The Whole Love

Wilco - The Whole Love
Critic Score
Based on 37 reviews
2011 Ratings: #55 / 1031
Year End Rank: #30
User Score
Based on 233 ratings
2011 Rank: #191
Liked by 22 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

90
American Songwriter

If Wilco (The Album) was the band tempering their experimental nature into something more accessible, The Whole Love refines that approach and showcases the full range of Wilco's considerable abilities.

85
Paste

The Whole Love reveals itself as their finest album since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

80
Mojo
An entire LP of these earthy yet cerebral pop constructs would have been no hardship whatsoever.
80
Uncut
While the album is packed with inventive moments, there's no more lacerating skronk, for a very good reason: the emotions the band is mirroring don't call for it.
80
Rolling Stone

The Whole Love seems like a celebration of that freedom, with songs that roam happily all over the place.

80
Consequence of Sound

Most of the tracks borrow from different eras of the band’s career, and the record marks their best since 2004′s A Ghost Is Born.

80
musicOMH

The Whole Love is a finely-tuned, determinedly subtle album, full of discreet touches and unassuming flourishes that can often only be gleaned when paying very close attention.

75
Beats Per Minute

The Whole Love is a solid return for Wilco, and hopefully them pushing their sound in more new directions as they have done here.

75
A.V. Club

The Whole Love breezes by like a sunny Saturday afternoon among best friends. Now that Wilco has finally found its comfort zone, it might be time to venture elsewhere for a change.

70
Drowned in Sound

There’s songs that are more ambitious and some that are more successful, but all of them fit as a cohesive whole

70
PopMatters

The Whole Love proves the band is still moving forward, still changing, even if it’s not in the lofty ways we expect it to.

70
No Ripcord

The Whole Love is precisely an answer to those who relegate the kind of music Wilco makes as old-timey.

70
Under the Radar
Some of the album's most arresting moments come as the dust settles.
69
Pitchfork

The weird, winsome Whole Love is certainly Wilco's least consistent LP in a while, but inconsistency has its own rewards.

StygianHollow
85

Best plain Wilco album, top 5 Wilco in general, just amazing. Really underappreciated, Art of Almost and title track are some of their best songs for sure

Favourite tracks: Art of Almost, Black Moon, ★ Whole Love, One Sunday Morning

mike_drop
80

Wilco - 10/16

Well I sure am feelin' a WHOLE lot of LOVE for this album!

“The Whole Love” sees Wilco return to the alternative indie sound that defined such records as “Summerteeth” and “YHF” but with an added sense of maturity and modern flair this time around that aids the material greatly. Somehow the amount of time that has passed since those projects makes the refinement of their ideas here feel so natural; it’s just great hearing a band ... read more

surlace
66

The bookends are huge highlights, but as with Wilco's self-titled release before this, a bulk of these tracks feel like Wilco by the numbers.
It's nice, but they have much more impressionable material than this.

mike_drop
80

Wilco - 10/16

Well I sure am feelin' a WHOLE lot of LOVE for this album!

“The Whole Love” sees Wilco return to the alternative indie sound that defined such records as “Summerteeth” and “YHF” but with an added sense of maturity and modern flair this time around that aids the material greatly. Somehow the amount of time that has passed since those projects makes the refinement of their ideas here feel so natural; it’s just great hearing a band ... read more

StygianHollow
85

Best plain Wilco album, top 5 Wilco in general, just amazing. Really underappreciated, Art of Almost and title track are some of their best songs for sure

Favourite tracks: Art of Almost, Black Moon, ★ Whole Love, One Sunday Morning

72

The band continues on their slight downward trajectory but gets weird, and that's a welcome change after the past couple albums.

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Added on: June 29, 2011