All The Not-Hits By A Band That Never Hit: Useless Trinkets By Eels.

The Good: Musically interesting, A few lyrics
The Bad: None of the remixes truly add anything to the songs, Not a cohesive album
The Basics: Interesting, but hardly revelatory or intriguing, or even a necessity (especially for those not into Eels), Useless Trinkets is an interesting set to listen to, but not to buy.


On some level, I suppose I have to admire E, the constant member of Eels for his creativity and chutzpah. I suppose chutzpah and spunk have a connotation of energy and enthusiasm that would often not be associated with Eels or E, whatwith his frequently depressing lyrics. But the way E is brazenly ballsy in a commercial way requires a new word and "chutzpah" might just be the best one I've got. I say this as I sit down to consider Useless Trinkets: B-Sides, Rarities and Unreleased [Tracks] from 1996 - 2006 by Eels.

Despite having no major radio hits, a loyal but small fan base and little recognizable to those who are not in the know about Eels, E and Eels released not only Meet The Eels: The Essential Eels and then Useless Trinkets." It is almost the stamp of defiance on the establishments of pop-rock music for a virtually unknown group to release enough material to warrant a "Best Of" album, but it is certainly a thumbing one's nose in the face of such establishments to release a b-sides compilation. For such audacity, one hopes E and Eels made some money. After all, without the high overhead of major studios, albums like Useless Trinkets can both raise awareness of a band and can make a little profit and if it goes to the artist, that is always encouraging. Unfortunately, outside one or two obscure tracks or covers, Useless Trinkets lives more up to its name than it manages to challenge or intrigue listeners.

With two discs and a total of fifty tracks (25 on each disc) totaling about two and a half hours of music (73:52 and 76:19, respectively), Useless Trinkets is a collection of obscure b-sides, covers, and live takes of songs performed by Eels over the course of ten years. The result is several of the songs (like "Jennifer Eccles" and "I Put A Spell On You") are not actually written by E. Moreover, live tracks like the BBC presentations of "Hospital Food" and "Flower" take the production elements out of E's hands. As well, remixes that appear on the album, like the Michael Simpson Remix of "Your Lucky Day In Hell" and the Moog Cookbook Remix of "Novocaine For The Soul" allow others to offer alternate interpretations of the songs. Ultimately, Useless Trinkets offers little that is distinctly Eels or even truly unique to this collection.

Despite the potential for a number of interesting remixes or presentations, Useless Trinkets repeats a lot of its own material. "Novocaine For The Soul," one of Eels more recognizable songs, appears on the album twice, as a live version and a remix. The thing is, the versions are not fundamentally different and there is something lazy about the remixes for the same songs appearing on the same disc on the album. Moreover, there are three variations of "My Beloved Monster" on the first disc and two different versions of "Mr. E's Beautiful Blues" on the second disc. Despite the overall length of the set, there is a sense of repetition and a lack of originality that causes the album to hold up poorly over multiple listens. The result is that unless one is already a fan of Eels, Useless Trinkets is unlikely to sell the listener on becoming one.

E's vocals on Useless Trinkets vary from the smooth, gentle vocals on songs like "Jennifer Eccles" and "Susan's Apartment" to the angry growl of "F#&!@r" to the yelling rant of "I Like Birds" (which is presented live on this album). His vocals on "Can't Help Falling In Love" make him sound either drunk or bored with the song. But largely on the remixes and obscure songs, there is an overproduced quality to the vocals that obscures any real sense of his natural voice. So, for example, on "Christmas Is Going To The Dogs," E's voice is so mechanized that it bears almost no resemblance to the way he opens "Mighty Fine Blues," which follows it.

E's vocals are familiarly mopey on racks like "Taking A Bath In Rust," which might be some of E's great lyrics, but they are marred by almost indecipherable presentation of the lyrics. And the less said about the vocals on "I Put A Spell On You," the better.

Instrumentally, Useless Trinkets continues a fine tradition of Eels utilizing a pretty wide array of musical instruments and production elements to create a sound that is distinctly pop rock. While some might wonder why I do not declare the music on these albums "distinctly Eels," it is quite simply because Eels is simultaneously more experimental (track to track there is little consistency in sound) and routinely blase, creating a pop-rock sound that is familiar from a band that never made it big. Songs like "Eyes Down" could have been written, performed and produced by virtually any pop-rock garage band.

