Talking about the cultural impact of indie rock feels much stranger than retracing the musical heritage of prior generations. Boomers created an entire catalogue of mythology that erased a large quantity of less fashionable artists to focus on icons that instilled quasi-religious worship. Generation X inverted their imagery, focusing on anti-authoritarian figures, whose rejection of institutions included rejecting the idea of creation myth. While they seem polar opposites, both embraced notions of a counter-cultural upheaval: the music and their creators stood for something, making their act a political statement of defiance. If you listened to Bowie or Cobain, the Stones or N.W.A., you took a position that was at times uncomfortable and at odds with your parents, the media or any other figure with authority.
This explains why, in the end, Gen X failed in their quest: Cobain’s posters hung in any random jock’s dorm post-mortem, while rap projects were sold to the highest bidding label owners. Boomer icons died of sudden drug overdoses under strange circumstances, while Gen X saw their idols slowly succumb to mental health struggles, isolation and carelessness. So they all ended up in the same, big book of rock mythology – united in one book of old and new testament, that seemed already shut when it was still being written.
Bereft of any truly innovative conquest, Millennials then looked to catch up by simply retracing the lines of their forefathers – cue the first wave of indie, which aimed to recapture the imagery of 20th century excess, with the sweeping referential subconscious taking in anything from The Velvet Underground to Joy Division. Spoiler: few of that stuck, and even fewer managed to stick around. As euphoric as many of these albums were, they also proved a little hollow in terms of revolutionary gestures. At best, they were urban reflections on micro-aggressions.
Which is why Conor Oberst stands out among his peers. A wunderkind, the shy Nebraskan introvert united within him the lyrical density of Bob Dylan with the broken aura of Elliott Smith. His post-catholic reframing of adolescent emo gestures into folk hymns opened up a perspective both teenagers and Boomers could connect with. Incredibly well spoken, deeply romantic and with an ungodly sense for melodic compositions, he quickly created an entire canon of autobiographical, symbolist writing, chronicling teenage heartbreak, abusive cycles within families and the conservative politics of the Bush Jr. administration. He could spin deeply complex emotional situations into two simple lines, but he couldn’t perform on a stage without the help of the bottle; drunk, eyes closed, brow hidden under a hoodie. “This is the first day of my life / I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you.”
Oberst was one of the few who Millennial musicians who lived up to the standard Boomers applied to their icons and Gen X demanded to acknowledge authenticity. And just as Bright Eyes – which he helmed alongside Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott – reached a peak, indie rock itself was unceremoniously declared dead. Hiatuses, side-projects, solo ventures followed – some of them even really good (2016’s Ruminations is a stone cold masterpiece) – but the public gaze only really card for Oberst whenever some drama would trickle down onto the timeline. A Bright Eyes ‘reunion’ (really an end of an extended hiatus) came and went with the lockdown, fizzling out among modestly polite reception for Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once Was, their first album in nine years.
By all accounts, Five Dice, All Threes seems to have appeared with very little fanfare. And yet, it’s a sudden, shocking example of Oberst’s brilliance. The best Bright Eyes album in about 20 years, it’s filled with Oberst’s familiar lyrical brilliance of dense, referential writing that opens new pathways of the artist’s canon. Led by the image of the dice game where the player hopes to roll at least one three in each consecutive roll – so that without break he sores all threes – the album explores questions of coincidence and fate, purpose and accident. Are these small moments ultimately more meaningful than those which we imagine to be cataclysmic shifts? Or do we simply fail to see the threads of fate as they slowly wrap around our neck and strangle us to death?
The frivolously groovy lead single “Bells and Whistles” introduces the image of Princess Diana, refractured through her accidental death in a car crash and Banksy’s counterfeit currency, which twists into Oberst as pseudo-humanitarian who poses to please his major label: “Signed a sleeve for a teenager / It fеlt just like a harbinger / I was shaking hands with the manicurеd / Worked my fingers to the bone”. Unlike Lady Di, Oberst never crashed in that sudden ball of flame the way Jim Morrison or Kurt Cobain did – he’s still around, ageing and slowly transforming into a character that embodies his past more so than his present. Fame is compared to a one night stand and a doomed bet on the New York Mets, while Oberst stares at himself in a bathroom mirror, resigning that he’s become a slob. Coupled with a sanguine backdrop, “Bells and Whistles” feels like a thesis: a rejection of the circus in favour of sober rationalism. Oberst ponders that condition of sobriety throughout the album: he’s able to see – and translate – what happens in his vicinity, but he pays with his integrity and privacy.
