Playboy.com: Would you consider your music a failure if it didn't piss someone off?

Tweedy: I don't know if I want to piss people off. But I think it's a good sign when you've made something that people feel compelled to have an opinion about.

Playboy.com: Yet you've managed to keep a lot of the fans who have been there since the beginning, no matter where your band goes or where you take your music.

Tweedy: You know what? I've figured out that there are a lot of people that have stuck around just to bitch about us! [Laughs] Maybe it's just such a joy to have a band that they like enough to kick around. I'm kidding, of course. But I have been on chat groups before and seen people complaining that things don't sound like A.M. And I think: how long have you been here? What are you still waiting around for? [Laughs]

Tweedy: No! I sincerely think that all these different types of music don't need to be chosen between. There's not a choice to make. You shouldn't have to pick between complex and simple. I don't know why people feel so compelled to do that. Actually, I do know why people feel so compelled to do that. It makes life more navigable for most people. It's very hard for most people to tolerate ambiguity.

Playboy.com: Even as recently as the '70s, musical categories just seemed a lot less cluttered. After the DIY explosion, those categories proliferated.

Tweedy: There are a lot of reasons for that. Marketing is probably one of the main reasons. If you can group something tightly and closely to something else that has sold very well, then you have a chance at picking up the same kind of customers. At the same time, it's a lot easier for people to just buy into those tags because it makes it easier to walk down the aisles of the record stores -- if they still go to record stores -- and know what to look at. The fact is, at the start of the period you're talking about, 3,000 records would come out in a year. More records came out last year than came out in the entire decade of the '60s, you know? So there's a real need for people to narrow it down for themselves. Otherwise, people wouldn't be able to get through it all.

Playboy.com: Is there anything you think you could do, musically, that would totally turn people off at this point, given how long many have stuck with you?

Tweedy: I don't assume people are always going to be around to follow each and every move. But I also have been able to understand, more recently, with the last few records, that there really is no record that you can make that isn't going to upset somebody. People talk about it a lot with Wilco, but I imagine it's something universal with all bands. After a certain number of records, if people are paying attention there's always going to be a certain amount of dissent. [Laughs] A certain amount of unhappiness about what you've done. Either you've done the same thing too many times and you're not branching out enough, or you've changed the formula and people are upset. Whatever. I don't know. Ultimately you just have to like what you're doing.