Bright Eyes
I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
(Saddle Creek, 2005)

A few years back, Conor Oberst dropped two albums in the same week under his Bright Eyes moniker: I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash for a Digital Urn. The former was an alt-country, singer-songwriter album and the latter was an electronic pop experiment. I’m Wide Awake reigned in the glowing reviews while the critics threw a mixed bag at Digital Ash. And then there was Stephen Thomas Erlewine (esteemed editor of All Music Guide) who lashed out with a shitstorm of vitriol, condemning Oberst for being lauded by critics as the next Dylan. Erlewine called Oberst a poseur, a hack, and something along the lines of a perpetual adolescent. We shouldn’t be so quick to fellate nor condemn anyone for making a solid album, but in the thick of the critical weather patterns worked up by the media it sometimes gets hard to see things as they really are. So Erlewine and salivating critics, we forgive you for your outbursts.

Admittedly, at the time, I, too, was a little fed up with all of the Bright Eyes hype, but as I drove across the United States during that summer of 2005 with I’m Wide Awake on my stereo, the collection of songs revealed itself as a standup little alt-country record. It wasn’t anything too spectacular but certainly not crappy: It was just a cool record to spin as the hills of Indiana bled into the backdrop of Ohio.

Three years down the road, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning still sounds fairly solid. Even more so, it now sounds effortless, as if Oberst rolled into the studio with his band and just had a swell time laying down these tracks. As much as we can say about musicians unveiling their masterpieces, there’s also something to be said about those middle albums that fill out a discography, that, while not being as groundbreaking, are essential parts in understanding an artist, warts and all.

The record opens with Oberst’s affected doomsday narrative. Speaking into a room mic, he tells the story of a woman coming to terms with her fate on a crashing airplane. As the plane nears its demise, Oberst starts to rapidly strum his guitar and the band comes crashing in, waking us up with “At the Bottom of Everything.” Yes, Oberst’s spoken word intro is a performance, a little bit of his tongue in our cheeks with that melodramatic delivery, but this is a Bright Eyes album, and if you didn’t expect to get some quirky, over-serious middle school antics, then you’ve missed the entire point.

It only takes a couple of songs for the band to lay down the entire blueprint for the record: Prominently strummed acoustic guitars, Oberst’s fragile, quivering voice backed with sweet harmonies contributed by Emmylou Harris and Maria Taylor, the obligatory pedal steel, straight-ahead organ, and a rhythm section that knows to keep things moving while staying in its place. Throughout the record, the band effectively slows it down for the ballads—the lovely “We Are Nowhere and It’s Now”—and revs things up for the rockers—the rollicking “Another Traveling Song.” There are even a few unexpected regal moments like the mid-song horns on “Landlocked Blues”, an arrangement that reminds us that with all these folks positing Oberst as the next Dylan, Springsteen, or whatever the kid himself might have someone more like Jeff Mangum on his mind.

And then there’s the chaotic closer, “Road to Joy”, an endearing romp with Oberst pushing his bandmates to the punky extremes of their alt-country boundaries. Erlewine chastised Bright Eyes for not giving Beethoven credit for the stolen riff on “Road to Joy” (“Ode to Joy”—duh). Dude, that shit was nearly 200 years ago. Furthermore, no one cares about the credit: This isn’t a bunch of white rockers ripping off black blues musicians as another form of racist oppression, it’s Conor Oberst having a rave-up in the studio and it sounds like fun!

But this also isn’t between me and Erlewine, it’s between you and Bright Eyes and realizing that on a lazy afternoon or a long road trip, there’s a good place for I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and it’s in your CD or mp3 player. It’s not Bright Eyes’ most daring moment, but it’s a consistent and worthy listen, slow and intimate at times but never utterly innocuous. Get out of the house, get into your car, and give it a spin.

Watch: “First Day of My Life“  [at youtube.com]

Read more by Andre Perry:

Burn the Neon Bible

David Bowie: Young Americans

Interpol’s Antics