Eels - Blinking Lights And Other Revelations
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Music CD Cover
Artist: EelsBrand: Baker & Taylor
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-04-26
Music Label: Vagrant Records
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Theme from Blinking Lights
- From Which I Came/A Magic World
- Son of a Bitch
- Blinking Lights (For Me)
- Trouble With Dreams
- Marie Floating Over the Backyard
- Suicide Life
- In the Yard, Behind the Church
- Railroad Man
- The Other Shoe
- Last Time We Spoke
- Mother Mary
- Going Fetal
- Understanding Salesmen
- Theme for a Pretty Girl That Makes You Believe God Exists
- Checkout Blues
- Blinking Lights (For You)
- Dust of Ages
- Old Shit/New Shit
- Bride of Theme from Blinking Lights
- Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)
- I'm Going to Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart
- To Lick Your Boots
- If You See Natalie
- Sweet Li'l Thing
- Dusk: A Peach in the Orchard
- Whatever Happened to Soy Bomb
- Ugly Love
- God's Silence
- Losing Streak
- Last Days of My Bitter Heart
- The Stars Shine in the Sky Tonight
- Things the Grandchildren Should Know
Free Music Notes for Blinking Lights And Other Revelations
Free Music Review: Probably the best album of the 21st Century
Hit: 5 Stars
Yes,that subject line is pretty dramatic, and I wrote it because I mean it. I'm one of those consumers of all forms of music, my 80gb iPod can only hold part of my collection, so it's fair to say that I've sampled much of the better musical output in multiple genres over the past 20 years. None of that prepared me for "Blinking Lights and Other Revelations."
E, very simply put, is for my money the finest artist of his generation--for me, I think of him as the Elvis Costello for his generation, meaning that he can work in multiple genres, come at his art from seemingly endless angles, and writes songs that are deeply profound, and often profoundly hilarious. Like Elvis, he is also extremely prolific, and every Eels album is at least quite good, with most being superlative. So his being prolific in no way affects his quality, if only for the better.
Much is made of E's history, and with good reason. His father invented the "many world's theory" i.e. parallel universes--if you've ever watched a sci fi show, you have E's father to thank for any parallel universe plotlines--and was considered one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century. His beloved sister who was his best friend killed herself, and just a year later his mother died of cancer. Then his cousin and her husband, two of his few remaining family members, were in the plane that crashed into the pentagon on 9/11. This is a man who has seen extraordinary highs and lows.
Now let's get onto his music. With his background, as an artist it would be hard to imagine him making any kind of music that didn't somehow grapple with all of that material. I'm a writer myself, and like E, you work with what you know, and use your imagination to write about what you don't know. E excels at both. Just consider the title of this album--Blinking Lights and Other Revelations. What a realization for him to have had, and share with the rest of us, so I will never look at blinking lights the same again--his thought was, one night as he looked up at a plane flying overhead, wouldn't it be wonderful if the lights had some way to communicate messages to us from the cosmos. I have heard that title song hundreds of times, and I don't think there's a time I can hear it and not get teary eyed.
But as others have said, focus too much on the sad side of E's story, and you'll miss an incredibly wicked sense of humor. He had an idea for this album that it could be like a film, so like a film there's moments of joy, moments of tragedy, and in the instrumental numbers, he thinks of these (according to an interview I read) as intermissions in between the songs so you can have the opportunity to allow the previous songs to have the space to work their way into your consciousness, and not dump all the heavy, or all the sweet, on you at once--the album paces itself beautifully in its sequencing.
I've owned his album now for about seven months, and there isn't a day I don't listen to at least a few songs off of it. E opens up a view into a world where there's an opportunity to look at common things in a new way. The sad songs are heartbreaking, but at their bleakest there is always at least a ray of hope, and often downright optimism and hope for the future. To quote one of my favorite examples of how he does this, from one of the very saddest songs on the album, "Checkout Blues": "Hang on to a little thing/And let it guide the way/Bring it with you to/Another day". Even in the face of his worse wrestlings with the sufferings of this world, E's a fighter, and he's not giving in. On my worst days, that thought has often entered my head as an excellent strategy for survival at the least, and happiness at best.
Like others have said, to judge this as a morbid album for the depressed only is to have clearly missed the entire point of the album, which is full of hope and a search for deeper meaning in life. If you're looking for the real thing--genius as it unfolds--look no further. If you wonder about the deeper questions of life: why are we here? what's our purpose? why do people suffer? and of course, why does Tom Waits squeal like a baby while E introduces the latest dance craze, "Everybody's Going Fetal" :) then you've found an album you'll find it hard to stop obsessing about. Electroshock Blues was my favorite in the Eels catalog until this album came along, and it just seems to me a continuation of the previous album, this time from a more mature artist who has had the time to contemplate, absorb, and acclimate himself to the difficulties that have made up his life--and has come out on top despite all of it. To quote E himself: "Do you hear me? My losing streak is done!" And no one more richly deserves it. Rock on, E, your losing streak is done! E also asks, "Am I stronger than the curse?" meaning the seemingly horrific series of events that took his entire family from him, and this album answers that question in a nutshell--he had the strength to work on this album for seven years, and produce a work of heartbreaking artistic genius. E, we all hope you make it to a ripe old age (so you can really inhabit that grumpy old man persona), because we love you, and because we can't wait to see what lies ahead in your musical output!
Blinking Lights And Other Revelations Poster
A homemade epic, 'Blinking Lights'is an imaginative, emotional reflection on the condition of living, recorded mostly in Everett's Los Angeles basement over a period of several years. Sprawling over it's two discs are songs about faith, responsibility, growing up, dignity, disappointment, comfort, hope and renewal. It's the most personal eels album since 1998's Electro Shock Blues'. That album dealt with the nearly simultaneous suicide of Everett's sister and terminal illness of his mother, from the subjects' points of view. This album finds him a few years down the line, now battling some of the family demons himself, with the after effects of past tragedies becoming more of a personal issue in his adult life, sometimes fearlessly autobiographical, and other times built around the related stories of others. Vagrant. 2005.Blinking Lights and Other Revelations is a big, important record that's also devastatingly somber. Which, depending on how serious an Eels fan you are and the sturdiness of your psyche, can be taken as an endorsement or a warning. Shades of the band's superb sophomore effort, Electro-Shock Blues, recorded after the suicide of Everett's sister and the death of his father, show up here on such wounded tracks as "Checkout Blues," "If You See Natalie," and "I'm Going to Stop Pretending I Didn't Break Your Heart." Permeating those are instrumental snippets, some sad and ponderous ("Theme from Blinking Lights"), others bordering on bright ("Theme for a Pretty Girl that Makes You Believe God Exists"), and a handful of ironic exercises in straight-up pop (the winking "Going Fetal" and the cynical but upbeat "Hey Man [Now You're Really Living]"). Spread over two discs, the mood of Blinking Lights burns in fast and builds in its ferocity, so that when lighter moments like the funny "Whatever Happened to Soy Bomb" surface, they seem like ominous breaks in the storm. Though these songs make it easy to forget that Everett's gruff, fuzzed-over vocals have also graced fare breezy enough to be included on the Shrek soundtrack, their beauty delivers a thoughtful listener from caring. --Tammy La Gorce
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