What usually separates Eels from other groups is the quality of the lyrics. Unfortunately, not all of the songs on Useless Trinkets illustrate that. Outside of cover versions of songs like "Can't Help Falling In Love" and "I Put A Spell On You," which might not be the greatest-written songs of all time, some of Eels more ridiculous songs ended up in alternate versions on this album. It is hard to see "I Like Birds" as great Eels when its lyrics are simple like "I can't look at the rocket launch / The trophy wives of the astronauts / And I won't listen to their words / 'cause I like / Birds / I don't care for walking downtown / Crazy auto-car gonna mow me down / Look at all the people like cows in a herd / Well, I like / Birds / If you're small and on a search / I've got a feeder for you to perch on." E and Eels might have decent diction, but sometimes their silly lyrics are just absurdist.

Conversely, some of the more fun songs on the album, like "Jelly Dancers" and "Vice President Fruitley" have simplistic rhymes and still work. "Jelly Dancers" has an Indian feel to it and works as a duet between E and an Indian woman as a strong dance number. Eels does fun just fine when it attempts to, with songs like "Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas." E turns traditional Christmas pop songs on their ear when he sings "Remember last year when you were on your own / You swore the spirit couldn't be found / December rolled around and you were counting on it / To roll out . . . Well everybody's lookin' for you down at the house / The tree is looking so inspired / There's a yuletide groove waitin' for you to move / I'll go and throw another log on the fire / Everything's gonna be cool this Christmas" ("Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas"). E is a decent writer with a wry sense of humor.

But what E is more known for than a sense of humor is his dark, moody lines. One of the b-sides that appears on Useless Trinkets, "After The Operation," continues E's tradition of depressing musical story-songs that are fairly autobiographical. This mellow, depressive song chronicles exactly what the title suggests, "After the operation / I was in a lotta pain / But I look fondly on it / Just passin' all the days in a haze / Layin' on the couch / And watchin' TV / After the operation / I didn't have a care / I'd spend whole afternoons / Just layin' there" ("After The Operation"). It might not be the most impressive song, but the lyrics in this case are distinctly Eels.

This, however, is not quite enough to sell the listener on Useless Trinkets." The title, most likely intended ironically is not entirely appropriate, but it does not fail to describe what most listeners will find on the album. The songs are short, diverse but ultimately leave little overall impression, making it a tough sell to anyone who was not already biased toward buying the work anyway.

The best songs are the live version of "Dark End Of The Street" (Disc 1) and the just plain fun "Jelly Dancers" on Disc 2. The low points of this set are the less inspired BBC production of "Hospital Food" (Disc 1) and the boring and creepy live version of "I Put A Spell On You" (on Disc 2, which my fiance rightfully declared "the worst version of the song I've ever heard!").

For other works by Eels, be sure to check out my reviews of:
A Man Called E
Blinking Lights And Other Revelations
Electro-Shock Blues
Meet The Eels - Essential Eels Vol. I 1996 – 2006

5/10

For other music reviews, be sure to check out my Music Review Index Page!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Another "Best Of" Of A Mostly Unheard Band: Meet The Eels - Essential Eels Vol. I, 1996 – 2006

The Good: Decent compilation of music that sounds good, Different and diverse sound, DVD bonus!
The Bad: Some weaker tracks, Some repetition.
The Basics: Meet The Eels is truly the essential works of Mark Oliver Everett and Eels and a worthwhile album in its own right.


Every now and then, I find a "greatest hits" album of a group that amuses me because the artist(s) involved has had only one or two radio-played songs or hits. For all my love of Sophie B. Hawkins, for example, I remain somewhat mystified that there exists The Best Of Sophie B. Hawkins and despite the title, it does not contain all of her best works. Similarly, it amused me when - after only two mainstream singles succeeded - Barenaked Ladies released Greatest Hits Volume 1. So, when my study of Eels began, it caused me to smile when the band's compilation of "essential" works crossed my desk.

