Hey folks!

On Sunday, I published a poll for voters to decide whether Wilco’s YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT is a 2001 or 2002 release. Normally, I’d be like, “If it gets in to 2001, fine, if not, it can try again in 2002.” However, this is YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT, an album that is going to qualify in either year and be, I believe, an OK COMPUTER-size deal whichever tournament it lands in. So I want to get it in the right year. Which one’s the right year? Well, lots of smart, educated people disagree. Why? Well you can read about it below.

You can vote in that poll here. The poll will close just after midnight Sunday night, December 14.

Below is what the form says — when you can go to vote, you can skip it because you read it here. (Right?) Thanks for reading, and I hope, voting. See you next newsletter!

Here are the facts as we know them:

In late 2000, Wilco entered the studio and began work on what would become YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT. It was completed in early 2001, and was submitted to their label, Reprise Records. In June 2001, Reprise rejected the album, not feeling it was commercially viable enough, and suggested the band release the album independently. Wilco obtained the rights to the album. It was originally planned to be released September 11, 2001, but being between labels put the kibosh on that. When mp3 versions of the songs began appearing on file sharing networks, the band decided to put the album on their own website for streaming on September 18, 2001. Normal website traffic quadrupled over the next few months, and during the tour later that year, and the band noted that fans knew the words to these new songs, despite not having (what would then be considered) a normal, official release. 

The album was a success with fans and critics. Labels made bids to release the album. In an ironic turn, Wilco were released from Warner Music label Reprise only to sign with, and release the album on, Warner Music label Nonesuch. The album was released, officially and physically, in November 2002, over a year later. 

So the question to the Best Album voters is: what year was YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT released? 

The answer chosen determines whether it is entered into the upcoming Best Album of 2001 tournament, which likely starts in March 2026, or the Best Album of 2002 tournament, which is unscheduled but would probably be in Spring or Summer 2027. 

You would be right to ask, “Kent, why don’t you just decide? It’s your tournament, dummy.” Yes, this is true. The problem is that I really do not care. I wish I did care; then I could probably decide. But I don’t. Am I leaning more towards one answer than another? I am! But the reasons for that are… self-serving. I found that the tournaments, which I’ve been running for ten years now, got significantly better the more I removed myself from the equation. So I choose to do that here.

Here are quotes and links from Best Album voters on Bluesky for 2001 and for 2002. Please read and consider the arguments therein. 

FOR 2001

• The most complete argument for 2001 is from @nanette.bsky.social on her blog, which you can read here. Please give it a read! It’s not long!

• "I saw Wilco in concert in December 2001; everybody knew the YHF songs.”

•  "….the fact that the full album was publicly available on the band's website is not in dispute. Philosophically, I don't love the idea that it's only a for-profit commercial release that counts as a release.”

• “...I think the 2001 streaming version should be considered the first release.Both Discogs and librarians recognize digital-only releases, those are two groups of people I don't want to be on the wrong side of”

• "Wilco gave YHF to their label, Reprise Records, who didn't want to release it. So Wilco bought the rights to it, and self-released it streaming, for free, on their website. In 2001. To immediate and universal acclaim.”

• "In October 2001, Wilco's website said they're touring to support their "enormouslv successful stream of 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’." The use of 'stream' rather than 'album' muddies things a bit, but the use of quotation marks around YHF, to me, suggests that we have a text (in the LIS sense) here.”

• "I personally have always classified it as 2002 in my music library, but I'm increasingly persuaded by the 'if the public at large has a band authorized method to play the album on demand in its entirety, then it's been released' contingent.”

• "Here's Jim DeRogatis writing glowingly about the record (which he assures the reader isn't due to be released by Warner Bros. until September) in the Chicago Sun-Times in July of 2001 because the band was doing an "unofficial launch" of the album on the 4th of July.”

• Hypothetical questions: If the album never had a physical release, what would the release date be? Second question, unrelated to the first: If the album were downloadable from their website (legally), what would the release date be?...From my perspective, this makes Yankee Hotel Foxtrot a 2001 release. Period. Full stop. Unless your argument is that you couldn’t legally download it, and only that you couldn't legally download it there isn't even a conversation to be had. The band released it. Legally. Online. In 2001.”

• "It's about when the music was released, not when people might have listened to it. A 2001 album that found its audience in 2015 is still a 2001 album. YHF was released in a widely accessible, if then-novel, medium in 2001, so it's 2001. The 2002 CD is a reissue.” [Emphasis mine; I note it because this is the first time I recall seeing this particular argument.]

• "I go back to first principles: this is about finding the best album of 2001. Sod all the release date arguments, the zeitgeist & culture wherein it was composed and finished was that of a 2001 album."

FOR 2002

•  "It was the Pazz & Jop winner for 2002. Case closed.”

