Tynan's Anger

SONGS OF THE DECADE #67

[For more info, read the Ground Rules of The Song of The Decade List]

Eels - Souljacker Part I (2001)




Like most art that was released the week of 9/11, Eels' "Souljacker Part I" was a victim of bad timing. Most famously in music, this meant the Strokes couldn't release "New York City Cops" off their debut album. But of all the bands hurt by 9/11, Eels may be the most tragic, because their failure to succeed in the U.S., exactly reflects the failures in American politics after 9/11, the ability to understand anything resembling nuance.

Eels, like the Strokes, White Stripes, The Vines all revived the garage rock motifs inherent in punk with an added cocksure that typified its decadent time. Unlike those bands, however, The Eels's had been working to that route since the early 90s, largely under the limelight of more popular and critically beloved bands, despite having the kind of continued chart success most bands of the last 20 years would kill for.

Of course, after 9/11, everyone was declaring irony dead, an idea that would last all of six months. That window was still large enough to reduce Eels to a lark in the U.S, while, predictably, he was yet another Yank to be received with more open arms in the U.K.

Why do the British like someone like Mark Everett more than Americans? For starters, Eels represent all the good sides of British invasion rock (intelligence, nuance, swagger) without any more of the bad parts (classicism, gossip obsession, uncalled-for rudeness) than any of the bands that got big in the U.S. for the same reasons.

Labels: 2000s, eels, lists, pop music, songs of the decade, souljacker part i