To be fair, the Eels album Meet The Eels does not claim to be the "best of" Eels, but rather "Essential Eels" (perhaps they just like alliteration?). The truth is, it might well be; the diversity of sound is not as monolithic as on some of the prior E and Eels albums I have reviewed. Unlike one note of mumbled, universally melancholy lyrics put to pretty standard keyboard and guitar tracks, Meet The Eels is actually a fairly diverse collection. Under the heading of "repetition breeds acceptance," I find myself enjoying the ironic and poppy "Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)" quite a bit more on this mix alongside other more upbeat songs like "Mr. E's Beautiful Blues." It still does not sound like any other Eels song and it is disappointingly poppy in its sound, but it is not the anthem of the antichrist I once felt it was.

With twenty-four tracks occupying a substantial seventy-four minutes, Meet The Eels - Essential Eels Vol. I, 1996 – 2006 is a collection of the singles and best known tracks by Eels in that time period plus one cover ("Get Ur Freak On") that seems to be on the album mostly to encourage fans to pick up the b-sides album "Useless Trinkets." Eels, for those who do not know - until recently that included me! -, is a band that varies in number and members much the way Oasis does, with the core being E, the artist also known as Mark Oliver Everett. Everett wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on Meet The Eels (save "Get Ur Freak On"). He plays numerous musical instruments (there are very few notations of this in the liner notes to this album) and produced or co-produced all of the songs on the album. As well, he is credited as one of many mixing engineers, so it seems he is integral to every level of this album. In other words, despite the artists who have come and gone as part of Eels, E's musical vision seems to be what defines the band and this compilation is an excellent collection of those talents.

Musically, Meet The Eels is an impressively diverse work. Songs range from mellow pop-rock ("Fresh Feeling," "I Like Birds") to quiet ballads ("I'm Going To Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart") to songs that have a folk-rock vibe ("Railroad Man"). Instrumentally, Eels has a boatload of creativity with it use of strings on songs like "Fresh Feeling" that are not traditionally associated with pop, rock or even alternative music. As well, when E goes for it he can mix styles quite well. The Eels song "That's Not Really Funny" is an excellent example as it mixes mellow rock and tango rhythms. There is the hip-hop cover ("Get Ur Freak On"), but most of the music is much more mellow like "Novocaine For The Soul" and "Love Of The Loveless."

And there is a pretty traditional pop-rock song in the form of "Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)." While it contains the similar disturbed and angsty lyrics that many of E's songs possess, it is presented as an upbeat pop song complete with handclaps and backing vocals that encourage the listener to sing along. This is the exception to the rule. But on Meet The Eels, there are fewer rules than any of the (almost) universally mellow albums by Eels I have listened to before. Still, Eels is hardly "alternative," just unknown. Songs like "Saturday Morning" are guitar-driven tracks that sound like the best of high school garage bands in terms of instrumentation. To be fair, most of the songs are more diverse in their sound than that, including obscure instruments like the autoharp, but he creates fairly safe and true pop-rock sounding songs with those instruments. The result is an enjoyable, but hardly audacious musical mix.

Generally, Everett sings his own songs and he tends not to be accompanied by excessive background accompaniment. His vocals range from mid-range, mellow vocals like on "Love Of The Loveless" and "Flyswatter" to . . . well, actually, he stays pretty firmly in his auditory niche. On "Dirty Girl" (performed live on this disc) he goes for a more raspy sound, emulating the likes of Tom Waits. He has a decent voice, when he wants to portray it that way.

The rest of the time, he mumbles through is own songs, though the mix on Meet The Eels is generally better articulated than some of his other musical outings. "I Need Some Sleep" features Everett going higher, into the falsetto range for parts that are distinctly different from his other vocalizations.

And if nothing else, Everett does have something to say and he uses Eels quite well to do that. Many of the songs are fearlessly self-referential and expressive of his depression. Indeed, he makes his pain musical on songs like "Last Stop: This Town." On that song, he wrote the well-considered lines "You're dead but the world keeps spinning / Take a spin through the world you left / It's getting dark a little too early / Are you missing the dearly bereft? . . . What if I was not your only friend / In this world / Can you take me where you're going / If you're never coming back" ("Last Stop: This Town"). He makes the lines of loneliness and longing sound musical and articulate.

