Sky Blue Sky - Release and Reception

Release and Reception

Nonesuch released the album on May 15, 2007; the following week became Wilco's best-ever sales week. The album debuted at number four on the U.S. Billboard 200, selling 87,000 copies domestically in its first week. Sky Blue Sky was also an international success, peaking at number 7 in Norway, number 21 in Belgium, number 23 in Australia and Ireland, number 26 in Sweden, number 32 in New Zealand, number 36 in Germany, and number 39 in the United Kingdom.

The album received varied critical reception upon its release. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone pondered in his review whether Wilco had ever made a song as good as "Impossible Germany," praising how the song builds into a "twin guitar epic" in the mold of Television and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac. Michael Metivier of PopMatters commented that while the album took a while to understand, it was full of "exquisitely beautiful melodies and performances". Allmusic writer Mark Deming called the album "Wilco's strongest album as an ensemble to date," and found the return to roots rock music a fresh new method for the band. The album received a nomination at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Rock Album. It placed 12th in the 2008 Pazz and Jop Poll. This album was #42 on Rolling Stone's list of the Top 50 Albums of 2007, and the song "Impossible Germany" was #71 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007. WXPN named "Impossible Germany" as the #1 song of 2007 and named the album as a whole the #1 album of 2007. Sky Blue Sky was named one of the ten best albums of the year by Billboard, Paste Magazine, Uncut Magazine, and The Onion A.V. Club. The album was placed at #97 on the Rolling Stone 100 Best Albums Of The 2000s list.

However, not all publications praised the new style of Sky Blue Sky. Stylus Magazine editor Ian Cohen criticized the album's disregard for the "fourth wall", and expressed concern about its dissimilarities to Kicking Television: Live in Chicago. Ted Grant of PlayLouder called the album the "blandest and most creatively uninspired record of their career", finding that the album was leading to tame "dad-rock". Pitchfork Media writer Rob Mitchum also used the "dad-rock" colloquialism, dismissing its straightforwardness and arguing "Tweedy merely ended up with the wrong personnel to articulate his mood here."

The lyrical content was considered by critics to be somewhat experimental, but more straightforward than previous Wilco albums. Michael Metevier of PopMatters found the lyrics to be "some of the most affecting and least clumsy" of the band's career, though he worried that they might strike some Wilco fans as dull. Rob Sheffield said that while he was unimpressed with the lyrics of other Wilco albums, he liked the songwriting on Sky Blue Sky. However, Brandon Kreitler of Dusted Magazine felt that the lyrics seem like an insular Tweedy confessional, and Doug Freeman of The Austin Chronicle described the collaborative songwriting as yielding "fatalistic ambivalence".