On Conor Oberst, teen angst and growing older

Between constant plays of the great new Laura Marling album and finding this interesting bit of worthy  navel-gazing by Salon's Judy Berman on loving and leaving Conor Oberst fandom, I've been thinking about the music of 18-year-olds lately. That's the beginning of that sweet spot of post-high school wanderlust where you're old enough to understand your taste and listen widely, but still malleable and sensitive enough to get your mind blown. I've often wondered if the music you fall for between 18 and 22 is hard-wired to be the only music you really love in that insane, possessive, identity-crafting way for the rest of your life. Do we lose our capacity to be devastated by art as adults? What does it mean when you stop listening to the songs that sent ice up your spine at that age -- does that make your youthful music lust irrelevant today, or is all art meant to have a time and place you're supposed to grow out of?   

The English author Lavinia Greenlaw explores all this with much more grace, eloquence and insight than I ever could muster in her exquisite book "The Importance of Music to Girls." Like Berman, I had my own intense infatuation with Oberst's music around the same age she seems to be talking about. I can hear the collective groan going up across Soundboard headquarters right now, but yes, I had a few dozen long nights of the soul, pulling from a flask of bad scotch and wandering the empty streets of my southern college town with Fevers & Mirrors on my iPod. I'd make laps from one end of downtown to the other, kicking lampposts and checking if the lights were still on in my ex-girlfriend's apartment, until I'd black out on a park basketball court or somewhere similarly poignant. If you're familiar with the record, it was all quite apropos.

But the interesting thing that Berman didn't quite follow up on isn't on how much Oberst's music has changed since Fevers -- it's how she might have changed since then. You can make a convincing argument that Oberst was more "authentic" before he took on more traditional folk imagery (one I'd personally disagree with), but I posit that the problem isn't Oberst's changing aesthetics, but that one's brain chemistry is aching for powerful impressions at that age, and Oberst's severe, intense charisma could leave a profound one on a sad-eyed post-adolescent.

There's something to the particular reverb on the vibraphone that Bright Eyes' producer Mike Mogis put on "Haligh, Haligh," coupled with the feral, shivery way Oberst chews through even pleasant lyrics about getting dressed for school, that's like a dog whistle to those fresh out of one's parents' house. That may also explain the hate Oberst got from older and ostensibly more tasteful audiences: like Phil Spector's, Oberst's early music is written for the teenage ear (in this case, also his own), and all the flailing and screaming over something menial like an ex seeing another dude may not be necessarily meant for demographically wide consumption. But at that time, it feels accurate to those in the thick of it, and that's what may be more important and potent about it.

Then came "Lifted," the beginning of Oberst's climb into articulate, nuanced and certainly superior songwriting. I've really enjoyed a lot of Oberst's music after that, even the much-maligned "Digital Ash" album, but nothing since "Fevers" has moved me to such histrionics. But then again, nothing else in my life seems to either. Nick Hornby once wrote an essay about not liking Suicide anymore because the world turned out to be scarier than "Frankie Teardrop," but I don't think that's it -- some part of me is still craving music that gets me to that place, even if it's all just rooted in teenage hysterics and amateur booze-hounding. Those years are sort of the last time in your life you're allowed to openly need guidance about how to process vague and enormous adult emotions. I guess the tragedy and complexity of maturing is that eventually you're supposed to have it somewhat figured out, even if you don't.

That might be why there's still "Breakfast with the Beatles" or Dinosaur Jr. tours happening in 2008. People need to be reminded that they're allowed to be confused and frightened and in need of signposts to navigate emotions, and there's a kind of reassurance in a favorite song from that age. But I don't know why it seems to be so hard to find new examples of that after one's early-20s. At some point, you can understand an album as "powerful" without killing a handle of Jameson in alms to it. I turned 25 last week, so I suppose it's too soon to tell. I find myself mostly listening to both experimental electronica and gigantic mainstream radio-pop these days, which I guess is a blunt metaphor for this changing of needs. Eventually, you come to want subtlety, maturity and capability in music (especially after sharing a bed with someone in the throes of early-Oberstian melodrama). But we also search for reminders that profound emotions are valid and imperative without having to process them again firsthand. Music necessarily becomes externalized, a reflection of culture rather than of yourself.

I met Oberst once at the El Rey. I was interviewing him for a magazine and we talked in an alley behind the theater right before "Cassadaga" came out. He was incredibly friendly and thoughtful in his answers, and seeing those famously dewy eyes up close reminded me of how, seven years ago, I craved the wild, extravagant intensity of those songs in my own emotional life. I saw myself in them. I don't anymore, and I don't think he does either. I haven't listened to Bright Eyes in probably a year, and I don't feel a huge need to buy his new solo album even though I know it's probably great. And even though my critic-lizard brain knows that Fevers is cloying, it still sounds spectacular to me. I fully suspect that the theremin swell on the second chorus of "The Calendar Hung Itself" will make my hair stand a bit for the rest of my life, and that reminds me that those songs did their job. They carried me into whatever sliver of adulthood I'm standing in now. I guess the best compliment I can pay them is that I don't need them anymore.

