MUSIC REVIEW: Bright Eyes

"FEVERS AND MIRRORS"

Released: May 30, 2000

Label: Saddle Creek

Carolyn: We have to do a Bright Eyes review. Let's have a candid conversation, the three of us, right now.

Laura: Yeah, I'm really liking the cheese I'm hearing. I kind of like this song. Except for when it gets to the chorus. That's when he goes for the fucking baked brie with caramelized onions and pears and shit.

C: Ok. What album do we wanna review?

Alicia: It's gotta be something we all know very well. Brainstorm for 30 seconds.

C: I'm not familiar...

L: You dork.

A: Can we have parenthetical stage directions, like, "all three assume pensive expressions"?

C: Ok.

[Alicia points out a girl in the Retreat who is talking to herself. Carolyn and Laura stare.]

A: I might be getting fro yo in, like, two seconds.

L: Go get your fro yo, and then we'll do it.

[Alicia leaves and eventually comes back.]

A: I used to listen to "Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh" over and over again in high school in study hall, thinking about how much my life sucked and how I hated everything, and I would wonder why, if I was better than everyone else, I had no friends.

L: This is pretty fucking postmodern album art...It sounds like he's fucking sitting on the toilet looking at his fingernails and crying.

A: I wonder if he ever listens to the album on playback and asks the producer to put in more angst.

L: No. He probably listens to the playback and beats off.

C: This is totally alienating the readers. Also, I'm having trouble saying anything witty while I'm typing.

A: You can edit yourself in later.

L: On the subj of alienating the reader, when I was writing my travel story about Steak n Shake, I probably alienated the state of Minnesota.

[Conor Oberst, singing: "And I hang like a star, fucking glow in the dark, for all the starving eyes to see"]

C: By the way, back in high school, my friend had these lyrics in her AIM profile.

L: Omg. Put that in.

A: Didn't everyone? I mean, he has pretty good one-liners.

L: Come on. You guys are over it now, right? Right?

[Silence.]

A: Over what?

L: Cutting yourselves.

A: You mean my undying love for Conor Oberst and my strong conviction that despite all odds we will one day marry?

L: I think I passed the Bright Eyes threshold. I'm too old now.

C: Yeah, it's like Perks of Being a Wallflower.

L: ...Even though I'm at the embracing cheese level, I can't even...