As well, he is able to play with words and conventions on some of his songs in such a way that it delightfully turns the expectations upside down. There is something occasionally demented about his poetry, but he makes it work and those who stick with Eels can enjoy the lines "Field mice, head lice / Spiders in the kitchen / Don't think twice 'bout / Whatever keeps you itchin' / Ice water, flyswatter / Gonna get you through / The day / Heat is rolling in like hell's / red rug / Stinking like the breath of beelzebub / And if you think you won't walk on coals / You will" ("Flyswatter"). Everett has a wonderful sense of imagery in many of his songs and "Flyswatter" helps illustrate that.

But largely, the lines Everett pens are stark interpretations of ennui and he sings them that way, like he does when he sings "You don't have a clue / What it is like to be next to you / I'm here to tell you / That it is good / That it is true / Birds singing a song / Old paint is peeling / This is that fresh / That fresh feeling / Words can't be that strong / My heart is reeling" ("Fresh Feeling"). Even his sense of love is compromised by melancholy!

But what the album is not is homogeneously depressing. Instead, this is a decent mix and a good example of what Eels can do, making it truly the Essential Eels. Oddly, here in its distilled form is the album by Eels I have been waiting for!

The best track is "Last Stop: This Town," the low point is "Get Ur Freak On."

For other works by Eels, be sure to check out my reviews of:
A Man Called E
Blinking Lights And Other Revelations
Electro-Shock Blues

8/10

For other music reviews, be sure to check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Eels Might Have Blinking Lights And Other Revelations, But We're Not Taken In By The Flash.

The Good: Generally good instrumentals and sound, Not a bad use of two c.d.s.
The Bad: Could still hold more, Derivative of other Eels works
The Basics: Thematically and musically repetitive, Blinking Lights And Other Revelations is largely a study in average by Eels.


Alternative music is a genre of music that is very hard to nail down as to what it truly is. After all, literally, "alternative" could encompass anything that is not part of the mainstream or "pop" ("popular") of a time. By that standard, early rap like that of Public Enemy would be "alternative." Similarly, today as country and hip-hop/rap dominate the pop charts artists that are more traditionally rock and roll might be considered "alternative." But far too often, I encounter groups that are labeled as "alternative" as a euphemism for "commercially unsuccessful." Eels is one such group.

The two-disc album Blinking Lights And Other Revelations topped out on the U.S. charts (Billboard 200) at 93. This is not, traditionally, considered a successful album and the ever-changing band known as Eels (which is essentially Mark Oliver Everett, who goes by "E" on many albums, and whomever he is collaborating with at the time) was once again dubbed "alternative." However, listening to the album now, I am left with the question "alternative to what?!" Eels in this incarnation is hardly audacious or so different as to be pioneering any new sound, themes or genre. In fact, it is clearly derivative of every other work of Everett's I've heard back to his album A Man Called E (reviewed here!). Moreover, I was unsurprised to find that Tom Waits had contributed to Blinking Lights And Other Revelations because several of the tracks had a Waits vibe with Everett's smooth voice simply replacing Waits' growl.

Spread over two discs, Blinking Lights And Other Revelations is a collection of thirty-three new songs representing over ninety minutes of music (disc one has 17 songs at 46:55, disc 2 has the remaining 16 tracks at 46:32 ). The album is primarily the creative vision of Everett, who wrote all of the songs, both music and lyrics, save five, which he co-wrote with the likes of Peter Buck and John Sebastian. Everett produced the album and plays a few instruments on it, though more often the tracks are programmed or have others playing the music Everett wrote. Still, it is hard to argue that the result is anything other than Everett's intended musical vision on the album.

Generally, that musical vision is either a mix of repeated sounds from earlier albums or derivations on sounds from other musical artists. So, for example, "Trouble With Dreams" sounds a lot like "Hospital Food" from the Eels album Electro-Shock Blues (reviewed here!). Everett strikes a lot of the same chords on both discs and between the somewhat limited scope of many of the compositions, like the contemplative instrumentals that introduce "Bride Of Theme From Blinking Lights" sound like other compositions on the earlier disc and on other Eels albums.