• "Wilco's own website and their Bandcamp says 2002”

• Reading the wiki, I see some suggestion based on web traffic that the album was gaining traction in 2001, but all the cited reviews seem to be associated with the 2002 release. All lines are arbitrary but picking 2002 here seems like the right choice”

• "Part of the inquiry here is what kind of impact these albums had, and if the impact all came in 2002 with the label release, that seems important — thus, even if YHF was available in 2001 in some form, is it fair to judge whether it's one of the best albums of 2001?”

•  "Not that it matters much, but I usually compile my basic list from my ratings per year at RYM - they have YHF as 2002”

• "Yeah I don't care either way but an album being only available for download/streaming in 2001 is nothing like a "general release". The iTunes store (or Pirate Bay) didn't happen until 2003 so literally no one was buying music this way back then.”

• "My dim memory of this is that people downloaded it in 2001 but it wasn't actually considered anything special until the 2002 release folded 'the record they wouldn't release!!' into the myth”

• "I was leaning towards 2001, but Nanette has convinced me that this was actually released (by my definition of released) in 2002. (..sorry Nanette!) would argue you need a physical release for any album prior to the date the iTunes Store started legally selling music: April 28, 2003.”

• "I think you've persuaded at least me, fwiw, even though a) I do actually think whether you can legitimately own a copy is an important factor, even today, and is probably the best argument against 2001, and b) on the merits there's a better argument for YHF being the best album of 2002 than 2001”

• [Referring to Nanette’s blog post] "Doesn't even fully steelman its own argument. If someone hadn't leaked the album online, so that early iPod adopters like Nanette could download it from Kazaa or Limewire or WinMXNapster had already been dead for half a year - they wouldn't have streamed it in 2001 at all."

• "...If the band believes they didn't release this until 2002, then they believe their album needed to be released as physical media to be considered an actual release at the time, and l'm inclined to believe them.”

• "In Greg Kot's 2004 book on Wilco, Learning How to Die, which Jeff & the band fully participated in, YHF is referred to as 'unreleased' when describing people already knowing the songs on that winter 2001/2002 tour. That's a fairly contemporaneous description of the album by the band!"

WHAT WOULD BE YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT BE COMPETING AGAINST?

Something to consider… or dismiss entirely. 

Some noteworthy albums of 2001 include: Radiohead, AMNESIAC; The White Stripes, WHITE BLOOD CELLS; The Strokes, IS THIS IT; Björk, VESPERTINE; Spoon, GIRLS CAN TELL; System of a Down, TOXICITY; Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, MISS E... SO ADDICTIVE; Drive-By Truckers, SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA; Jimmy Eat World, BLEED AMERICAN; The Shins, OH, INVERTED WORLD; Death Cab for Cutie, THE PHOTO ALBUM; Gorillaz, GORILLAZ; Tool, LAETERALUS; Weezer, WEEZER (GREEN ALBUM); Wu-Tang Clan, IRON FLAG; Low, THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE; Jay-Z, THE BLUEPRINT; Fugazi, THE ARGUMENT; Bob Dylan, LOVE AND THEFT; The Dismemberment Plan, CHANGE; Andrew W.K., I GET WET.

Some noteworthy albums of 2002 include: The Flaming Lips, YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS; The Mountain Goats; TALLAHASSEE;  Interpol, TURN ON THE BRIGHT LIGHTS; Spoon, KILL THE MOONLIGHT; Broken Social Scene, YOU FORGOT IT IN PEOPLE; The Streets, ORIGINAL PIRATE MATERIAL; Godspeed You! Black Emperor, YANQUI U.X.O.; System of a Down; STEAL THIS ALBUM!; The Decemberists, CASTAWAYS AND CUTOUTS; Dixie Chicks, HOME; The Roots, PHRENOLOGY; Queens of the Stone Age, SONGS FOR THE DEAF; Beck, SEA CHANGE; ....And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, SOURCE TAGS & CODES; DJ Shadow, THE PRIVATE PRESS; Sleater-Kinney, ONE BEAT; Rilo Kiley, THE EXECUTION OF ALL THINGS; Sigur Rós, ( ); Coldplay, A RUSH OF BLOOD TO THE HEAD; Norah Jones, COME AWAY WITH ME.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• "can the album be disqualified on the grounds that it has already generated a more than adequate amount of discourse?”

• "Blue Oyster Cult's 2001 release is solid but imo the real gem is the archival release of their shelved first album from the 60s when they were the Stalk-Forrest Group and I for one will be nominating that (couldn't hear it sans bootlegging til ’01! It's an '01 album!)”

This poll will be open for one week, from Sunday, December 7 2025 until 12:01AM Monday, December 15 2025. I have disabled the "View results summary" function that allows you to see how the vote is progressing. Or, at least, I hit the disable button. Whether or not that’s what it does, I’m not sure, these Google Forms are hard to figure out sometimes. Anyway, the intent is for everyone to vote blind, so we’ll see if that happens. You can change your vote anytime before the deadline, however. If, at the end of the polling period, there is an exact tie in the number of votes for each choice, I will make the final decision.