Bright Eyes - Down In The Weeds Where the World Once Was (August 21, 2020) Album • Page 44

Digital Ash > Cassadaga > Fever & Mirrors > LIFTED > etc.

 

Loving these takes even though I disagree with most of em, such a strong catalog

 

wide awake > lifted > digital > peoples key > fevers > cassadaga > weeds > happiness

 

Wide Awake
Fevers
Lifted
Cassadaga
Digital
Peoples Key
Weeds
Happiness

 

Wide Awake
---
Lifted
Cassadaga
---
Digital
Fevers
Noise Floor
---
Peoples Key
Weeds
---
Happiness
Christmas Album
Collection

 

props for even including christmas and collection haha

 

ha, I've gone crazier than that! not sure if you remember when we did this two years ago on this very thread...

 

Lifted
------
Wide Awake
Fevers
Read Music/Speak Spanish
Digital Ash
Ruminations
Beginning to the story EP
------
Noise Floor
Weeds
One Jug
Happiness
Payola
BOCC
Conor Oberst s/t
Every Day and Every Night
------
People's Key
Oh Holy Fools/Turning the Page
Cassadaga
Upside Down Mountain
Four Winds
Outer South
Monsters of Folk
Christmas
-----
Salutations
Collection

not rating commander venus or park ave

 

Lifted
-
Wide Awake
Noise Floor
Digital Ash
Don't Be Frightened of Turning the Page
Every Day and Every Night
Fevers and Mirrors
There is No Beginning to This Story
-
One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels
Letting off the Happiness
-
Cassadaga
-
People's Key
-
Down in the Weeds
-
Collection of Songs

read music is around fevers, bocc around LOTH, and monsters of folk is around cassadaga. haven't given solo all that much of a chance

 

ruminations is essential required listening

I think you could compile the other solo records into a really good 18 song collection

1. Cape Canaveral
2. Souled Out!!!
3. Get Well Cards
4. Milk Thistle
5. Cabbage Town
6. Ten Women
7. White Shoes
8. I Got the Reason
9. Artifact #1
10. Night at Lake Unknown
11. You Are Your Mothers Child
12. Governor's Ball
13. Desert Island Questionnaire
14. Common Knowledge
15. Too Late to Fixate
16. Napalm
17. No One Changes
18. The Rockaways

Those last two songs in particular are awesome, and they're just singles without a record.

 

I will check it and those songs out.

Interestingly low on Don't Be Frightened as far as your list goes - feels right up there with Fevers level material to me.

 

Oh my God, I can't do all Conor right now, it's too much

 

"Oh you are the roots" and "no lies just love" are brilliant. I find "going for the gold" and "kathy with a k's song" to be a bit overwrought. Still I probably would've agreed with you prior to Lifted coming out and seeing him pursue similar ideas in a subtler way.

 

wait…cabbage town?! Slowly, To all the lights, Nikorette, & effing Roosevelt Room would like to have a word.

 

Ruminations is boring as fuck, one in his worst. Salutations improves a lot of the tracks though

 

I loved Ruminations, tbh. The pain in those songs is palpable.

 

That's cool and all but it doesn't mean the songs are good haha

 

they are in fact very good

 

completely wrong

 

not gonna bother ranking but lifted is definitely my favorite. think down in the weeds might be second for me

 

Zzzzzzzzz

 

just gonna do bright eyes since dude has a billion other projects and it’s 7:15:

fever and mirrors
digital ash
cassadaga
happiness
lifted
wide awake
down in the weeds
peoples key
collection

 

Lifted, Or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground
-
Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once Was
-
Cassadaga
The People's Key
I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
-
Fevers And Mirrors
Digital Ash In A Digital Urn
Letting Off The Happiness
-
A Collection Of Songs

I love my annual listen of A Christmas Album, but it doesn't belong in the ranking.

 

What do you like about Down in The Weeds... to put it so high? I wish I liked it more.

 

It's just drenched in the magic that makes this band special, from the the little interstitial spoken bits to the way it incorporates different elements from across their discography to make something familiar, but distinct. It does everything I wanted it to, and then some. The arrangements are probably my favorite of any Bright Eyes record (that rhythm section is absurd, and the backing vocals are incredible), and Conor's writing is about as good as it's ever been - wordy and imaginative, but still deeply personal and emotional in a way that only comes from experience. I like the way he balances a lot of really bleak stuff across the record with just enough of that earnest hopefulness he's always had. I think part of why I love it so much is that I was already anticipating it, and then some stuff in my personal life really primed me to be particularly impacted by the record when it finally came out. There are a few songs that I wouldn't put in their top tier (and I still like them, just a little less), but I do a lot of trying to imagine how anyone could just sit down and write something as good as "To Death's Heart (In Three Parts)" or "Stairwell Song" or "Calais To Dover" or "Persona Non Grata," let alone all of those and more of similar quality for the same album. It's probably my second favorite record of the last five years or so, maybe higher in the moments I'm listening to it.