The other half of the limitations to Blinking Lights And Other Revelations is that many of the songs sound derivative of other people's works. "Dust Of Ages" and "Old Shit/New Shit" sound like Tom Waits wrote and composed them. Similarly, some of Everett's vocals sounds like he is attempting an impersonation of John Flansburg of They Might Be Giants.

The only thing worse than when Everett is derivative on this album is when he creates a sound that is utter sugarpop, as he does on "Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)." The upbeat tempo and peppy vocals are annoying and the listener has to wonder what the intent was. For sure, most of Everett's vocals are mumbled and somewhat garbled and melancholy, but "Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)" sounds like a teen inspirational anthem with the phony clapping noises and the clear enthusiasm. It is enough to make one wonder if they have suddenly skipped tracks onto a completely different artist, it is so unlike anything else on the album.

Most of what is on Blinking Lights And Other Revelations are songs that are deeply melancholy ("I'm Going To Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart") or deep childhood desires filled with unfulfilled idealism ("Understanding Salesman"). Everett's music is seldom happy and as a result, most of the album is presented with a feeling like it is Everett's catharsis for his own damage.

Take, for example, the Eels song "Son Of A Bitch." This song is very much autobiographical from Everett's life as he presents "Daddy was a drunk / A most unpleasant man / Asleep on the floor / Just inside the front door / With a smile underneath his red nose / The wrong look his way / Well that could really wreck his day / And believe me when I say / It would wreck your day too" ("Son Of A Bitch"). The thing is, creating a musical storysong, even one that is either depressing or autobiographical, can still turn out wonderfully, but in this case, the song falls flat. It is generally atonal, and the result is while it might have been perfectly necessary for Everett to get through some of his baggage, he imposes his issues on the listener without rewarding them with anything a musical, which is pretty much the point of listening to a c.d.

This is not to say that all of the Eels songs that might be autobiographical or melancholy are not good. Indeed, Everett proves his ability to write on some of the most depressing tracks on the album. Even with plain language, Everett articulates concepts of loneliness, regret and ennui: "Wake up in the night and think of all the years / Falling from the ceiling and covering your ears / You don't know how you're gonna get out / You don't know how you'll get out / I'll go none too bravely / Into the night / I'm so tired of living / The suicide life / That ain't no reason to live" ("Suicide Life"). Eels might be dark on some of these tracks, but the darkness is compelling, real and expressed in a way all adults who have had any trying time will be able to understand them and empathize with the depth of the emotions expressed.

Unfortunately, not all of the lyrics are sterling. I was shocked that Peter Buck's contribution to the writing ("To Lick Your Boots") included some of the most awful rhymes on the album. But Everett manages to take the cake with the poorest example of diction and rhyming on "Sweet Li'l Thing." That song includes such dramatically contrived lines as "The feeling of understanding is very rare / For someone like me it's hard to find / Somebody to care / She's got a way about her / Changes everything / She's got a way about her / She's my sweet li'l thing" ("Sweet Li'l Thing"). Perhaps the only thing more insulting about having obvious rhymes like "rare/care" is how Everett rhymes "her" and "thing" with themselves.

Instrumentally, Blinking Lights And Other Revelations is remarkably average with a very standard sounding pop-rock sensibility to it. The songs are mostly keyboard driven and they tend to all be melancholy (with the one prior noted exception). Everett is occasionally original enough to cover this up with sampled sounds, as he does on "Sweet Li'l Thing" where the lyrics are obscured some by sampled whistles. But generally, the album is rather predictable and musically average.

The result is a lot of music that sounds largely the same and is singing about much the same stuff that Eels has presented at least as well on prior albums. This, then, makes it easy for those looking for the next big thing easy to pass on Blinking Lights And Other Revelations.

The best tracks are "Suicide Life" (Disc 1) and "I'm Going To Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart" (Disc 2), the low points are "The Other Shoe" (Disc 1) and "Hey Man (Now You're Really Living" (Disc 2).

