There's a difference between experimentation and just being difficult.

Jeff Tweedy, indie-rock's favorite country boy-turned-pill popper, and his band Wilco (now devoid one Jay Bennett, the musical and, as is now apparent, creative center of the group) just put out the very difficult A Ghost is Born. Jeff wants you to think he's taking risks with Ghost, Wilco's fifth album, since convincing people that the band's last record, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, was risky (even though it wasn't, like, at all) translated into sales. And Ghost is risky, really. Wilco risks losing most of its fan-base on a lousy record.

A Ghost is Born is comprised mostly of soft, meandering, melody-devoid tracks that eventually explode into noisy, ill-fitting guitar or interminable minutes of static.

This is a band that used to make albums full of beautiful, well-constructed music (like, say, the last three albums), but Ghost is Born is both aimless andboring,made simply for the sake of the group's obsessive fans to fawn over.

No one who is not already convinced that they will love Ghost is going to even give it a second listen.

This album just does not have any substance.

When the songs work (and really, the only two that do are "Handshake Drugs" and "Company in My Back" work well), they're the ones without all the extra feedback and dopey Tweedy mumble. A few others have hints of melody, but none can match even the duller moments of Wilco's other records.

Jeff's just trying to make weird music, but in the process, he's lost all the things that made Wilco any good.

And here is a tip that I learned in poetry class, Jeff: if we don't know what you are talking about, what you are saying is generally to be considered garbage. Even that song "Freak-A-Leek" makes more sense than "once in Germany someone said 'nein'."

A Ghost is Born? More like A Ghost is Bored! Ha. Don't buy this.

-- Reviewed by Paul Thompson