What the Caked Crusader chose to bake to this week (10 Nov 2007)

There are certain artistes who naturally come to the top of the listening pile at particular times of the year. It is a bleak, grey day as I type – autumn is on the cusp of becoming winter. It’s only 2.30pm yet I need to put lights on to see what I’m doing clearly. In other words, the perfect environment for listening to the oeuvre of Eels.

I always think of E (never sure whether to call him the front man when he’s the only member of Eels!) as America’s Morrissey but perhaps, whisper it softly, better (eek! I can hear The Smiths’s fans frothing at the mouth!). Both write songs that walk a little on the dark side of human emotion and foible but both always tinge their work with inky black humour that many miss and therefore dismiss as depressing.

Eels have released six studio albums now and not one a dud. You’d think there’d be a dip in quality at some point but it’s never happened. For me though it is Electro-Shock Blues that is the essential purchase. I admit that this probably isn’t a sentence that’s typed every day but – the Wikipedia link I have provided is a very succinct and elegant summary of why the album is so special and why the emotions in it have such sincerity. In short, the album is a masterpiece and possibly the greatest album of recent times.

Plus, if you look hard enough, Eels occasionally have baking references - there is a line in “That’s not really funny” that goes: ‘you bake delicious pie and that’s enough for me’.
Good man E! He’s got his priorities right.