For other Artist Of The Month reviews, be sure to visit my reviews of:
It Ain’t Easy: The Essential Recordings - Wilson Pickett
Forty Licks - The Rolling Stones
Seal (2) - Seal

5/10

For other music reviews, be sure to check out my Music Review Index Page for a comprehensive list of all the albums and singles I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Revisiting Eels (Sort Of) With The Average A Man Called E.

The Good: Decent vocals, Some interesting lines, Musically inoffensive
The Bad: SHORT, Unambitious, Thoroughly average.
The Basics: While somewhat quirky, A Man Called E is monotonous in its depressive vocals, themes and mellow instrumentals making it too tough a sell.


Before I made Ella Fitzgerald my Artist Of The Month, my intent had been to make Eels the group I immersed myself in. To that end, I began getting in Eels albums and I had a chance to listen to and review Electro-Shock Blues (that’s here!) before realizing I could not get enough of their albums in in time and that they would not hold me an entire month. Still, I was intrigued by the group and given the chance, I did get in a few more of their albums for review.

The first thing I came to learn about Eels is that the band is essentially Mark Oliver Everett, an artist who goes simply by E. E is the lone constant in Eels throughout its various incarnations and E's album A Man Called E was his first full-length album (there was a limited edition release prior to this, but this was his major label debut). E at this point in his career was a mellow-singing pop-rock artist who was billed as "alternative," perhaps because he was singing fairly clearly when most of pop was still in its grunge phase. The truth is, on A Man Called E, E's sound is hardly original. My first listen instantly harkened me back to the music of Autumn Defense (their sampler Birds And Beasts And Flowers is reviewed here!). This is not to say A Man Called E is not good, but it is hardly exceptional, unique or even fulfilling as a musical experience.

With only eleven tracks occupying only 31:59, A Man Called E is difficult to get excited about if for no other reason than it is so short and with the average song occupying just over three minutes, the album has a very repetitive feel to it. On the plus side, having come off a month of a performer, it is refreshing to return to an actual artist. And despite the lack of material, E is an actual artist. E wrote all but two of the songs and the final two ("Hello Cruel World" and "Nowheresville") he wrote with co-producer Parthenon Huxley. E co-produces the album, sings on it and plays all sorts of instruments including guitars, piano, keyboards, drums accordion and programming. In other words, this is very much the musical vision of E.

And it is generally a good, if mellow and average sound. E presents himself as a vocalist accompanied by fairly generic pop rock beats. Songs like "Pray" could have been produced by virtually any musical person with singing ability and keyboards it has such a universal, young artist sound. The tracks tend to be keyboard driven with decent guitar accompaniment on most of them and they are almost universally mellow and simple. There are no strong, memorable, instantly recognizable melodies on this album and over the course of the eight listens I went through to write the review, I was amazed at how little musically stuck with me. There is a very white bread pop feel to the album which is accented by the thematic monotony of melancholy lyrics.

A Man Called E is also plagued by the vocal performances of E himself, which rather consistently sound like he is a man in desperate need of massive amounts of antidepressants. This is not to say that he is a poor vocalist; he actually has a beautifully smooth voice which resonates and when he wants it to articulates his lines wonderfully. Unfortunately, most of the time, it sounds like he is singing down to the floor and mumbling his lines as opposed to actually trying to make himself heard. The album might best be characterized as music to keep depressed people down performed by a vocal introvert.

This is a bit of a musical bait-and-switch because the album actually opens with a fairly energetic song that employs more guitars than most of the rest of the album. E breaks out with "Hello Cruel World," which lyrically is not fun, but it sounds peppy. On "Are You & Me Gonna Happen" E sounds like a clone of Sting vocally and musically, but the rest of the album, he pretty much mumbles through on his own, as if he does not so much care who hears or how they react to his music.

There is something unfortunate, then, about A Man Called E as E does appear to have something to say through his music. E is a poet and while his poetry might be depressing, he actually has a pretty wonderful sense of imagery that he employs from the very first song. He is able to captivate the listener with lines like "Norman Rockwell's colors fade, / All my favorite things have changed. / What the hell, / Hello cruel world, / I thought I heard an opera star, / Who had no home under the stars, / She sang and sang, / And sang the night away, / And mother nature changed her name, / She doesn't want to play the game, / I don't believe she'll ever be the same. . ." ("Hello Cruel World"). E has ideas and he taps well into the public domain to make allusions that are instantly recognizable and he manages to capture a pretty universal sense of ennui.

