Summerteeth

Summerteeth was recorded in pieces. It began in November 1997 at Willie Nelson's studio in Spicewood, Texas, paused for the Mermaid Avenue sessions with Billy Bragg, and was finished at Kingsize Soundlabs in Chicago with engineers Dave Trumfio and Mike Hagler. Earlier Wilco records were performed live in the studio. This one was heavily overdubbed with Pro Tools, and Tweedy and Bennett wrote much of it there. Bennett played Mellotron, tambourine and synthesizers, and took bass and drums when Stirratt and Coomer were away. Coomer later said: "There wasn't really a band, just two guys losing their minds in the studio."

Tweedy was reading Henry Miller, William H. Gass and John Fante on tour, and the sessions produced I'm Always in Love, She's a Jar and Via Chicago, a murder ballad inspired by Miller. Reprise wanted a single, so the band agreed to remix Can't Stand It with David Kahne, once only. The job took a day, cut part of the bridge and added bells, and the song did not cross from adult album alternative to modern rock radio.

The album reached number 78 on the Billboard 200 and was the band's first in the UK top 40. It had sold more than 200,000 copies by 2003 and placed eighth in the 1999 Pazz & Jop poll. Greg Kot ranked it the best album of 1999 in the Chicago Tribune. Reviewing the 2020 deluxe edition for Pitchfork, Stephen M. Deusner wrote that the band embraced the Beach Boys, the Zombies, the Kinks and Van Dyke Parks, and called it a dark and dire album. That edition adds demos and a November 1999 concert recorded in Boulder, Colorado.