there for my songwriting — not the band, not the aesthetic of anything, just me writing as an artist — then we could lean into this. Now I can tap into stuff that I really want to do and really try to focus this album and make it a journey.

What I've tried to do with every album that I'm involved with, whether I'm producing or not, is to make it feel like I'm taking people somewhere, and hopefully bring them back. So on this album, the nuances are overstated. The heavies feel heavy, the quiets still quiet. The contemplative nature is still there, but the songs are just really, really good.

What's the most personal song on the new album for you?

Oh man, that's tricky. There's so many different sides to me on this album. It's a toss up between "Post Traumatic Blues" and "Sorry Me." Just from a strictly selfish point of view.

If I was talking about the more optimistic, almost romantic side, "Starmate," "Beyond," "Someday I'll Change Your Mind" — songs that I've written for my wife — that stuff brings that whole other side out of me. But when it comes to just those moments of contemplation and really dealing with those darker moments that depression affords me, "Sorry Me" is definitely one of those things where you're just sitting there and feel dog-piled by the mistakes that you've made in your life. You know it's not something that you're doing, it's the depression pulling those out of you. It's pulling those memories out to almost weigh you down even more, and fighting your way through that to get back to the surface of that ocean is tough.

"Sorry Me" is almost like that moment where you have to forgive yourself for the mistakes that you've made in your life and realize that time is moving on. And if you don't allow yourself a little levity, then you're just going to be carrying around a million tons of bricks for the rest of your life.

A lot of your lyrics, metaphorically, go into a place of trying to find home. Not home within your house, but home within yourself.

You're absolutely right. I spent so many years on the road when I was a kid that I had no real sense of what a home was. The only real home I knew was my grandmother's house. That was the only place I felt safe. It was the only place where, when I got there, I felt like I didn't have to worry about what was going to happen to me. It was the only house in the world where I felt like I could just be myself.

As I've gotten older, my home that I have now is that. I didn't really have that over the years, even when I was living by myself — maybe because I wasn't comfortable with myself. I was still finding myself. But my home now is definitely the place where I can take that deep breath and feel okay with it.

So, musically, maybe that's where my journey is still going, and maybe that's one of the reasons why I enjoy writing in so many different genres. I've never felt like there's one genre that feels like home. I'm constantly exploring different things. Then again, maybe it's just music in general that feels like home. So why can't I explore all of these different genres? Because I feel really comfortable. There's a flip side of that coin that I've never really considered before.

Your acoustic sets show another side of you, and you get to pull out unusual covers. You have a rowdy crowd, but they're willing to indulge you. Do you think because of the way you can embody these different styles, you've been able to pull in a lot of metal fans who might not normally be along for the ride?

I think so. I've definitely inspired a sort of trust because of just how many years I've been doing it now, and the fact that anything I do has really showed that it comes from the heart. It doesn't come from any other place other than this really true, honest place. I've never written music just to write music. I've written music because I wanted to write that type of music, I wanted to play that type of music. And, to me, that's the best way to try to ensure that the audience is going to show up and listen. The second you throw them for a loop and it's not honest, they're going to be like, "Nope, we're never trusting you again."

I've never known anything other than to be completely honest musically. So you're right — when it comes to the acoustic shows, there would be the handful of metal dudes [coming who were], like, the closeted metal fan who loves softer stuff but never wanted to admit it before. "If it's not Slayer, it's not heavy!"

It's those guys [who are] singing [the Slipknot ballad] "Snuff" the loudest. When you have something that touches people like that, man, it doesn't matter genre-wise.

I think that's one of the reasons why I've come to be this solo artist because, to me, the songs are what matter. A good song transcends a genre. It will transcend your gatekeeping for a certain type of music, and it will make you go, "You're going to enjoy this whether you like it or not. You just need to get over yourself."

In the "Beyond" video, I see that Corey is learning to do some lead guitar work.

Well, I'm finally sharing it, anyway. A lot of people don't know this, but when I started Stone Sour back in '92, I played rhythm and lead while singing. It was largely because everybody that we tried out just wasn't good enough, and that was the story of my life, really.