Unfortunately, E also is very repetitive even on this very short album. The title line to songs like "Are You & Me Gonna Happen" and "You'll Be The Scarecrow" get repeated a bit much in their respective songs. Still, E is an adequate musical storyteller creating some vivid characters, even if he does not enunciate when he tells the listener about them. One might only imaging how much more powerful the empathy for his characters would be if he did not mumble when singing about how "She says her mother is gone now, / She says she never got kin, / I said, 'I'm sorry, but is it true, / 'did she really name you Mockingbird?' / Mockingbird Franklin, / Broke your heart in two, / Mockingbird Franklin, / I'm a lot like you" ("Mockingbird Franklin"). The idea of two lonely people meeting is great fodder for a song, but it has to be presented so the listener can understand it and revel in the coming together of the musical characters.

Much of A Man Called E is concerned with creating a mood of ennui and E does that expertly on songs like "Nowheresville." Presented with his standard mumbled vocalizations, E creates a scenario anyone who has felt lost and alone might be able to empathize with. One figures he knew exactly how he wanted it to sound when he wrote "I'm on my way, / I'm almost nowhere, / I'm almost everything I swore I'd never be, / When I get there, / Then I go somewhere, / I'm going to pay my last respects / And get the hell out of there, / Out of nowhere, / I'm stuck in mud, / Spinning my wheels, / And I'm all alone on the / Road to Nowheresville" ("Nowheresville") because he mixes the mumbling perfectly with the lines to create a mood that perfectly exemplifies the sense of loss the song portrays.

Still, A Man Called E is too tough of a sell; there is too little of it and what there is is so monotonous as to make one wonder who would keep coming back to this album. After all, you can only kill yourself once and if this is the soundtrack for people building up to offing themselves, as the oppressive depressive mood of it suggests, there is a very small demographic that it will fit.

The best song is "Nowheresville," the low point is the unmemorable "Looking Out The Window With A Blue Hat On."

For other, former, Artist Of The Month reviews, check out:
Rumours (2-disc version) – Fleetwood Mac
Actually (2-disc version) – Pet Shop Boys
Opiate - Tool

5/10

For other music reviews, be sure to check out my Music Review Index Page where the albums and singles are ranked best to worst!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Looking For Something Different, Electro-Shock Blues By Eels (Mostly) Fits The Bill! (My New Male Artist Of The Month!)

The Good: Good sound, Energetic instrumentals, Quirky
The Bad: First half is way stronger than the second half, Some repetitiveness
The Basics: A quirky, but somewhat erratic, album Electro-Shock Blues presents Eels as a melancholy, eccentric band going through a rough time.


As I figured out my artists of the month in the music category - who I would focus on each month - I knew I wanted to alternate each month between a male and a female artist. Sometimes, I try to take a leap and learn about a group that is entirely different from what I know and usually listen to. When I was making the list up, I had just seen Yes Man (reviewed here!) with its soundtrack by Eels and on-screen, the band backing up Zoey Deschanel was mostly female, so I thought this would be a great band for my Male Artist Of The Month.

However, two things quickly happened: the first was that my local library could not get me in nearly enough albums from Eels to make them my de facto artist of the month and I discovered that the core member of Eels is, in fact, a male. This threw my whole alternating each month plan. Still, I found I was fascinated by Eels and opted to give the albums of theirs I could get in a fair listen and the first one that crossed my desk was Electro-Shock Blues.

With sixteen tracks, clocking out at 48:08, Electro-Shock Blues is very much the musical vision of Eels, who is most consistently E (Mark Everett). Everett wrote or co-wrote all sixteen of the songs on the album and he co-produced the album as well. E also provides the lead vocals and the instruments are played by E and others, like Grant Lee Philips and Jon Brion. But this is, essentially, the musical vision of Eels.

