Bright Eyes formally ended an eight-year hiatus with 2020's Down In the Weeds, Where the World Once Was, the band's most grandiose, orchestrated album yet. On this episode, we cover the tribulations that led up to the band's reformation, expanding the Bright Eyes fold with players like Flea and Jon Theodore, and how processing tragedy informs this group of songs.

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NF056

After a busy few years of solo albums and collaborations, Conor Oberst and his bandmates reconvened for The People's Key. We explore the album's new sonic adventures, its connections to science fiction and Rastafari, and its place as the intended (or maybe not) Bright Eyes swan song.

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This week we're retracing our steps all the way to Cassadaga, the follow up to I'm Wide Awake and Digital Ash and another fascinating evolution of the Bright Eyes sound. We cover our favorite lyrics, themes of mysticism and the search for contentment, and the album's critical reception. We went long on this one because Cassadaga is a truly rich text. Also: A brief digression on The Masked Magician.

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NF054

We're back with the other 2005 Bright Eyes album (or maybe the 2005 Bright Eyes album, depending on which side of the band you prefer), Digital Ash In a Digital Urn. We get into our differing experiences with the album over the years, unpack the overarching themes of time, destiny, and death, and heap much deserving praise on Mike Mogis's production work.

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NF053

On I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, one of two albums released on the same day in 2005, Bright Eyes put their folk influences front and center. We get into our history with this beloved record, the themes of renewal and rebirth, New York City, and the band's most enduring hit, "First Day of My Life."

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NF052

Our Bright Eyes series continues with Lifted or The Story Is In the Soil, Keep Your Ear To the Ground, the album catapulted Conor Oberst to stardom. We get into the album's grand ambitions, resonant themes, and explore another era of B-sides and EPs.

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NF051

It's our 50th episode! We're not doing anything particularly special to celebrate, just continuing our Bright Eyes series with Fevers and Mirrors, the last album before the band found its way to the mainstream. We break down the recurring imagery, the infamous, surreal fake interview, and dip into the EPs and bonus tracks from this remarkably prolific era of Conor Oberst's career.

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Our Bright Eyes series continues with the first canonical Bright Eyes album (or is it?). We explore Conor's growth as a songwriter on Letting Off the Happiness, the contributions of producer Mike Mogis, and a slew of B-sides and EPs from this era.

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NF049

It's fall, which means it's time to break out the acoustic guitar and get emotional with us as we go through the Bright Eyes discography. In this episode, we recount our personal histories with the midwestern emo/folk legends, touch on Conor Oberst's pre-Bright Eyes work, and break down the group's somewhat haphazard first album, A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997.

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NF048

It's time for a palate cleanser between series, so we're talking about one of the biggest one-album wonders of the pop punk scene: Box Car Racer. We get into the dynamics in Blink-182 and Tom Delonge's life that led to this side project, how 9/11 and existential angst informed the songs, and how the album holds up over two decades later.

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