Feb 23 2008
Eels - Meet The Eels
- Artist: Eels
- Album: Meet The Eels
- Label: Geffen
- Release: 2008
- Links: Official Site
Meet The Eels is the first attempt to capture the essential songs of Mark Oliver Everett and his revolving troupe of Eels. The album consists of songs from the period between 1996 - 2006, which saw Eels release six formal albums. Considering how prolific a songwriter Everett is, creating a best of is no easy task. A couple worthy songs are always left out on albums like this and Meet The Eels is no exception. Despite this, the album succeeds as a dependable introduction to one of the most misunderstood songwriters of the last decade.
Eels’ debut, 1996’s Beautiful Freak, which spawned the widely adored “Novocaine For The Soul,” is granted four songs on Meet The Eels. “Novocaine” is the song that everyone will recognize from the album, but don’t sleep on “Susan’s House,” a track that Everett described as a “departure from the stuff I had been doing” in his recent memoir, Things The Grandchildren Should Know (highly recommended). The song, which finds Everett speaking (literally) about the neighborhood in which one of his ex-girlfriends lived in, highlights the eclectic instrumentation of his early recordings.
1998’s Electro-Shock Blues, which most critics (including this one) cite as their favorite Eels album (Souljacker is fantastic though), is sadly underrepresented with only three selections. I suppose I can understand this when taking into account that the album isn’t very commercial except for “Last Stop: This Town,” but it is so good! Pay attention to Jon Brion’s remix of “Climbing To The Moon.” The strings on that version kill me.
The rest of Meet The Eels divides time between the albums from 2000 on and also throws in a song from last year’s Live From Town Hall disc. 2000’s Daisies Of The Galaxy is featured with four tracks and although it is a fine album, I urge you to give the three songs included from 2001’s Souljacker a closer look. If you didn’t think that Eels were capable of rocking out, then switch over to “Souljacker part 1″ and “That’s Not Really Funny” immediately. On a side note, be sure to avoid the cover of Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On” that is randomly thrown in here for laughs.
History will probably remember Eels as a band that had a couple hits and then faded away from the mainstream. That’s alright because Everett is above that stuff anyway. Everett deserves to be recognized for the unique songwriting talent that he is. His work has had its fair share of inconsistency, but I keep coming back to his albums again and again. Completists will be delighted to learn that that Meet The Eels comes with a bonus DVD that contains the group’s music videos, but they aren’t anything to get too excited about. This is a collection that is intended for new listeners. I can only hope that they seek out the many other great Eels songs that didn’t fit here.
Eels are scheduled to perform at the Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington D.C. on March 29th. Tickets are on sale now.