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Omaha, Nebraska singer/songwriter
Conor Oberst was just a teenager when he started using the moniker
Bright Eyes for his dark and tortured solo songs. The project grew from its homespun roots in the mid-'90s to one of the more popular icons of sad indie music of its era.
Oberst's quivery-voiced songs were backed by a rotating lineup of musicians, but
Bright Eyes eventually gelled into an official trio of
Oberst and multi-instrumentalists
Mike Mogis and
Nate Walcott.
Bright Eyes' albums throughout the 2000s (all issued on
Oberst's indie imprint Saddle Creek) were some of their best-loved and best-performing, with releases like 2005's
Digital Ash in a Digital Urn turning the tides of indie culture as well as cracking the Billboard charts. In 2020, after a nine-year hiatus,
Bright Eyes announced they had signed with Dead Oceans for the release of their ninth studio album
Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was.
The roots of
Bright Eyes reach back to 1994, when at just 14 years old,
Oberst was attracting regional attention as the singer and guitarist for Omaha band
Commander Venus. A prolific songwriter, he soon amassed a number of songs that didn't gel with the rest of
Commander Venus' catalog, 20 of which were compiled and released in 1998 as
A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997, a solo record that doubled as
Oberst's first release under the
Bright Eyes moniker.
Letting Off the Happiness followed several months later, featuring contributions from members of
Neutral Milk Hotel,
Of Montreal, and
Tilly and the Wall. The album also marked the first collaboration between
Oberst and producer/instrumentalist
Mike Mogis, who would play an integral role in
Bright Eyes' success going forward.
As
Conor Oberst graduated from teenaged life to adulthood, his productivity increased.
Bright Eyes' third release,
Every Day and Every Night, appeared in 1999, followed by
Fevers and Mirrors in 2000 and Oh Holy Fools in 2001. The
Bright Eyes sound had expanded by this point, with
Oberst finding room for flute, piano, and accordion in the band's music. The frontman also found room to pursue alternate projects, and he dedicated some time to
Desaparecidos before returning to the studio with
Mike Mogis in 2002.
Lifted or the Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground was released that summer and proved to be
Bright Eyes' breakthrough album, with Rolling Stone deeming it one of the year's best.
Bright Eyes released several EPs in 2004 -- including Home, Vol. 4, a collaboration with
Spoon's
Britt Daniel -- and rang in the following year with a pair of albums released on the same day:
I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (whose accompanying tour produced the
Motion Sickness: Live Recordings disc) and the electronic-slanted
Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, both of which cracked the Top 20 in America. Hailed by some critics as the next
Dylan,
Oberst supported the releases with a round of festival appearances and international shows before returning to the studio once more. Recorded in L.A., Chicago, New York, Omaha, and Portland, the follow-up effort
Cassadaga was released in the spring of 2007, preceded by the Four Winds EP earlier that spring. Both releases featured full instrumentation -- including pedal steel, Dobro, xylophone, and orchestral swells -- making them some of
Bright Eyes' most developed works up to that point.
Cassadaga debuted at number four in America and number 13 in the U.K., marking
Bright Eyes' highest peak on either chart. Even so,
Oberst followed such success by decamping to rural Mexico to work on his first solo effort in years. Recorded in a makeshift studio with a cast of musicians dubbed
the Mystic Valley Band,
Conor Oberst arrived in 2008. The project soon evolved from a solo effort into a full-band affair, and
the Mystic Valley Band returned in 2009 with
Outer South, an album that included songs written and sung by several of
Oberst's bandmates.
Bright Eyes returned in 2011 with
People's Key, which was recorded in Omaha and produced by
Mogis and
Andy LeMaster. In 2013,
A Christmas Album, which had originally been quietly issued in 2002 as a Saddle Creek online-store exclusive, was finally scheduled for its first full commercial release. This unique holiday album featured a selection of Christmas standards performed in
Bright Eyes' trademark bittersweet style, with help from a plethora of other Saddle Creek artists including members of
Cursive,
Desaparecidos,
Neva Dinova, and
Azure Ray. In October 2016,
Bright Eyes received the box set treatment with the aptly named Studio Albums 2000-2011, which featured remastered versions of all of the group's LPs up to 2011's
The People’s Key. This was leading slowly to the band's emergence from their dormant state. In January of 2020,
Bright Eyes announced they had signed to indie imprint Dead Oceans for the release of their ninth album,
Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was, and began sharing new songs in advance of the record's release. The album arrived in August of the same year. That October, the band released new song "Miracle of Life" as a benefit for Planned Parenthood. The song was a collaboration with
Phoebe Bridgers, with whom
Oberst had been working with closely both in cameos on her tracks and with their band Better Oblivion Community Center. In 2021
Bright Eyes released a cover of Vic Chestnutt's "Flirted With You All My Life." In 2022, the band announced they would be re-issuing their first nine studio albums with new label Dead Oceans. Along with each reissue, the band released an accompanying EP with re-recorded versions of songs from the corresponding album and various unreleased cover songs. The Companion Series began with three EPs released in May of 2022, one for each of the first three
Bright Eyes albums;
A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997,
Letting Off the Happiness, and
Fevers and Mirrors. Several tracks from these EPs were shared in advance of their release, including new versions of early
Bright Eyes tracks "Contrast and Compare" with guest vocals from
Waxahatchee's
Katie Crutchfield, "Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh" with
Bridgers, and a cover of
Elliott Smith's "St. Ides Heaven." ~ Andrew Leahey