Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco

It's B's birthday this week so he gets to choose. Unsurprisingly, he picks his favourite album of all time, Wilco's 2001 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

This album is a masterpiece from the first jangling, drunken mishmash that begins I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. This year is the tenth anniversary of my relationship with this album. And like a woman with whom you've spent ten years, even though I've experienced it a hundred times, familiarity breeds understanding of her idiosyncrasies and sweet spots. There's no such thing as flaws in something you know so well - even the quirks are part of the wonder.

I love I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. It was the song that introduced me to this album. Before this, I was a minor Wilco fan. But one Saturday afternoon, driving home from the shoe shop where I worked, Phil Jamieson was a guest on Richard Kingsmill's 'Freewheelin' program. The program allowed musicians to come in and play some of their favourite songs over the course of an hour. Phil played I Am Trying to Break Your Heart and it sent electricity up my spine. I bought the album the next day and we've been happy together ever since.

There are moments of breathtaking brillance on this album. The simplicity of Radio Cure is misleading. A single tapping drumbeat, repeated lyrics, Jeff Tweedy singing laconically; this song lulls you into hypnosis, building into a climax so subtly that you don't even realise it's coming until it hits you. And then it lasts for just two lines. Most pop artists who came up with a great melody then proceed to slap you in the face of it, writing the rest of the song to fill the gap between the chorus, which they repeat ad nauseum. The genius of Jeff Tweedy is that he understands the value of understatement.

In praising Abbey Road, someone described The Studio as the fifth band member of The Beatles. And so it is with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Like the small and seemingly inconsequential brushstrokes in the background of a painting, the feedback, sound effects and random noises all play their part in constructing a complete, intricate whole. Watching the documentary on the making of this album, you realise how painstaking and thought-through every random noise on this album is. In one scene, the band stand behind the console and argue about the tone and length of the feedback at the end of the first track.

This album has been called the Kid A of the alt-country genre. Before you think this is some kind arty album, however, you get to Heavy Metal Drummer and I'm the Man Who Loves You. Quintessential country pop songs that fit seamlessly into the flow of the album. I can't think of an album which is a more complete piece of art.

Pot Kettle Black is a highlight. A rocking song with driving beat; but the vocal melody is so soft-spoken that you don't realise how much your head is bopping along. Poor Places is achingly beautiful, the pinnacle of the romance on this album. It's an expression of self-loathing, disappointment, longing and love.

To paraphrase the final song, I've got reservations about so many things but not about Wilco. If I was being sent to a desert island and could only take ten friends, this album would one of them.