Reviewing: Conor Oberst on Conor Oberst

Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst
Merge Records

“Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life.”
-Arthur Rimbaud

We listen to Conor Oberst's first official solo release (as if all of his work, excepting Desparecidos, isn't solo), and we wonder, Conor, we wonder. For those of you who did once or still do care enough to consider yourselves his fans, we wonder, why? Perhaps we can understand an affinity for bleeding hearts and awkwardness, of wanting to see others set fire to their forests so that you won't have to, and perhaps we can even understand the inestimable praise of very estimable talent in the context of the hype driven contemporary music scene.



What we do not understand is why his reputation more or less continues to rise, while his material continues to decline farther into solipsism, wrapped in sheets of melodrama fronted by a ragged faux country facade. You can extend your lyrical scope to subjects that aren't exactly yourself, but we recognize the thinly veiled pleading for understanding from your past records. We will say it right now, and very clearly, because this seemingly simple concept is so frequently misunderstood that musicians (not artists) like Oberst have successful careers:

Art is not strictly about the artist. Art is about the power, and the darkness and beauty that an individual can discover and create within the world. It is not about pity, and it is not cheap fear of the self.

So you're "Souled Out" Conor? Is "NYC Gone Gone"? You say "I Don't Want To Die"? You need some "Get Well Cards", Conor, because you feel so much like "An Eagle On A Pole"? There is an initial temptation to go easy on such a fragile personality, in pity, but if the totality of reaction to a piece of work is pity, then conversely it should deserve none.