This album rocks pretty good. Some of it is a little dull for the casual Wilco fan who’s never seen them live (like me) but it often rises to a place where you can feel it all come together.

Regarding the album title, there’s a song, Kicking Television, which in its live version here is not nearly so good as the studio version, which to my mind is hysterical. The song starts off like something from The Fall, complete with a driving guitar pulse and slurred vocals. It goes:

This is serious.
You’ll see.
I’m working on my abs.
I’m working on me.

Those lyrics don’t necessarily seem funny written down, but Tweedy’s delivery accompanied by the punk rock tempo makes them funny. In the live version here, it isn’t nearly so funny. I don’t know if the song is supposed to be funny, satirical, serious, or what.