When I first started playing music, it was almost a catch-22. I was always better than the drummer that we had in the band. And when I was playing drums, I was always better than the singer that we had in the band. It was one of those instances where it was either s— or get off the pot. I had to pick one. Finally I was like, I'd rather sing. I feel really good when I sing. Not that I don't love playing drums, and I still play drums. But I would rather sing because, to me, the challenge is finding those ways to emote and do those things.

The same with guitar playing. I didn't necessarily want to be the lead guitar player, but at the same time, I've got these songs that I really love and nobody's playing them the way I want them to be played. So I have to do that. Then once I discovered people like Jim Root and all the other people that I've been blessed to work with, I've been able to give up that.

But when I demoed "Beyond" and I wrote that solo, it was one of the coolest solos I'd ever written. It's short, it's concise, it's melodic, it's got a hook of its own. I knew that if we recorded it I wanted to be the one to do it. It's just one of my favorite solos which is one of the reasons why it's the one that I do on the album.

You also play mandolin on the album, and you say your piano playing has been getting better. It's not often you see a lead singer as a multi-instrumentalist or soloist.

I guess it's because I just love writing music. I love writing songs, period, and to me, the best way to be able to write different kinds of songs is to learn to play different types of instruments. Because I learned by ear, I'm pretty adept at getting good fairly quickly. It takes me a minute. And obviously, I'm not going to go out and perform with the London Philharmonic, but at the same time getting to learn chords on the piano, or learning different tunings on the mandolin, is a lot of fun. It helps me explore stuff to the point where if I want to write something now in any genre, or any style, I can pull the Wurlitzer out on this and lay down a Doobie Brothers kind of thing and just have fun with it. That, to me, is the exciting part of learning different instruments.

You've done a lot of guest appearances and collabs over the years— everyone from Korn to Apocalyptica to comedian/voice actor Tom Kenny. What's been the most challenging?

That's a good question. I've been really lucky in the fact that everything that I've done I've been very adept at and really taken to it. Some of these genres [I've worked in] I'm already a fan, so I already have a taste of it. I will say the most nervous I ever was, and this is true, was getting up with Tom and doing the "SpongeBob Theme Song". It was so rad and we had so much fun doing it. Tom is such a sweetheart of a person, and I don't even think he realizes what a fan I have been of him for years. When we were making the very first Slipknot album, we watched Mr. Show with Bob and David every day. We had all of the episodes on videocassette, and we would watch them at the end of every night and just laugh hysterically. I just think he's one of the funniest people on the planet. Not only do I love him from that, but my son was a massive SpongeBob fan, so his voice has literally been in my life for over 25 years. It's cool to be able to have that moment now, and hopefully we'll have some more because he's like, "We have to stay in touch." And I'm like, "Oh God, this is gonna get fun now."

You've got a couple of "secret" guest musicians on this album. Duff McKagan wrote some notes for the promo materials. So is he one of them? Or are we being left to guess?

Actually, no. He sadly didn't. I would have loved to have had Duff, and maybe I'll do it on the third album. But there were two real people who played on the album, one of which was Fred Mandel. He provided the Hammond work. Roger Manning was on there and did this incredible key work on stuff like "We Are The Rest." But the two other names are actually pseudonyms for me. Richard Manitoba was one of my hotel aliases that I used in the past.

Handsome Dick Manitoba from the Dictators!

Yeah, yeah. That's where I got it from because I was a massive Dictators fan when I was a kid, and then Pebbly Jack Glasscock was a baseball player from the 1940s. That has been my email name for years.

The reason why I was almost forced to use those is because [producer] Jay Ruston refused to not credit me on the album for all of the stuff that I had played. I didn't want my list of musical credits to look like, "Oh, look, he's just got to have credit for everything." And he was just like, "We've got to put something on here." I was like, "God dammit." So I gave him those aliases. And he ran with it.

