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9 |
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Eels |
| Meet the Eels: Essential Eels Vol 1 |
| Geffen | 2008 | Album |
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I’m of the personal belief that the Eels are one of the—if not the—most underrated bands to ever rise from the American alternative pop-rock circuit, unfortunately a product of the timing of their greatest success. When MTV was in the business of breaking alternative bands, some bands became broken MTV darlings. The media conglomerate seemed to swallow all the personal music craft; it’s a great, bald-faced, Orwellian feat, but it belies the fact that bands such as the Eels have had a rich career arch in spite of a single iconic video and song.
The chore of selecting songs for a collection such as this one is difficult. At first glance, though, the choices exhibited are solid and serve to create a great introductory template to what makes the band notable. There are obligatory hits—or, well, the obligatory hit—in “Novocaine For The Soul,” an excellent song in spite of itself; the vastly underplayed (or, should-be college radio favorites) examples of Mark Oliver Everett’s suburban mythology songs, “Last Stop: This Town” and “Susan’s House”; and there is the all-out, angry rocker, “Souljacker part 1,” a song that clearly marks the second Eels incarnation. While the world has turned and turned in the last eleven years, the Eels have been evolving too, and anyone listening to Meet The Eels would gather that impression. Of course, it also bears mentioning that a quirk master artist like Mark Oliver Everett is best understood when he’s seen as his own outcast; his B-side/rarity work shouldn’t be ignored, even if there are acknowledged hits to his credit.
To fully understand him, or them, then the Useless Trinkets album needs to come in tow with this one.
The twelve-song DVD accompaniment comes as a surprisingly exciting presentation of all the other wonderful videos the Eels have been a party to. In typical, arty video director fashion, urban allegory songs like “Susan’s House” and the loosely metaphysical “Your Lucky Day In Hell” get the strictly performance treatment; but in that, they’re documents of the era. If you’re of the inclination to take the Eels as a solo artist mouthpiece, then they interestingly document the physical transformation of Mark Oliver Everett, or E, from slightly dough-faced boy to bearded rock outcast (check out the aforementioned “Souljacker part I” for that most evident evidence).
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| Erick Mertz |
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