BRIGHT EYES: THE PEOPLE'S KEY (2011)
1) Firewall; 2) Shell Games; 3)
Jejune Stars; 4) Approximate Sunlight; 5) Haile Selassie; 6) A Machine
Spiritual; 7) Triple Spiral; 8) Beginner's Mind; 9) Ladder Song; 10) One For
You, One For Me.
For three whole years, the world was free from
the oppression of Bright Eyes, but not from Conor Oberst, who used the time to
play around with several new projects: «Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley
Band» and «Monsters of Folk» among them. Then it was suddenly announced that,
with one last album, Oberst would retire the «Bright Eyes» label completely.
Accompanied with predictable commentary — that the brand name has outlasted
itself, that it was time to move on, leaving the past behind etc.
Now I would be the last person in the world to
expect a «grand exit»-style last album from Bright Eyes, but I do admit to a
little anticipatory trepidation. What if Conor had decided to «pull all the
stops»? Would that mean twelve-minute long howling ballads to the sound of a
battered, out-of-tune acoustic guitar? Could that signify retreating into the
safety of his bedroom, so as to make that hoarse, creaky, skipping lo-fi epic
to put all lo-fi epics to shame? Might that imply using up all of the
accumulated money to hire every single professional country musician in
Nashville, so as to record the loudest ever version of ʽThat Silver-Haired
Daddy Of Mineʼ, retitled as ʽThat Shiver-Sending Nightmare On My Mindʼ?
Wrong on all counts. The last album by Bright
Eyes — if this is, indeed, the last album by Bright Eyes — is just a normal
rock'n'roll album, much like Cassadaga
was just a normal «nu-country» album. Other than a slightly above-ordinary
emphasis on Rastafarian matters in the lyrics, and recurring bullshit
voiceovers from some pretentious crackpot propagating pseudo-New-Age-nonsense
about the «Superuniverse», The People's
Key is just yer basic singer-songwriter's rock-a-pop. Quite restrained,
concise, relatively harmless. Not too exciting — but not without an occasional
modest charm or two. Had this been my first Bright Eyes experience, I might
have greeted it very warmly; as it is presumably my last one, I am almost tempted to regard it as a subtle apology on
Conor's part. «Hey guys, I guess I'm sorry for having bullshat you over all
these years — here's a little something I cooked up for you that you might,
perhaps, find more palatable».
These are all fully arranged, well fleshed out
compositions, sometimes in the form of bombastic arena rock, sometimes bluesy,
sometimes power-balladeerish, loaded with electronic vignettes, processed
guitar effects, and prime time Oberstian lyrics, working overtime to avoid,
stun, and disarm clichés and trivialities. From the subtly threatening
blues-rock chords of ʽFirewallʼ that opens the album and right down to the
sprawling, anthemic keyboards and funky percussion of ʽOne For You, One For Meʼ
that closes it — The People's Key is
beyond technical reproach.
Too bad I can no longer enjoy any of it.
Honestly, some of these songs at least may rank as the best he's ever written —
there are even shades of original
catchy vocal melodies on ʽShell Gamesʼ, ʽLadder Songʼ, and a few others — but
all of it leaves me cold, because the spirit of Bright Eyes remains exactly the
same and cannot possibly change, since any radical change in Conor Oberst would
ruin his game: sincerity has always
been his biggest asset, and if he drops or even slightly shifts those
pathetic-melancholic intonations — well, we will end up with a different Conor
Oberst, and would that mean that the previous one has been insincere? Or the
new one?..
Anyway, all of these songs are totally
accessible, sensible, and probably as honest as anything the son of a bitch has
ever written. They are not even as depressed and moronically suicidal as they
used to be: a farewell should be farewell-ish, and most of the sadness here is
consciously balanced with intelligent optimism — even as the lyrics of ʽOne
For You, One For Meʼ seem to chastise humanity for its sliding away from the
ideal of Oneness, its upbeat rhythmic pattern and (perhaps ironic) vocal
enthusiasm disseminates a little hope, at least among those who cannot be
bothered to study the words too closely. Besides, all these Rastafari
references — how can a record like this be an exercise in total depression?
I guess I'm not entirely through with Oberst — there is still this bit of mystery
as to how come I am so totally, utterly bored with an album like this, where
nothing much irritates per se, other than the obnoxious guy chattering away
about Einstein and Sumerian tablets. Somehow, all of these hooks, guitar and
synth tones, vocal intonations, etc., still come across as totally bland; but
it will take time to understand if it's really just the earlier anti-Oberst
sentiment rising in vehement bias here, or if the man is so genuinely and
utterly devoid of talent when it comes to anything other than putting words on
paper. In the meantime, my thumbs are frozen, and everybody is welcome to
observe the purity of experiment and start his/her study of Bright Eyes with
their last album — The People's Key,
a title that should probably be better suited for the likes of Grand Funk
Railroad or Hank Williams Jr., but somehow ended up used by a guy who is one of
the least apt candidates for a true «people's artist» in the modern world. Oh,
that Conor and his endlessly wasted stream of pointless irony.
Check "The People's Key" (MP3) on Amazon
It's a shame that you didn't do any Bonnie Tyler reviews before you started checking out the Conor Oberst discography.
ReplyDeleteYou'd have been much better off if you'd taken her advice and turned around.
It's a shame he didn't do Black Sabbath first - a more important band than both the generic Bonnie Tyler and Bright Eyes.
ReplyDelete