The song "The Rest Of Us" talks about the effects of PTSD and the prolonged impostor syndrome hanging over your life. For people who don't understand that — because you've had all this success, you've done all these great things — what do you think keeps that imposter syndrome lingering for you despite your achievements?

That's a good question. Maybe unresolved issues from my childhood, the stuff that I've never had the chance to explore with a therapist because there's always so many crazy things going on in my current life. That's at the bottom of the list because it just doesn't have priority.

I don't know, maybe it's because of the things that were done to me and the things that were said to me — not just when I was younger, but from prior relationships. I had a bad habit of getting together with people who didn't like the fact that I was really good at what I did, and that I was in demand. So it would consciously or unconsciously come out in the abuse that they would pile on me, and it definitely takes a toll. When you have people who don't try to inspire you to be yourself, it will make you feel like you didn't earn the things that you've earned. It's something I still struggle with.

I know people hear that, and they go, "Are you out of your mind?" Maybe I am a little bit. But it's tough when you're paraded and told that you're not any good for so many years, or that you don't deserve anything, or you're not even responsible for the things that you've earned. All you can do is try to work it out in therapy. Then once you get to the point where you're a little stronger in your life, you go, "I'm not going to allow that in my life anymore. I want to surround myself with people who appreciate me." And that's just it.

Luckily, I'm in a wonderful marriage now. We inspire each other, and we push each other to be the very best. And that leads to inspiring my kids to do that. So I'm slowly but surely giving up the ghost on that. But it's something that maybe will still haunt me until I'm towards the end of my career. Who knows?

You've talked about the fact that, with Slipknot, you can only can keep up this pace for so long. That sounds like a smart idea for you to transition into exploring other things, and still have that audience and be you, without people expecting you to jump on stage with a mask and go crazy for two hours.

Right. As a performer you physically want to rise to that occasion. The only thing that holds us back in performance is age, and I'm lucky that I'm healthy enough that I can still go at a certain level. But I know I can't continue that forever. The guys in Slipknot also know that, and that's something that we're talking about very honestly. "What do we do?" "What does the next level of Slipknot look like?"

We're looking at it from an artistic point of view. How do we make it still seem frenetic and off the chain, but also something that we can deal with from a strength point of view? It'll be interesting to see where that challenge takes us.

It also allows me to be able to do stuff like this solo thing. It's high-energy right now, but when it gets to the point where I want to tame it down a little bit, I have songs that I can lean into and let them do the heavy lifting for me.

This is probably the closest to the real me as a performer that I've been in my whole career. Because obviously with Slipknot, it's really one side of the genre. With Stone Sour, I was being held back because of certain people in the band. But with this, there are no limitations, and I can do music carte blanche as far as genre goes and performance goes. I have a band that can play anything, which is just criminal. It's really, really cool. I'm just really fortunate to be in the place where I am right now.

Songbook: How Avenged Sevenfold's Unpredictable Rock Path Led To 'Life Is But A Dream'

Upon the release of Hole's third album, 1998's Celebrity Skin, guitarist Eric Erlandson revealed to Spin the biggest worry he and founding member Courtney Love had in their early days: "that Hole could not be a mainstream band, and we wanted to be popular enough and sell enough records." Within the space of 12 months, such fears had unequivocally been put to bed.

Indeed, Celebrity Skin sold 86,000 copies in its first week to become the group's first Top 10 entry on the Billboard 200. It also picked up four GRAMMY nominations including Best Rock Album, spawned two Hot 100 hits and shifted more than 1.4 million copies in the United States alone. Suddenly a band whose first three singles were titled "Retard Girl," "Dicknail" and "Teenage Whore" had become part of the MTV elite.

In an era when pop was still very much considered a dirty word, Hole brazenly refused to be shackled by the music industry's self-appointed tastemakers. They pursued a sound which owed just as much to the harmony-laden soft rock of Rumors-era Fleetwood Mac as the caustic grunge of 1994 predecessor Live Through This. Their new set of collaborators indicated a shift, too: After initially courting Brian Eno, the quartet teamed up with Michael Beinhorn, the man who'd helped spearhead the careers of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden ("probably the Michael Bay of record producers," drummer Patty Schemel wryly noted in her memoir). They also requested the services of Love's ultimate frenemy Billy Corgan halfway through recording to boost its hooky appeal.

