Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

Kathleen Edwards's new album Total Freedom (Dualtone) is her first album in eight years, but she has not missed a beat. Her songwriting is still warm, evocative, and thoughtful. Wry observations about relationships, character studies, and songs about death and aging set a familiar tone for an album that is realistic yet positive despite the darker subject matter. Not as complex as Voyageur , my favorite record of 2012, it is still a strong contender for my best record list of 2020.  The first single "Options Open" is one of her best both lyrically and musically and capturing doubts similar to those that led her to stop making music and open up her coffee shop, Quitters. The song is both optimistic and realistic and could be as much about career changes as relationships. She sings, "There were some things behind me / An open door I did not close when I was lonely / But I swore I wouldn't go near you with a ten-foot pole / It's not my fault that I wasn't...

Before Mark Oliver Everett started the Eels, he released two albums under his moniker E on Polydor records: 1992's  A Man Called E and 1993's  Broken Toy Shop . Both are long out of print, and this is a shame because they both reach the level of excellence of his later work in the Eels.  Both albums are chock full of E's wry sense of humor and penchant for self-deprecation. They also look ahead to his love of peculiar instrumentation and experimentation with programming. One quick takeaway is that E loves glockenspiel, melodica, and accordion. He plays many of the instruments on these records himself, building an atmosphere of longing and regret amidst a foundation of catchy melodies. However, the records do feel more traditional and warmer than most of the Eels catalog.  A Man Called E quickly prepares the listener for E's worldview with a pair of songs that privilege his outsider status ("Hello Cruel World," "Fitting in with the Misfits") while ack...