So why is Being Dead’s Eels on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
This is the album that reignited my belief that new music could still melt my brain.
It was 2024, and I felt like a kid again, discovering Nirvana or R.E.M. or Led Zeppelin for the first time.
I first listened to Eels walking my dog, Jack (who, it should be known, is a Good Boy) in my neighborhood in Seattle, and soon had the sensation of not just walking but floating, levitating. It’s the kind of album that comes around once a decade or so that makes colors feel brighter, that makes you feel different, like you’re breathing better air or something.
And Seattle has pretty great air to begin with.
Since its release, Eels absolutely demanded, crooned, beseeched, and wailed to zoom into an elite position in the best 1,000 albums ever, and I was forced to happily comply.
Whenever I listen to the ebullient pop/rock track “Godzilla Rises,” an improbable love letter of sorts to the monster of filmic lore, the emotion I feel is giddy.
Geeking out with the giddiness ‘tis I.
On an intellectual level, I know I’m feeling giddy when my brain races to catch up with the blizzard of influences I’m hearing while in parallel knowing that the amalgamation is (approximately) 900,000% its own thing.
Frank Black, bubblegum pop, The Mamas and the Papas, Pavement.
And that’s not even getting to the hippie-cheese novelty tracks vibes – “Reach Out of the Darkness,” by Friend & Lover, anyone?
Daniel Felsenthal at Pitchfork is smarter than I am at framing Being Dead with wild superlatives like “egg punk” and “cowboy kitsch.” Whatever’s happening, all I can think of is that “it’s all happening,” like that one kid presciently announces in Almost Famous.
Throw it all in the blender and it comes up Eels across the album’s 16 tracks, a collage of sounds and influences that somehow hangs together in a way that is endlessly pleasing.
This is as good a time as any to relay that Being Dead’s band member names are uh… quirky, shall we say: we’ve got Falcon Bitch (Juli Keller) and Shmoofy (who is also known as Gumball and Cody Dosier).
Over time, “Problems” has become my favorite song on Eels. A hippie rock-ish acoustic guitar opens the song, followed by a driving beat with vocals that remind me of Jefferson Airplane or The Byrds. About halfway through, a dreamy, hazy church choir-meets-flower power vibe takes over as Falcon Bitch and Shmoofy’s vocals go next level – it’s simply sublime.
But make no mistake: whenever you think you have Being Dead’s sound nailed, it gets squirrely and shape-shifty and kaleidoscopic multicolor and rain-splattered grunge art punk.
At the same time.
As a music lover, this shit makes me feel alive, people. You feel me?
“Firefighters” would impress Beck circa Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, conjuring Sex Bob-omb from behind the scenes. It hits that kind of threshold.
“Ballerina” is weird funk meets children’s song meets catchy ass pop by way of slacker hipsters who will always be between four and twelve times cooler than you.
And by you, I mean me, of course.
There’s a flavor of ten-gallon hat alt country-meets-1950s pop that’s perhaps ever so slightly drugged out on the insanely obsessive “Rock n’ Roll Hurts” (and dig that organ for days).
Is “Nightvision” dark jangle pop? Bubblegum Frank Black? Who cares, I can’t get enough of it.
“Big Bovine” is groovy future-tone Radiohead dreamy vibes almost too beautiful for the humans.
And by humans, I mean you and me, of course.
And “Blanket of My Bone” is stellar surf rock put through some kind of trippy spin cycle.
Eels is a sonic holodeck gone rogue that I want to live in.
Some stats & info about Being Dead – Eels
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Indie Rock, Indie Pop, Alternative Pop, Garage Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Eels released? 2024
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #65 out of 1,000
Being Dead’s Eels on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Being Dead’s Eels that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Just when you thought you knew someone – guess again because you were wrong.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.