Almost Not Quite 4: Shell Games

   Again, before I get into this, I would like to say all the artists I have featured are ones that I really enjoy listening to. Its just that I have a love for well done music videos and I get disappointed when the video doesn't live up to the song that it goes along with. This also reminds me that I've been meaning to start a segment where the video is just outstandingly wonderful.

  Connor Oberst, the man behind Bright Eyes, started as a young song writing virtuoso.  He recorded his songs himself on cassettes and toured close to home while he was still in school. through the years he has been a part of more than a handful of bands and has had a successful solo career as well. He's used his slightly nasal voice to weave melancholic lyrics through rock, blue grass, electronic, and strange avant-garde landscapes.

  I really liked the last album from Bright Eyes entitled "The People's Key". The album was released back in early 2011. It features a spoken word intro and outro by a shaman giving a few kernels of wisdom on life. Also there are songs that bounce along, some that rock, and others that just seem to strike the right chord

   The song "Shell Games", the first single off the album, is about the general futility and mystery that are experienced through life. One of the prevailing themes of both the song and the album as a whole is that this whole thing called life is too difficult to do alone. We all need help now and again, we all need companionship. There's a line in the song that goes, "My private life is an inside joke/ no one will explain it to me". I love that line, even if I can't quite articulate why. Maybe its because that line portrays how we think everyone else seems to have it more together, but really, inside we're all just as lost.

  And that's why I like both the song and the album. The video for "Shell Games" in my opinion, is a little underwhelming. Shot on 8mm film, the video is dim from lack of any real lighting. To add to the lack of clarity, there are several long cross fades, with one shot hazily running over top of another. For the most part the video consists of the band playing the song in a living room, then playing around in the snow outside.  On one hand, I'm a bit thrown off by the confusion that is created by the fact that you cannot really tell what is happening. But on the other hand, maybe , maybe that's the point: using the lack of lighting and overlaid shots to illustrate the uncertainties of navigating the waters of life. things are murky, mysterious, and constantly changing.

Bright Eyes
Shell Games


video directed by Nik Fackler

The People's Key

-I wrote the following about a week ago from 12:30-1:30 at night.-

Now this could be my lack of sleep speaking, but the new Bright Eyes album is one of the best things I've heard in awhile. Throughout my experience listening to The People's Key my face had trouble deciding whether to smile or frown or smirk or show surprise or anything. So my mouth went up and down, my eyebrows lifting and lowering themselves, cheek muscles tight from smiling. I'm laughing and I don't know why, and its wonderful!

So far as Bright Eyes albums go, The People's Key is a bit of a departure from their usual blue-grass Americana feel. This time its rock, its...dare-I-say..dancey at times? Just a little bit, but its there. And Conor Oberst is at top form as a songwriter; the imagery of the lyrics is dark, fantastical, whimsical, it kind of floats into your ears. If you ignore the slightly creepy guy at the intros and outros of just a few songs, the album is a wicked ride indeed.

-results to listening to this album may vary, keep in mind I've been short on good regular sleep lately, and overworked with school, but other than that, it is a pretty great album, give it a listen when you can.-