And that musical vision is good. And weird. In fact, the fundamental problem with Electro-Shock Blues is that the first half of the album is eclectic and experimental while the latter tracks are largely moody, melancholy and soft . . . all in the same way. When the album sets the listener up for funny, weird and experimental and then becomes monotonous in its ultimate execution with soft instrumentals and mumbled lyrics, the listener feels profoundly let down.

It is hard not to enjoy the early part of the album, whatwith its energetic and odd lines. Songs like "Cancer For The Cure" are just funny when Eels sing "The kids are diggin' up a brand new hole / Where to put the deadbeat mom / Grandpa's happy watching video porn / With the closed-caption on / And father knows best / About suicide and smack / Well, hee hee hee / Cancer for the cure . . . Buckle up and endure now baby" ("Cancer For The Cure"). The song has a Beck vibe to it, but it has a sense of humor that is original and underrepresented in pop - and largely alternative - music. Eels do not ask the listener to take them completely seriously and the disarming, enjoyable lines like those in "Cancer For The Cure" make for something truly fun.

This is not to say that their quirky lyrics are unmeaningful or not deep. Indeed, Electro-Shock Blues is an album characterized largely by the melancholy and profound in that the lines are often about death ("Elizabeth On The Bathroom Floor") and illness. Singing about the monotony of getting through illness, the group wrote ". . . He's always got a problem / He's a very bitter dude / And now he is complaining / 'bout his hospital food / Hospital food / It's gonna help the medicine go down / Want some hospital food / Gonna take a walk without a sound / A little hospital food / Helps the spoonful of sugar come up / I want some hospital food / In your blender and in my cup" ("Hospital Food"). While it is a little repetitive with the title within the song so frequently, it makes its statement quite well. Moreover, it makes it musical, which is a tough thing when your muse is the monotony of being in a hospital and what one endures there.

Electro-Shock Blues carries the concept of "blues" rather well, well beyond the title track. Songs like "Dead Of Winter" have wonderful imagery - at least for those who have been through cancer treatments for themselves or loved ones. Lines like "So I know you're going pretty soon / Radiation sore throat got your tongue / Magic markers tattoo you / And show it where to aim / And strangers break their promises / You won't feel any / You won't feel any pain" ("Dead Of Winter") are evocative of (unfortunately) increasingly universal experiences like surviving cancer or battling it with a loved one. Eels (or Everett, at least) writes it real well, capturing a very true sense of pain and detail for the life in the hospital and going through treatments.

Moreover, Eels makes the entire experience truly musical. Unfortunately, it is the instrumentals - mostly a mix of synths and percussion - that makes Electro-Shock Blues fall apart. The first half of the album truly is best analogized to Beck with quirky, up-tempo sounds and a real sense of experimentalism. Similarly, on "Last Stop: This Town" there is an early They Might Be Giants sense of sound and kookiness. But all of the latter songs abandon this for traditional, murky ballads and that the album sweeps so drastically from one extreme to the other makes it far too erratic to work as an album.

Vocally, E is more than adequate with his smooth voice and ability to articulate his own lines. He has some range, holding notes for a strained sound ("3 Speed"), going fast and articulate on other tracks ("Cancer For The Cure") and bringing his voice into a slow and melodic sound for still others ("P.S. You Rock My World" and the album's title track). He even comes close to falsetto (almost) on "Efil's God" and it works. Here, though, there is more irregularity. The latter half of the album, almost all of the vocals are mumbled, whereas during the faster - one assumes, more challenging - bits, E sings clearly. This is somewhat troublesome as clearly E has the ability to make himself understood, but chooses not to in the second half.

Still, Electro-Shock Blues is a decent album and well worth the listen and the buy for someone looking for something different than the same three chords played by pop-rock artists on the radio. Moreover, this has a thematic depth a lot of new artists do not achieve, making it worthwhile there, too.

The best track is "Last Stop: This Town," the low point is the unmemorable "Ant Farm."

For other, prior, Male Artist Of The Month selections, visit my reviews of:
Love Songs - Elvis Presley
Greatest Hits - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Aladdin Sane - David Bowie

6.5/10

For other music reviews, be sure to check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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