This change in direction was no doubt inspired by the quartet's decision toreturn to Los Angeles, with Erlandson opting for Laurel Canyon, Schemel and bassist Melissa Auf der Maur residing in Silverlake Hills, and Love settling in Beverly Hills. But as hinted on its front cover — a slightly blurry Polaroid shot of the band standing in front of a burning palm tree — Celebrity Skin was no picture-perfect tribute to Californian life.

Take the title track, for example: Named after the voyeuristic porn magazine (and not, as Love once joked, because she'd "touched a lot of it"), "Celebrity Skin" fully embraces the idea that Hollywood is a place where dreams go to die rather than be fulfilled. "Oh, look at my face/ My name is might have been," Love sings on the second verse. "My name is never was/ My name's forgotten." Hammering the point home, its dazzling Gentlemen Prefer Blondes-inspired promo, firmly in keeping with the blockbuster tone, even had Love and Auf der Maur lying in open caskets.

It was a fitting narrative for Love, who  had reinvented herself over the past four years from the rock scene's enfant terrible (in 1995 alone, she'd punched Kathleen Hanna, gatecrashed a Madonna interview and even attacked her own fans) to a respectable Hollywood darling. She earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance as the titular pornographer's wife Althea in 1996's The People versus Larry Flynt, later partying with celebrity boyfriend Edward Norton on the Oscars' red carpet ("The most thorough transformation since Eliza Doolittle met Henry Higgins," wrote Time).

However, she was still keen to depict the state as a den of decadence which chews people up and spits them out. The driving power pop of "Awful," for instance, takes aim at the music scene's corruption of young girls, including Love's teenage self ("And they royalty rate all the girls like you/ And they sell it out to the girls like you"). "Hit Me Hard" (which references the Crystals' "He Hit Me (And Then He Kissed Me)") is a similarly tricky portrait of domestic violence in which Love envisages herself drowning — a theme which, partly influenced by the tragic death of friend Jeff Buckley, is prevalent throughout Celebrity Skin.

Interestingly, the album's theme was very much a last-minute decision. Frustrated by the direction of their early demos, Love decided it would be better to tie everything together with a concept, "even if it's fake." Yet, it was one which made sense with her new lifestyle.

"It was her Hollywood phase," Auf der Maur remarked, adding that the frontwoman's daily routine consisted of chain-smoking Marlboro lights, auditioning and heading to the beach with her personal trainer at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m. The title track is unarguably where all these elements coalesced to perfection.

The most striking thing about "Celebrity Skin," though, is how it leaned into the super-sized pop metal sound Hole and their ilk were supposed to have made obsolete. Its crunching riffs could easily have been lifted from Motley Crüe, Skid Row or any other group from the height of Sunset Strip excess. (And while Love firmly denied rumors Corgan was the true mastermind behind the record, she was more than happy to give him credit on the title track.)

It's hard to believe this is the same band whose 1991 debut, Pretty on the Inside, reveled in a challenging, and often cacophonic, mix of noise-rock, art punk and sludge metal. Yet they still pull off the pop-metal sound. Indeed, "Celebrity Skin" not only scored Hole their first No. 1 on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart, but it also earned two GRAMMY nominations, for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Rock Song. And the fact it's since been covered by the Glee Cast and Doja Cat — not to mention being subjected to the slightly creepy AI treatment, too — further proves just how much it crossed over.

Second single "Malibu," both the best and the biggest of the band's career, also found a place on radio stations that previously wouldn't have touched Hole with a bargepole. Originally penned with Stevie Nicks in mind, the melodic slice of AM rock doubles up as a desperate plea for a drug-addicted boyfriend to seek sobriety before it's too late. Contrary to popular belief, however, it was inspired by Love's first boyfriend Jeff Mann, not, late husband Kurt Cobain.

