2008 Woodie Awards
Bright Eyes at Town Hall
Welcome to My Generation
Mordechai Shinefeld
Issue date: 2/15/05 Section: Arts & Culture
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What can be said about Bright Eyes that hasn't been said in countless newspapers, magazines and other sources of cultural hype? He is young and prolific; a combination that immediately brings to mind other singer/songwriters of great popularity (read: Bob Dylan). He is loved and adored by his fans, almost to a point of creepiness. I wasn't counting, but a number of fans announced their love for Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes himself) loudly between songs. He is conscious of himself and his music, writes lyrics of a personal and political nature, and has been compared to musicians like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon. A number of people are already speculating that "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning," is the greatest album of 2005 (already!), and one periodical, with a particularly large amout of Conor-Worship, said it may be the best Folk album ever.
Trying to praise "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" without falling into the pit of cynical detachment or gushing subjective praise is very difficult. Instead, I'll describe what the album, and subsequently the concert in Town Hall means to me personally as an avid (read: obsessive) music fan.
As a child, feet bouncing back and forth over my car seat, traveling with my parents on errands, I was exposed to many classic rock bands. My mother compulsively played Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and The Rolling Stones, and my father loved Bob Dylan. Growing up, I was in love with my parent's music and we had a shared taste that transcended cultural lines.
Nonetheless, it was always clear to me that Dylan belonged to my parents and not to me. I had, to coin a phrase, culture-envy, and hoped for the day that my peers and I would, as a generational force, pick an artist to be our voice. I was too young for Kurt Cobain and soon I began to despair of ever having the opportunity to say definitively that a certain individual was the "voice of my generation." Fleetwood Mac may have cautioned: "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow," but it seemed that music would forever be fractured into groups of people who refused to agree on quality. (This all may have hinged upon a widespread fallacy that a large group of people ever had agreed on a particular artist, but certainly in hindsight it would appear to be more that the case in the past.)
Trying to praise "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" without falling into the pit of cynical detachment or gushing subjective praise is very difficult. Instead, I'll describe what the album, and subsequently the concert in Town Hall means to me personally as an avid (read: obsessive) music fan.
As a child, feet bouncing back and forth over my car seat, traveling with my parents on errands, I was exposed to many classic rock bands. My mother compulsively played Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and The Rolling Stones, and my father loved Bob Dylan. Growing up, I was in love with my parent's music and we had a shared taste that transcended cultural lines.
Nonetheless, it was always clear to me that Dylan belonged to my parents and not to me. I had, to coin a phrase, culture-envy, and hoped for the day that my peers and I would, as a generational force, pick an artist to be our voice. I was too young for Kurt Cobain and soon I began to despair of ever having the opportunity to say definitively that a certain individual was the "voice of my generation." Fleetwood Mac may have cautioned: "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow," but it seemed that music would forever be fractured into groups of people who refused to agree on quality. (This all may have hinged upon a widespread fallacy that a large group of people ever had agreed on a particular artist, but certainly in hindsight it would appear to be more that the case in the past.)