Wilco's lineup changed frequently during its first decade, with only singer Jeff Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt remaining from the original incarnation.

Since early 2004 the lineup has been unchanged, consisting of Tweedy, Stirratt, guitarist Nels Cline, multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone, keyboard player Mikael Jorgensen, and drummer Glenn Kotche.

He even enlisted Uncle Tupelo guest guitarist Brian Henneman of the Bottle Rockets to perform, who appears on many of the tracks for Wilco's debut album, A.M..[4] The group considered retaining the Uncle Tupelo name[5] but decided to call themselves "Wilco" after the military and commercial aviation radio voice abbreviation for "will comply",[6] a choice which Tweedy has said is "fairly ironic for a rock band to name themselves.

[9] Stylistically similar to Uncle Tupelo, the music on A.M. was considered to be straightforward alternative country rock in what Tweedy later described as "trying to tread some water with a perceived audience.

"[10] A.M. peaked at number twenty-seven on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, considerably lower than the debut album of Jay Farrar's new band, Son Volt.

Wilco made its live debut on November 17, 1994 to a capacity crowd at Cicero's Basement Bar in St. Louis, Missouri (the band was billed for the occasion as "Black Shampoo").

The lyrical theme of the songs reflected a relationship between musical artist and a listener; Tweedy chose this topic because he sought to eschew the alternative country fan base.

It led to things like us all switching instruments on "Misunderstood," where I'm playing guitar.Wilco recorded a number of songs with this theme, including "Sunken Treasure" and "Hotel Arizona.

Bob Egan of Freakwater briefly joined the band in the studio, playing pedal steel guitar on "Far, Far Away" and "Dreamer in My Dreams", and then became an official member in September 1996.

Although Tweedy was indifferent to the offer, Bennett was enthused about recording songs with one of his idols—Bennett's previous band Titanic Love Affair was named after a Billy Bragg lyric.

The head of Reprise, Howie Klein, who had previously authorized the release of Being There as a double album, was willing to let Wilco produce Summerteeth without label input.

"Someday Some Morning Sometime," featuring a vibraphone filtered through a space echo, was identified by Tweedy as being the "piece to the puzzle" towards the creation of their fourth studio album.

O'Rourke introduced Tweedy to drummer Glenn Kotche, and the trio enjoyed working together so much that they decided to record an album as a side project named Loose Fur.

Some believe that Tweedy sought to make Wilco sound like Loose Fur after officially replacing Ken Coomer with Kotche in January 2001.

Music journalist Greg Kot claims that instead of financial compensation, the band agreed to leave the label with the master tapes of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

And what a great day for me!As the band searched for a new label to release the album, they decided to stream it on their official website to discourage illegal trading of low-quality MP3s.

Unlike Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, A Ghost Is Born featured songs that were created with Pro Tools before ever performing them live.

[78] Also that year, Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot released a biography of the band entitled Wilco: Learning How to Die.

"[87] Pabs Hernandez, a reviewer for Lost at Sea, praised the album's "breezy atmosphere and pacing," and noted that it is not "easily judged upon first listen."

While the NPR reviewer stated that the recording "isn't groundbreaking," they praised its "coherent musical expression" and emphasis on "solid songcraft without pretense" which created a "satisfying and melodically sound album.

The event ran at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art from August 13–15, and featured various Wilco side projects, including The Autumn Defense, Pronto, The Nels Cline Singers, and Jeff Tweedy solo.

It also featured non-musical media, such as the Bread and Puppet Theater and comedians Todd Barry, Kristen Schaal, John Mulaney, and Hannibal Buress as well as interactive musical installations by Cline and Kotche.

This curated program includes performances by amongst others Tortoise, Bassekou Kouyaté, Lee Ranaldo, Fennesz, Steve Gunn, William Tyler, and The Cairo Gang.

Wilco announced via their web site and Twitter page on January 27, 2011 that the new label will be called dBpm Records (Decibels per Minute) and will be run out of the offices of their manager, Tony Margherita, in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

[120] The album was released on October 4, 2019[120] and received generally positive reviews with Will Hermes of Rolling Stone calling it their "best in years" and delivers "something like love shines through, and it winds up sounding joyful indeed, in a hard-won way.

[126] In October 2021, Wilco was inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame for their multiple contributions to the live music series that airs on PBS.

[128] In July 2020, as a voice to the larger cultural discussion and protests surrounding the murder of George Floyd, Tweedy announced that 5% of all his writer royalties would be donated to a program that distributes the funds to organizations fighting for racial justice, saying that the modern music industry is "built almost entirely on black art" and that "the wealth that rightfully belonged to black artists was stolen outright and to this day continues to grow outside their communities.

"Jay Bennett's reputation never quite recovered from the battering it took in Sam Jones' documentary I Am Trying To Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco, about the complex, lengthy gestation of 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in often painful detail, portrayed a band slowly pulling itself apart, with chief songwriters Bennett and Jeff Tweedy its twin opposing forces.

According to Tweedy, "It was eye-opening that I wasn't the only person that felt like these worlds had a lot more in common than they'd been given credit for—that experimentation and avant-garde theory was not directly opposed to beauty, y'know?

[154][155][156] A critic from the New York Times argues that Wilco has a "roots-rock ... [sound which] reached back to proven materials: the twang of country, the steady chug of 1960s rock, the undulating sheen of the Beach Boys, the honky-tonk hymns of the Band and the melodic symmetries of pop.