In fact, Celebrity Skin only occasionally touches on the Nirvana frontman's passing — despite being the band's first chance to address it on record (Live Through This came out just a week after the tragedy). Macabre track "Reasons to Be Beautiful" includes a subverted line from Cobain's suicide note ("It's better to rise than fade away"), and almost feels like Love is writing her very own ("Love hangs herself/With the bedsheets in her cell"). And towards the end of the album, Love delivers a thinly veiled attack on Cobain's Nirvana bandmates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic — who she'd soon become embroiled in various legal battles with — on "Playing Your Song." ("You trusted everything/They sold you out.")

If all this sounds a little angst-ridden for a record specifically designed for the masses, Love and Co. help sugarcoat things with an array of blissful vocal harmonies, shiny guitar riffs and singalong melodies perfect for driving down the highway. Craig Armstrong, then best known for his BAFTA-winning score for Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, also provides some beautifully elegiac strings on "Dying" and closer "Petals," a bittersweet reflection on the fleeting nature of relationships and life itself.

It's not all dark cautionary tales and meditations on grief, either. "Heaven Tonight," an ode to a "sun in the form of a girl" (which some believe is Love's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain), is possibly the sweetest thing Hole ever recorded. And although "Boys on the Radio" eventually becomes another cutting riposte to men in suits, it initially looks back fondly at the days when Love used to seek solace in her pop idols (bizarrely, her teenyboppers of choice were the tartan-clad glam rockers Bay City Rollers).

Sadly, Celebrity Skin was also the album which literally broke Hole. After wearing Schemel down with weeks of punishing studio time, Beinhorm managed to convince the band that session musician Deen Castronovo would be a better fit; Love later admitted regret over listening to the producer and essentially ruining the drummer's life. Erlandson would also describe the making of its 12 tracks as "insane," and by the time the Hole name was revived for 2010's Nobody's Daughter, Love had assembled a whole new line-up, a move she later acknowledged was "a mistake" that cheapened their legacy.

Despite all the contention, there's been much talk of a Celebrity Skin-era reunion, Schemel included, since. In 2014, Rolling Stone wrongly reported Love's solo single "Wedding Day" had emerged from a recording session with all four members, although the singer did reveal that they'd spent time playing together again. And five years later, they all apparently enjoyed rehearsal time at, rather aptly, the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But should they fail to nail down anything else in the studio, Celebrity Skin is one hell of a highly polished swansong.

The Twin Halves Of 'Mammoth II': Wolfgang Van Halen's Sorrow And Jubilation

In the mid-2000s, Neil Young dropped an artifact at fans' doorsteps that was strange even by his standards. It was a new album, Chrome Dreams II — a sequel to that titular album from 1977. The wrinkle? That album didn't exist.

Well, not officially. While perplexed consumers wondered if they'd been unwitting recipients of the Mandela Effect, Chrome Dreams was a known quantity to the heads.

As Jimmy McDonough explained in his 2002 biography of Young, Shakey, Chrome Dreams was an acetate — a proposal of what his next album could be. It even had a cover: a sketch by producer David Briggs of the front end of a '55 Chrysler, blending into a woman's face.

But Chrome Dreams wasn't to be; what the public got was 1977's rowdy, eclectic American Stars 'n Bars. Despite containing the classic "Like a Hurricane" among other luminous deep cuts like "Star of Bethlehem," American Stars 'n Bars feels more like a mixtape than a proper album. McDonough himself called it a "haphazard snapshot."

As part of a deluge of archival releases, Chrome Dreams is finally available in its original form as of Aug. 11. Despite being shelved, most of Chrome Dreams' 12 tunes made it to the public, in one form or another; many of them became bona fide Young classics.

Five tracks destined for Chrome Dreams made it on American Stars 'n Bars, including "Star of Bethlehem" and "Homegrown." "Pocahontas," "Sedan Delivery" and "Powderfinger" appeared on Rust Never Sleeps two years later. A handful of others would surface on various albums, culminating with "Stringman" on 1993's Unplugged.

