Eels: Blinking Lights and Other Revelations: Mark Oliver Everett is the genius behind the almost criminally overlooked band Eels. The driving force behind this melodically orchestrated pop is Everett's (or "E's") raspy voice, which has an atonal loveliness that captures more emotional range than it at first appears possible to do. This is a double-album set, and as I've argued so often over the years, artists sometimes confuse volume with value. I dig these songs, but am not convinced that trimming wouldn't strengthen the offerings. In any case, Eels come through with lots of piano and lush orchestration. The lyrics are contemplative, occasionally acid, sometimes world weary. This is probably the band's most complete effort and like so much that I listen to I believe that it would have gone platinum in a better world than this one. Grade: A-
Eminem: Curtain Call: The Hits: Eminem is a force of nature. He promised that he was going to retire, or at least take a long break, from putting out albums to spend more time with his daughter, who is familiar to any of his fans. No one believed him. Which is weird. The guy never showed himself to be a liar or hypocrite -- it's his relentless honesty that makes him so compelling. Hiding a serious demeanor beneath a cartoon character, Eminem is so much smarter, more adroit, deeper, than his critics that by the end of listening to this collection of a prematurely abbreviated performing career (that we all hope will resume aside from appearances on the tracks of other rappers, most recently Akon) one comes to realize that he was not only the best rapper of his generation but that he had the opportunity, much like Dave Chappelle in another context, to transform the nature of his genre only to choose personal integrity and trueness to self over filthy lucre. In both cases, we can only yearn for more, knowing that both are young enough to return triumphantly, which makes their absence all the more frustrating. If there was any doubt about Eminem's willingness to turn his persona on his head they were erased with "Stan," in which Eminem speaks through the letters of a disturbed fan who doesn't grasp the difference between Slim Shady the character and Marshall Mathers the man behind the curtain. Brilliantly (and unexpectedly) sampling Dido and the sound of falling rain in the background, "Stan's" pacing is worthy of David Mamet, Eminem's appropriation of Stan's internal descent delivers chills, his use of his own voice providing the perfect embodiment of the artist independent of his persona. The other song that stands out even among the standout body of work of Eminem's thus far truncated career is "Lose Yourself," the feature track from Eminem's largely autobiographical "8 Miles." This might be the best song about the desperate desire for fame, or at least success, that's ever been put through speakers. I wish it had been released back in my days as an athlete when I would undoubtedly have put it on a mix intended for gameday consumption. By song's end I'd have been willing to run through walls. Oh -- and did I mention the dude's funny? Eminem is not without his controversies, but in the end when we trust the art and not always the artist, we're left only with the hopes that the rumors that Eminem is in the studio with plans to release an album sometime next year are true. A
The 5. 6. 7. 8's: Bomb the Twist: Take three Japanese chicks, give them an intense love for sixties girl groups, surf music, and a copy of one of the Nuggets compilations, send them off to a few weeks worth of English lessons (which they apparently skipped with fair regularity), arm them with a couple of amps, and my guess is that you'd get the 5. 6. 7. 8's. You've heard them too, though you probably don't know it. For a brief time a year or two ago "Woo Hoo" provided the backdrop to two or three commercials and they appeared in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, so you just know they are too cool for school. This six song EP is like an unearthed time capsule from a nonexistent past. B+
The Flaming Lips: At War With the Mystics: The glorious weirdoes from Flaming Lips, with lead freakazoid Wayne Coyne in the lead, have been providing songs about space aliens and robots and chicks who don't use jelly for a decade and a half now. A casual listener might categorize them as a novelty act, but that would be like calling the Beatles a band about entomology. Not only would it be wrong, it would miss the point entirely. At War With the Mystics is not the best album from these Oklahomans, who, by the way, apparently put on a legendary live show, but it is still better than most of what you are listening to right now. B+
Foo Fighters: In Your Honour: The Foo Fighters' new album, Echoes, Silence, patience, & Grace, which comes out on Tuesday, is receiving incredible buzz. This double album -- with one rockin' disc and one acoustic, both very good -- shows the Foos at their underappreciated (I'm sensing a theme in these reviews) best. They are simply a damned good rock band, but will forever be shadowed by Dave Grohl's affiliation with another, somewhat more famous, and legendarily defunct band. Which makes me ask a couple of questions: Do you think Dave Grohl ever stops in his tracks and says "I was in fucking Nirvana!" As significantly, do you think Foo Fighter drummer Taylor Hawkins ever has moments of existential crisis on stage in which he says to himself, "that guy was the drummer in fucking Nirvana?" Probably. B+
Franz Ferdinand: You Could Have It So Much Better: You Could Have Had It . . . represents the follow-up to their acclaimed eponymously-named first album. The Ferdinands are at the forefront the new wave of Britpop (or in this case Scotpop, as they are from Glasgow)which, if it can take on a certain level of saminess, especially for the uninitiated, still kicks the snot out of the parallel American movement, which everyone calls emo, and which suffers from a comparable saminess, but sucks. B+
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