by Bright Eyes List Price:$11.00 Our Price:$10.00 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Product Details
Media: Audio CD
Release Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Label: Saddle Creek
Average Customer Review: 4 Based on 122 reviews.
Sales Rank: 114
Tracks
1.
We Are Nowhere And It's Now - (with Emmylou Harris)
2.
Train Under Water
3.
Road To Joy
4.
Poison Oak
5.
Old Soul Song (For The New World Order) - (with Emmlou Harris)
6.
Lua
7.
Landlocked Blues - (with Emmylou Harris)
8.
First Day Of My Life
9.
At The Bottom Of Everything - (with Jim James)
10.
Another Travellin' Song
11.
Another Travelin' Song
12.
Old Soul Song (For The New World Order) - (with Emmylou Harris)
Editorial Review
Conor Oberst is running on dangerous ground: getting his first Dylan comparisons at age 12, frolicking with Winona Ryder, releasing two separate albums at once. Didn't he learn anything from Ryan Adams's mistakes? It's a good thing he can write such haunting, intimate songs. I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (released simultaneously with Digital Ash in a Digital Urn) is the album the Omaha native has always threatened to make, channeling his country rock influences into articulate, witty ballads that come to life with gorgeous harmonies supplied by Emmylou Harris. The tumbling "We Are Nowhere and It's Now" might be his first actual masterpiece, while the words of album closer "Road to Joy" ("I could've been a famous singer if I had someone else's voice/ But failure's always sounded better") indicate that Oberst might have his head screwed on right after all. -- Aidin Vaziri
Top Customer Reviews
Rating:
2 ah, the sounds of narcissism...
The music media have followed a steady pattern when reviewing Bright Eyes albums, most always branding Conor Oberst as a young genius, slated to be the next Bob Dylan. It's unfortunate that those very reviews compelled me to check out this album, which I listened to twice through and quickly consigned to the trade-in box. I simply can't hear this album as anything other than the rantings of a self-centered spoiled brat who wallows in his own self-pity. I want to grab Oberst by the lapels and tell him to grow up.Oberst's voice is cloyingly immature; his lyrics prove that quantity does not equal quality.This album belongs to an as-yet unnamed category of music that is appreciated solely for the level of honesty with which it is delivered, i.e., if the person is perceived to be singing their heart out, then it must be genius. The fans of this emo-derived music have altogether eschewed any consideration for musical talent (with the oft-used, blame-shifting defense that rock singers don't have to be perfect, which is true, but they don't have to be tone-deaf whiners, either), song structure, or merely the ability of an artist to be their own best editor, basing their praise on how well the music plays for voyeurs seeking to watch the next aloof 22-year-old pick his nose on the emo-playground.This is *not* the next Bob Dylan, folks.Bright Eyes belongs in a menagerie, right next to the entire Elephant Six Collective.The two stars were given out of politeness.
Rating:
2 If you bought it, trash it... if you didn't, don't buy it.
No, I don't think so. I wasted my money on this record only to discover it was a feather light production (has that sort of brittle, plastic sound you hear on the Faint's "Wet From Birth" record... it fits there, perfectly... but here, Conor's trying to have "soul" and all that other good sh*# that comes with the territory of what he's trying to do) and diluted rehash of the general tone of his releases. This does not nearly reach the high water mark he set with the beautiful, organic work known as Lifted. If you dig that vinyl sound, and the pure kinetic weight of those drum fills you hear in "Lover I Don't Have to Love," all the little mistakes and candid live band sound... you are not under any circumstances going to find it here. If you think this is for you and you don't have Lifted, please get that instead.
Rating:
4 Genere Crossing Isn't For Everyone
Okay, let's lay it out for you here, alternative music is mostly known for it's richese of angst, and individuality. Folk music is mostly known for it's message, and sing-songishness. Well, this album doesn't quite fit into either very well. It's got plenty of angst, but the music is decidedly folk. If you don't like folk music, but you like that song you heard on the radio (probably Road To Joy) then chances are you're going to be a lot happier just buying the song, (either as a single, or jut buying the mp3). Personally, I love the album, it took me about a week of listening to it before I could really get into it, but the songs are richly written in their own way.Oh, and just so you know, I picked it up at Target for like $8 on the LAUNCH Breakout Artist Rack... Shop around... and get it cheap if you don't know if you really want it...