Now that Chrome Dreams II has a I, a tantalizing question arises: if this album came out as planned, how would Young's discography be fundamentally altered? In some instances, it wouldn't be too far gone. In others, everything would change.

From Homegrown to Hitchhiker to Toast — from 1975, 1976 and 2000-2001, respectively — Young's long-shelved, recently revealed albums have proven to be inextricably linked to the ones we all know.

As such, they provide fascinating windows into his creative process — as well as what-ifs to puzzle over. Here's a guide to every song on Chrome Dreams, and how Young's discography would change if they were initially released in this form.

"Pocahontas"

We've heard this non-overdubbed "Pocahontas" before.

In 2017, Young released the stunning Hitchhiker, a document of a single session in 1976, when Young terminated a tour with Stephen Stills, celebrating the 10th anniversary of their band Buffalo Springfield.

Under a full moon, he holed up in Briggs' Malibu studio with various intoxicants, and ran through some recent songs, alone and unadorned. Despite the bracing intimacy of this setting, Reprise executives shrugged it off as a collection of demos.

If "Pocahontas" had been released on Chrome Dreams, could it still have appeared on Rust Never Sleeps, perhaps in a different format? Unlikely, as that was an album of new material; a tune from just two years prior would have been a sore thumb.

A Rust Never Sleeps without "Pocahontas" would be one with a crucial chunk missing; it's one of the most evocative songs he ever penned, bar none. And it's difficult to think of a potential replacement on its level.

"Will to Love"

The inclusion of "Will to Love" on American Stars 'n Bars accentuates that album's aggressively piecemeal vibe.

There's no analog for "Will to Love" anywhere in his catalog. A seven-minute ballad recorded in front of Young's crackling fireplace, the lo-fi oddity recounts the journey of a trout upstream as a cosmic metaphor. (Critics remain divided; some believe it's one of his most majestic songs, others dismiss it as an indulgent mess.)

On Chrome Dreams, "Will to Love" fits a bit more snugly amid the acoustic material; on American Stars 'n Bars, it's an ugly duckling.

Without five Chrome Dreams tunes on it — three of them the most substantial on the album — American Stars 'n Barscould have succeeded, and perhaps been more consistent, as an album of barroom-ready ragers.

"Star of Bethlehem"

"Star of Bethlehem" was slated for a previously shelved album: Homegrown — recorded in 1974 and 1975, unreleased until 2020.

Because that album didn't see the light of day, the inclusion of "Star of Bethlehem" on Chrome Dreams — and on his 1977 compilation album Decade — would arguably leave its history unaltered.

"Like a Hurricane"

Whether this Young classic was released on Chrome Dreams or another '70s album would be beside the point.

The legacy of this majestic rocker isn't its inclusion on American Stars 'n Bars, but its windswept majesty — especially live. (Its versatility, too; the solo rendition on Unplugged, performed on pump organ, is unforgettable.)

"Too Far Gone"

On Freedom, Young's late-'80s comeback album addressing Reagan-era urban decay, "Too Far Gone" is a throwback; he'd originally recorded it in 1975, with Crazy Horse guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro on mandolin.

The song, about the fallout from a chemical-fueled tryst, fit Freedom like a glove; it works perfectly along seedy yarns like "Crime in the City (Sixty to Zero Part I)." Freedom could have been basically intact without it, but its messaging would lose a personal edge.

"Hold Back the Tears"

Fitting with the rest of side A, the version of "Hold Back the Tears" on American Stars 'n Bars has a lovesick, rootsy quality, deepened by Linda Ronstadt and Nicolette Larson on backing vocals.

On Chrome Dreams, it's starker and more eye-to-eye — just Young alone, harmonizing with himself, a little keyboard and percussion filling out the soundfield.

Both versions are terrific, but if this demo-like take was the released version — without Ronstadt and Larson behind him to really sell it — something would be missing.

"Homegrown"

In any form, "Homegrown" is a mirthful, stoned trifle; paradoxically, it would have served as the title track to one of Young's most revealing and personal albums.

