Writing, recording, and releasing the "emo opus." Selling roughly around 175,000 units of that opus. Playing on late-night talk shows while maintaing indie-label status. Being courted by every major under the sun and being able to turn them down non-chalantly. Making out with Winona Ryder. These are just a few of the things that would have happened to you in the past 2 years if your name were Conor Oberst.
What do you do after writing such a highly acclaimed record though? Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground has done nothing short of defining a generation of little emo-rockers. You see it everywhere. Kids playing shows with just an acoustic guitar and their heart on their sleeve, crooning about love loss, love found, and love lost again. Conor has to be feeling the pressure to follow up such a record with something even more magnificent. He is placing two bets this time around, by releasing two full lengths at the same time. With the release of Lua and Take It Easy (Love Nothing) he is trying to get some feelers out for the singles of the two LPs.
"Lua" is the single for the more folk-oriented LP, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning and probably the best track out of both singles, b-sides included. A solo effort, Conor finds himself alone with his guitar and his voice on this track. Hearing this, it sounds like a continuation of Lifted..., lulling you into a false sense of security thinking that his new stuff might be just as good. "Well Whiskey" will confuse you quite a bit though. Sure it has a similarity to the last track on Lifted but, didn't he move FROM Omaha TO New York? While the more My Morning Jacket-esque songs aren't bad for Bright Eyes, this one just seems to be pretty boring altogether. The single doesn't close well at all either. The ending track "True Blue" is one of the most contrived works I think Conor has ever put together.
Rumors were thrown around quite a bit about how the second Postal Service full length would feature Conor on vocals as opposed to Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie fame. Now that Conor is putting out an electronic type album himself, and with the ridiculous success of The Postal Service's formula how it stands, it seems those rumors will never see the light of day.
"Take It Easy (Love Nothing)" is the single from Conor's electronic debut, Digital Ash In a Digital Urn. In all honesty, I have to say, Jimmy Tamborello was probably pretty smart in keeping Gibbard at his side as it seems that Conor's vocals seem to clash terribly with this type of music. Where you'd hope it'd sound more along the lines of "Love I Don't Have to Love" from Lifted..., it is more in your face and more scatterbrained than anything he has put out. The backing music drastically lacks and I can't find much that is redeeming about it at all. The last track of the single is an instrumental song that finds itself going nowhere and doesn't help argue the point of Conor's musicianship when it comes to electronics.
All in all, these singles didn't leave much in terms of hope when it comes to the upcoming full length records he plans to release. While yes, the singles themselves were infinitely better than the b-sides and a whole Bright Eyes album is always better than the parts that make it up, the time spent on the electronic songs might have been better spent on writing a double disc folk effort.
