Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

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...

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 ...