​The Chrome Dreams version — the one with Crazy Horse — is the one available for decades on American Stars 'n Bars; whichever album it appeared on would be irrelevant to its legacy. 

That said, the version initially slated to appear on Homegrown is a wonder — on that later take, Young's backed by Tim Drummond of the Stray Gators, go-to lap slide guitarist Ben Keith, and Karl Himmel, who frequently backed Young throughout the decade.

Where the Horse version of "Homegrown" is a goofy romp, the later version is slippery and strange, befitting an ode to marijuana; if that one had come out, it may have stuck in the craw more.

"Captain Kennedy"

The version of "Captain Kennedy" on Hawks and Doves is the same one on Hitchhiker and Chrome Dreams — they all come from that single, stony session with Briggs.

Excised from the lumpy and politically contradictory Hawks and Doves, it would be a pleasing enigma — Young's crack at a faux-traditional folk ballad, inspired by the real-life mariner Lou Kenedy.

On that 1980 album, though, it takes on shades of patriotism and nationalism, especially near tunes like the proletariat anthem "Comin' Apart at Every Nail."

In that jingoistic context, the uninitiated listener might even think it's not a seaman's ballad at all, but an extended metaphor for a certain doomed president.

"Stringman"

One of the primary revelations of Chrome Dreams is a studio version of "Stringman," one of Young's most emotionally incisive songs.

He wrote it for producer and Stray Gators pianist Jack Nitzsche, who was undergoing an agonizing divorce. Young takes a birds-eye view of the trauma, examining the trauma through metaphorical lenses: a sergeant laying down his weapons, sun-kissed lovers rendered as smut.

On Unplugged, with years under his belt, Young delivers with maximum pathos and gravitas.

But if this earlier version had been in fans' ears, it could only have enriched "Stringman"; it'd be a clinic in how a song can develop an emotional patina with age.

"Sedan Delivery"

Fitting for an album that begins with an evocation of Johnny Rotten, Rust Never Sleeps is charged with a flippant, punky energy for its latter half.

Accordingly, the version of "Sedan Delivery" out since 1979 is far more uptempo than the one on Chrome Dreams. As such, it tends to blur into the sonic violence of its lovably lunkheaded neighbor, "Welfare Mothers."

This more natural tempo and execution suits "Sedan Delivery," and allows space to absorb its harebrained lyrical images; if the world knew it like this, perhaps it'd be more than a race to the end of Rust Never Sleeps.

"Powderfinger"

Is "Powderfinger" more powerful as an acoustic or electric song?

Most fans regard the latter with something like religious awe; it's the ultimate marriage of Young's penetrating songwriting with the string-popping frenzy he demonstrates with the Horse.

But there's a case that the solo version on Chrome Dreams and Hitchhiker has just as much impact, just from a different angle.

The Young classic's about a young man attempting to protect his family from an approaching gunboat; when the arrangement can breathe, the story takes on weight and dynamism.

Indeed, when the shot rings out, and the protagonist's "face splashe[s] in the sky," Young's hushed delivery renders the image that much more darkly unforgettable.

Maybe the answer to the above question is a toss-up. But the acoustic version "Powderfinger" provides a crucial side-window into this magnificent song.

"Look Out for My Love"

The hypnotic fan favorite "Look Out for My Love" has a way of getting under your skin; it's an unquestionable highlight of 1978's Comes a Time, and does a mesmerizing job as the closer to Chrome Dreams.

"Look Out for My Love" is exquisite by its own merits; the only difference would have been that Comes a Time would lose a pendulum-like classic.

If the world knew and loved Chrome Dreams, the point of Chrome Dreams II would have clicked immediately — its acoustic-electric yin-yang is spiritually in dialogue with these songs.

But that's Young — if he didn't work in mysterious ways, we'd all want our money back.

In a way, his younger self is his primary collaborator these days; he's on a mission to preserve fleeting visions and headspaces of yore. And in return, his fans have a will to love.

Songbook: Inside Neil Young's Latest Decade And Change, From Americana & Psychedelic Pill To Barn & World Record