Eels : Classic or Dud

my revive was disconnected from any ilx post. i just started revisiting "blinking lights" and wanted to see what people thought of them now

even better that it was unconscious! i should go back to electro-shock and daisies anyway

yep, still have every lyric on electro-shock blues memorized

voices tell me i'm the shit

I need to relisten to ESB in full soon...I guess its emotional arc is a little "tidy" given what he'd been through, but it's always come across as genuine and earned to me anyway

was not expecting the songs where he sings from his sister's perspective to be a root for me but there you go

damn I never even thought about that aspect!

I notice the clunky lines more than I used to ("Courtney needs love", ick) but the sonics have held up really well - the sparse, simple arrangements almost predict certain strands of future pop. like "royals" always kinda made me think of Eels?

i do not think e is a particularly like... rich lyricist, everything's a little too obvious and wry, though he can be very funny in an overwhelmingly macabre context which is not easy

there's a simplicity to his worldview as he presents it that can work really well in some contexts and grate in others...I think when he's dealing with genuine trauma and grief that simplicity can be a huge asset, just as it's a major liability elsewhere

like that's both how you get all the goofy nonsense on later albums but also "3 speed"

blinking lights is one of my favorite indie records from its era. double album and almost every song hits. never got into ESB as much but maybe i should revisit

Blinking Lights kinda the epitome of "shoulda been a single LP" type of deal. that would be a really good single LP though

i don't think i'd be able to get it under 20 tracks personally

just put on daisies of the galaxy and wow i forgot how beautiful this album is

it has a few enh songs here and there but it's such a pastoral relief after ESB without being a retreat. hard to imagine anyone else pulling off "it's a motherfucker"

the sonics have held up really well - the sparse, simple arrangements almost predict certain strands of future pop. like "royals" always kinda made me think of Eels?

― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Wednesday, May 19, 2021 2:04 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, ESB doesn't sound like 1998 to me at all.

"pastoral" is not quite right. xp

I will say it "sounds 1998" in the sense that E sounds like he was in thrall to Odelay but had no interest in layering loads of samples, so he ended up with a much more sparse and skeletal sound, which works very well with his lyrical approach, which is basically the opposite of Beck's

jon brion's work on electro-shock blues also ties it directly to 1998 in my mind

Simon otm, I think ESB is a testament to E's songwriting because some of those instrumental loops would have resulted in a much more boring record in lesser hands.

one thing i love about daisies is that it pretty much jettisons all of the postdelay collage stuff, even the track harkening back to that ("flyswatter") sounds much more organic and uh played

it's a neat effect on electro-shock but it's mostly the framing device for all the weakest songs imo (cf. "hospital food"). "last stop: this town" is a miracle tho

I cannot stand "Hospital Food", really stands out like a sore thumb on that record.

oh i guess jon brion only plays organ on "climbing to the moon" but i'd say electro-shock generally kinda has his *swarm of bass clarinets appears out of nowhere* thing going on, which i associate pretty heavily with the late '90s aka the span of time between tidal and when the pawn

ok yeah blinking lights is awesome

That could be me in a couple years
Suckin' fumes under the highway pass

On a rainy day
While I wear newspapers for pants
And a T-shirt that says
"Damn, I'm Good."

I love these early singles, really looking forward to the debut album, oh it's mostly a bunch of dreary underbite shit like this title track I'm walking away in disgust and ignoring them, but now he's popping up on the BBC singing Mr E's Beautiful Blues, I'll check out the new album, it's great! Should I go back and check out the one I missed Electroshock Blues, hmmm, everything I've read about it makes it sound like doubling down on the navelgazing self pity, well turns out I'm the dumdum, this is their masterpiece! Souljacker is the perfect soundtrack to nodding your head as you descend further into substance abuse, John Parish, right? Blinking Lights, meant to be a return to form, FROM WHAT, I ASK YOU? With a double album you expect overlong songs, but this is mostly stuff that peters out after any half formed idea, fucksake it's still going on? Oh Ok, they're putting out another album, I'll maybe get around to that at some point (repeat last line to fade)

That is "My Story Of Eels, From Sketchy Memory"

ESB is the greatest album that I never ever want to listen to

I had hit a point of diminishing returns with recent Eels albums to the point that I never even checked out Earth to Dora. Gotta say that the new one, Extreme Witchcraft, has a lot of charm even if it's not a patch on his best work. This is the most I've enjoyed an Eels record since probably Hombre Lobo.

I will say it "sounds 1998" in the sense that E sounds like he was in thrall to Odelay but had no interest in layering loads of samples, so he ended up with a much more sparse and skeletal sound, which works very well with his lyrical approach, which is basically the opposite of Beck's

― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Wednesday, May 19, 2021 7:47 PM (nine months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't it sounds like Odelay so much as it does the more introspective acoustic stuff Beck was doing on Mutations, "Dead Melodies", "We Live Again", etc. I think mistook the latter song for Eels when I first heard it