Meenzer 15722 Posted February 14, 2008 Share Posted February 14, 2008 Also, jams = inherently rubbish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted February 14, 2008 Share Posted February 14, 2008 Meet The Eels: Essential Eels 1996 - 2006 Vol. 1 Cracking band. Particularly enjoying the previously unreleased Get Ur Freak On cover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meenzer 15722 Posted February 14, 2008 Share Posted February 14, 2008 Now you're talking. I was going to get that until I realised I've got most of the tracks already, so I ordered the missing two albums for about four quid each instead. Fine stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted February 14, 2008 Share Posted February 14, 2008 Now you're talking. I was going to get that until I realised I've got most of the tracks already, so I ordered the missing two albums for about four quid each instead. Fine stuff. MEETING THE EELSby Mark Edwards, The Sunday Times Opposites attract. And I think it's the opposites in Mark Oliver Everett's songs that attracted me. I think it's the opposites that make his work so special. They're not merely opposites. Some of them are heart-wrenchingly irreconcilable conflicts - the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" decisions that bedevil our lives, those moments when you suddenly realize that you want X but you need Y, and you can't have both, and you beat yourself up so much over the choice that you end up with neither. But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. Perhaps you've only recently discovered the Eels and you've decided to find out more, and so here you are with an album called Meet The Eels which will allow you to do just that. And I'm going on about the opposites and conflicts and paradoxes at the heart of the man's work as if you're already au fait with his oeuvre. And you're thinking "uh-oh, I just wanted some nice songs." Don't let me put you off. All I'm saying is that there's a tension in Everett's songs that gives them a strength and a resonance that most other songwriters couldn't ever equal. Sometimes the tension exists in the title. Your Lucky Day in Hell. Just how lucky can that be? I suppose it sounds better than an unlucky day in Hell. Although I'm not sure that we should rush out and get T-shirts made, saying "Better a good day in Hell than a bad day in Heaven." Sometimes the tension is between the lyric and Everett's delivery. "Goddam right, it's a beautiful day," he sings on Mr. E's Beautiful Blues. But he sure doesn't sound like he believes it. Although he does sound as though he's decided that if he says it often enough, he might start to believe it. Mr. E's Beautiful Blues was the big hit single off Daisies of the Galaxy, and yet it only appeared bolted on the end of the album as a "hidden" track. (Sometimes the tension is between the art and the marketplace.) Sometimes the tension is between the lyrics and the music. Go and put on track 11 without looking to see what it's called. Gee, that piano is pretty isn't it? What kind of sweet, tender lyric would go well with that loveliness. Oh, well, he's ruined it, hasn't he with his foul language? Imagine what a smooth love lyric Paul McCartney might have put in there. Or Elton John. Except that he hasn't ruined anything. (Goddam right) It's a beautiful song, and it's even more beautiful because he made it a little ugly too. The French have an expression for it: "Jolie-laid." Leaving the Angelina jokes aside, it means "pretty-ugly." Not "pretty ugly" as in "she's pretty ugly," but "pretty-ugly" as in pretty and ugly at the same time. They reckon that people who veer slightly away from the perfect symmetrical norms are actually more attractive than those people who are, er, more attractive. If you follow. The pretty isn't really pretty until you add a bit of the ugly. Which brings us neatly to Mr. E's world view. Because sometimes the tension is between received wisdom and Mr. E's world view. As in Hey Man (Now You're Really Living). And I quote: "Do you know what it's like to fall on the floor And cry your guts out 'til you got no more Hey man, now you're really living." Most people think it's a funny song, but we're not most people. We're cleverer than that. We understand that what E's doing here is taking the whole "jolie-laid" idea and applying it to life as a whole. Life can't be beautiful unless there's a bit of ugliness in there, too. Or, as your Jungian therapist might say (if you had one) "you have to embrace the shadow." "Now you're really living" doesn't just mean you're having a great time, it means that you're REALLY living, and REALLY living involves sometimes having a really bad time (but that way, when you do finally have a really great time, you should appreciate it). It's a hard philosophy, but E never lied to us. Right back in the first song on this compilation he told us "life is hard, and so am I." Those with a working knowledge of rock musician's biographies will know two facts about Mark Oliver Everett: First, that his father was a famous physicist who authored the Many Worlds theory, which tries to make sense of some of Quantum Physics' loose ends by suggesting that every possible outcome of every event exists. Those of us who are not quite as clever as Dr. Hugh Everett extrapolate from this the idea of an infinite number of universes each marginally different than the next one. So in one of these alternate worlds there is a band called Eels and an album called Meet The Eels and you bought it, but you never read these sleeve notes (and what a strange and unimaginable world that must be). The irony here is that so many of the issues that E tangles with in his songs and in his life might be easily resolvable were he to have emerged in a slightly different world. One where there are no loveless, and