-- August Brown

Oberst photo by Ben Devries / Associated Press

Comments

[Charlie Marling]

What a wonderful intelligent piece of writing. Slivers of adulthood - indeed.
The similarity of name to that in your first line is not a coincidence. I fully intend to get her a copy of the Lavinia Greenlaw book, which sounds as if it will inspire much in the thinking of music by 18 year olds. I'd better listen to Ole Bright Eyes too.

[karissa]

I could not have explained this better myself. I have noticed a change from his angst ridden music to the more upbeat tunes of recent. Although I know his older songs are overdramatic and wastefully emotional, I still love them completely because I grew up on them and could relate to them back then...that won't change.

[Laura]

What a great article! One thought that occurred to me while reading this is that I feel as if I have grown and matured along with Bright Eyes. I've grown up, my tastes have changed, and the "important things" in my life have shifted. I see these changes in Bright Eyes albums and Conor's lyrics. As a result, I appreciate their music even more now.

[tommyt]

I'm um, like 25 years old than you 25-year-olds, so what Oberst's music means to me is clearly different to me than to you.

But what he does well - way back and now - is articulate who he is at any point in time. That's what I've come to value about art - any art - at this point in my life. We're watching/listening to a talented guy grow up, and one doesn't have to be young to be knocked out at times by his perceptions of that process.

Music has one function for teens as they go tackle life's challenges - they use it to define who they are; to ponder the questions and qualities of the world around them; to share their fears and insights with their peers.

But believe me - and I've had headphones on since they were invented - music doesn't have to fade as its meaning changes, nor do musicians have to fade as what they mean to say changes.

It may be that the artists that a generation produces as it comes of age are condemned to rejection by those who once embraced them - just as our first loves and early philosphical battles tend to fade in importance.

But please, be kind to those artists as they - like you - struggle to remain artists as they age and grow. Oberst, like August Brown, probably isn't so keen on the songs the once made Bright Eyes so important.

And he probably can figure out why - just like Brown.

Me, I wish the Beatles could've stayed together for another album or two. Instead, I moved on to a mature Marvin Gaye, to Bowie, to the Pistons, the Clash, the Smiths, Public Enemy, Dre, and so on.

Music's like that, because we're like that.

Listen; for all of our sake, be kind to Oberst. He's just in his 20s, he's given us all so much, and he's got so much more to give. When he - and you - were 18, you didn't think you'd live until you were 30. You will, and if you loved music then, and you love music now, you'll love it when you're 30, 40 and beyond. Maybe you won't love Bright Eyes, but chances are Oberst will be around trying to make sense of life. We need artists like that - even if we come to define our own paths as being different from his.

[sarah]

I'm around Conor's age (a tad bit older) and am also a musician. I believe that Conor needs to grow and change, as do all people. It would be tragic for him to continue to churn out the same teen heartbreak and angst 14 albums in a row. My opinion is that Conor has gotten better and better over the years. Cassadaga breaks my heart everytime I hear it! He is a phenomenal musician and lyricist. I just want to hear him do his thing. Whatever that may be. It's his journey, I'm just glad we all get to hear it!

Regarding, "Do we lose our capacity to be devastated by art as adults?" I really hope you don't, that would be a very sad thing. And I'm sure lots of people who don't keep up with the arts or who don't really involve themselves in music won't experience any great emotional swells; however, I think most people I know have occasion to be "devastated" by art, but it's not the same as when you're 18 - I mean geez there are a lot of hormones flying around at 18.

[john]

"Those years are sort of the last time in your life you're allowed to openly need guidance about how to process vague and enormous adult emotions." --

that sentence pretty much sums up this blog post for me. august brown, you gotta get back in touch with yourself, man. the music that has touched you the most in life and helped guide you in times of trouble, you now shun b/c of your occupation as a music writer? b/c you think you should know better than to like it? seriously, do yourself a favor, put on FEVERS (which you haven't listened to in a year??), look at some old pictures of your ex, and drink some bad scotch. wallow and maybe, just maybe, shed some tears.

you don't need to be immature or post-adolescent to love the early bright eyes, you just have to be able to own your own emo. it's still the most poignant stuff that conor's written--although the subtle and not-so-subtle anti-war of I'M WIDE AWAKE IT'S MORNING was pretty moving.