Track This: Eel's "Not Ready Yet"
When I was in High School, I was addicted to the Eels. Their combination of maudlin lyrics and E's world weary vocals really touched me. I fell in even deeper when Mark Oliver Everett slowed back down and started making records that were more similar to his first solo records, A Man Called E and Broken Toy Shop . But there was something about that first album; it rocked, while speaking particularly to my teenage frame of mind. I wanted to hide in my room all the time, cranking music that mirrored my angst. When I feel this way now, I just put Beautiful Freak on and hide for a few hours, even though my head is in a much better place. The album asks for, but also acts as shelter against the arrows and slings of the outside world. Its loud moments are always tempered by slower sections, where E sings his heart out in a primal call to arms. In "Not Ready Yet," E sings, "If I leave my room, don't you tell me to lighten up / Maybe sometime sooner or later / But I ...