Bright Eyes

Bright Eyes was the first band that got me into the indie music scene. I regard Bright Eyes as my gateway band, it has left me in an endless search for new and better indie music. I have decided to deviate from my normal format of posting which consists of a small introduction of the involved band or artist followed by the review. In this case I will dedicate an entire post to Bright Eyes, containing a biography of the band followed by two more posts, each containing an album review. The two albums for review are "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn" and "Im Wide Awake and Its Morning". These albums are completely different and do not even fall under the same genre but Bright Eyes managed to release them both on exactly the same date. This is one of the reasons that I have decided to do the triple post and the other reason is my immense love and respect for Bright Eyes. I really hope you enjoy this.

Bright Eyes is an American indie band consisting of three official and permanent members namely Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. Although these are the only three consistent members of Bright Eyes, more than fifty artists have featured on their several albums. Bright Eyes started in 1995 when Conor Oberst was only 15 years old. Their music is hard to categorise under a single genre but it ranges anywhere from experimental indie rock to electronic folk. In 1998 Bright Eyes released their first album "A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997", the album received mostly negative reviews with critics referring to the music as "unintelligent babbling" and "fragile". This however did not faze Bright Eyes, only a couple of months later Bright Eyes released the album "Letting Off the Happiness". Although this album did not reap enormous commercial success, it did manage to establish Bright Eyes as a force to be reckoned with in the indie music scene. The third studio album from Bright Eyes, "Fevers and Mirrors", which was released in 2000, managed to make in to number 170 of Pitch Fork Medias, top 200 albums of the decade. Bright Eyes is known for their "emo" lyrics and a lot of the songs tells stories about love, alcohol, pain, sex and life in general. It has been said that singer/ songwriter Conor Oberst writes a lot of his music based on his own life experiences. In total Bright Eyes have released seven full length studio albums and a couple of EP's. Conor Oberst has gone on to work on his solo projects namely Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band. Conor has also stated that Bright Eyes will release their swan song album in 2010 before retiring Bright Eyes for good, about this he said "It does feel like it needs to stop at some point. I'd like to clean it up, lock the door, say goodbye."

For the music, albums and music videos see the "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn" and the "I'm Wide Awake and its Morning" posts.