Dreamworks
2003
Shootenanny!
About This Album
Of the legions of artists and characters to emerge in the great alt-rock explosion of the '90s, the man called E is one of the oddest, partially because he's etched a career that is both doggedly obstinate and strangely predictable. Throughout his career, E has followed his muse wherever it takes him -- it just happens to take him to places that seem familiar. Just as the alt-rock circus kicked off in 1992, he released A Man Called (E) to little more than power pop acclaim, but once he formed an ad-hoc band called the Eels in 1996, he gained a hit with "Novocaine for the Soul" and earned a cult following that he sustained into the 21st century when, once again, he was a one-man band, only this time retaining the commercial cache (or at least recognition) that came with the Eels' name. His 2003 effort, Shootenanny!, is the first where he doesn't make much of a pretense of this being a band affair -- the notes say it's "performed by Mark Oliver Everett (you can call him 'E')" -- and it does not seem like a coincidence that it's also his best album since his dark night of the soul, 1998's Electro-Shock Blues. In many ways, it's a lot more listenable, since the doom that hangs over that album makes it a little impenetrable.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9 and 11)

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