This Is Lame

Jeff Tweedy has made some of my all time favorite songs/albums of all time. However, since the monolithic and quite excellent A Ghost Is Born, Tweedy and whoever he decides to call Wilco have become increasingly disappointing with their output. One of the main problems I have with their material and demeanor is that they really began to show their age. Tweedy is someone who has always had a good sense of humor, but he desperately tries to make like he's cool despite the fact he's kind of a jerk. Also, with every year that passes, he just seems like a dorky uncle, living up to the dad-rock stigma his band has been getting for quite some time. In this clip, Tweedy is asked by an audience member to either play, "Ashes Of American Flags", or Beyoncé's "Single Ladies". It at first seems like he's going to be perform a nice folked out version of the pop banger. He quickly abandons this though, and then reads the lyrics to the audience blankly. He procedes to mock the song in his delivery, going through each line in a straightforward manner, as if to showcase the stupidity of the song (although I agree that the "to infinite and beyond lyric was a bad choice), when in actuality, Tweedy is the one who looks stupid...oh and old. This runthrough of the song only shows how he doesn't understand pop music at all, and is just like your average middle aged loser, unwilling to accept music that's youthful and fun. The fact that "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" is better than any song Tweedy has written since 2004 is not even the point, but it's a valid sidenote.