where your soul doesn't need any novocaine. One where we humans were more like birds. The other fact we know about E is that he lost all his family members in fairly quick succession, and that instead of shutting down and giving up, he addressed his feelings in songs -- most obviously on the Electro-shock Blues album. Not in a couple of lines at the end of a verse somewhere, but relentlessly and in an incredibly moving way. This is one of the things that makes E special. Not that he suffered loss. (That's part of really living.) But that he confronted it head on and made something so extraordinary out of it. There are only a handful of songwriters who have done this. John Lennon on Plastic Ono Band. Kurt Cobain on In Utero. E. That's the company he keeps. I haven't mentioned my favorite Eels song yet. It's called I'm Going To Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart. I'm not going to analyze it, because it's already perfect, and any insight I have into it won't make it any better. Anyway, you're already won over by the title -- the amazing title -- or, if you're not, then your life is probably a lot more straightforward than E's, and it may well be that you just bought the wrong record. But don't get too upset about it. Sometimes, as E says, you just gotta let it go. http://eelstheband.com/essential_rarities.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magma 0 Posted February 14, 2008 Share Posted February 14, 2008 Smokie - Living Next Door To Alice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sammynb 3508 Posted February 14, 2008 Share Posted February 14, 2008 Smokie - Living Next Door To Alice Fuck off?!?? bachman turner overdrive - you ain't seen nothing yet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tooj 17 Posted February 14, 2008 Share Posted February 14, 2008 Pink Floyd- (Three Different Ones) Hey you Whitehouse! Haha charade you are! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom 14013 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Weezer - Blue Album Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
div-s- 0 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Pulp - Disco 2000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sammynb 3508 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 the fucking eagles. I hate the fucking eagles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Pink Floyd- (Three Different Ones) Hey you Whitehouse! Haha charade you are! You like Comets On Fire? I was listening to Brotherhood of the Harvest yesterday and it really reminded me of Floyd. The rest of the album is nowt like them, but it's all mint. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tooj 17 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Twinz- Good Times Proof it's not what it used to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom 14013 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Sergej Vassiljevitsj Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 (Op. 18) - Adagio Sostenuto Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Patrokles Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Sergej Vassiljevitsj Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 (Op. 18) - Adagio Sostenuto Going to use your synth for some 'switched on Rachmaninoff'? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom 14013 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Sergej Vassiljevitsj Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 (Op. 18) - Adagio Sostenuto Going to use your synth for some 'switched on Rachmaninoff'? Fuck that Me and the Drummer done bliss by muse quite well before. It's class because the synth doesn't go out of time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbo 175 Posted February 15, 2008 Author Share Posted February 15, 2008 Public Enemy - Bring the noise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grasshopper 0 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 the Who - babba o'reilly speeduptastic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newcastlebroon 0 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Public Enemy - Bring the noise tuuuuuuune Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@yourservice 67 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Sergej Vassiljevitsj Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 (Op. 18) - Adagio Sostenuto Imagine him on the back of your shirt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tooj 17 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Sergej Vassiljevitsj Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 (Op. 18) - Adagio Sostenuto Imagine him on the back of your shirt. Hom! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@yourservice 67 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Sergej Vassiljevitsj Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 (Op. 18) - Adagio Sostenuto Imagine him on the back of your shirt. Hom! Right up the Gary Glitter aye, pushing those winnits nice n tight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@yourservice 67 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Try A Little Tenderness - Otis Redding Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tooj 17 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Sergej Vassiljevitsj Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 (Op. 18) - Adagio Sostenuto Imagine him on the back of your shirt. Hom! Right up the Gary Glitter aye, pushing those winnits nice n tight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Patrokles Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 And Also the Trees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brock Manson 0 Posted February 16, 2008 Share Posted February 16, 2008 Turisas - Katuman Kaiku Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now