“Bas Jan Ader” continues these explorations, adding the deceptive glow of religious imagery. Here, Oberst links himself to the titular Dutch performance artist who disappeared sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, as he traces his steps through the American landscape. As he observes the clichéd bible appear in a hotel drawer and his partner, in funeral garb, presenting worm-riddled apples, he concludes that there’s something dire about the found meaninglessness in ageing. “Shamrock on a jacket, dropped into a casket / Baby that’s no way to die / I never thought I’d see 45 / How is it that I’m still alive?” These heavy, contextual objects of catholicism, which usually signify so much, are now just reminders of better times: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times / It was the worst…”
At each turn of the album, the Earth is burning and the systems are capitulating. Tired and resigned, they don’t even acknowledge the approaching doom. This sentiment is both political commentary and Oberst’s self-reflection. Take note when he says he didn’t see himself reach 45: Oberst is just 44!
“Tiny Suicides” confronts this self-destructive notion: a glorious and deeply broken country track (his voice breaks dramatically as he sings “Maybe if the sky aligns / Maybe I could have you one last time / Was it the silence that amplified the reverb in my mind?”), it finds Oberst grappling with his alcoholism and materialist follies, as fear of abrahamic judgement stirs within him: “Tried to tip my way into Heaven’s gate / Must have lost a fortune along the way / I never saved up for a rainy day / I put it all upon the brass collection plate”.
Suicide, as a topic, appears throughout the album, with multiple characters hanging themselves – an act of self-inflicted suspension/levitation, which might mirror the image of the saintly character attributed to celebrities, which Oberst seems to reject and despise. “Hate” goes as far as rejecting the notion of religious innocence altogether, as Oberst tears through the catalogue of spiritual leaders and their spouses (“I hate Prophets / I hate LA Shamans… I hate the way it escalates, a drag race to the bottom”), finally reaching himself: “I hate the protest singer, staring at me in the mirror / There’s nothing left worth fighting for hasn’t that come clear / The artificial poets from the future are here”. The “artificial poets” could aim at the rise of AI, or a lineage of progressively more vapid pop idols, but there’s also the notion that the humanism and idealism within societal progression itself has declined.
On “All Threes”, he spits with vitriol: “Jesus died in a cage fight / Elon Musk / In virgin whites / I kill him in an alley over five dice”. The multi-instrumentalist who has to drink himself close to delirium in order to face a live audience (also a form of levitation) is reluctant to embrace the role others have conceived for him, as saviour, as millennial Dylan/Cobain pastiche whose crucification seems inevitable. Yet the capitalist pharisees of lesser humanity and talent purposefully choose to depict themselves as holy saints, wooing the masses – all without even acknowledging Lady Di’s sacrifice… or (pre-mediated? Fated?) accident misunderstood as return to holiness by those hungry for deliverance.
“The Trains Still Run on Time” explores the notion that America, as a landscape, ultimately births these broken characters, “Another unicorn in a uniform / Made in America on a factory floor / There’s a Disney character breaking down the door”. Everything is streamlined – there’s no opportunity to revolt. The rambunctious “Rainbow Overpass” attempts to find a solution for this moral quandary by simply removing oneself from the equation: “But I’m not shutting down, I’m shutting up / So you won’t hear me when I say / “Everything’s okay” / I’ll see you around”.
In a way, Five Dice, All Threes is one of the most revealing Bright Eyes albums to date, focusing on this uneasy alliance between public image, perceived happiness, the rot of middle age and unfulfilling romanticism. Sure, Oberst has always used his music to chronicle his journeys (with fans eagerly retracing his steps in a way only comparable to Dylan or Taylor Swift), but now he seemingly allows himself to be even more unguarded than ever before.
The rousing Folk track “El Capitan” dives full force into a relationship that is so fulfilling, it ultimately turns to sad routine and self destruction. Next to images of raging wildfires and capitalist critique (“The world is on fire, California is a crucible / We’re running out of water, they already stole all the gold”), Oberst serenades a younger partner (“So you’re playing your Nintendo, spun out like a gramophone / Living in a basement, sleeping down there all alone”) that soon becomes a vindictive figure: “You kept kissing me like Judas, your betrayal was apropos / You said I’m washed up and that’s what I get for growing old”. The lover ends up hanging themselves with an extension chord – once more, choosing levitation.
“Real Feel 105°” – possibly the best song on the album – seems the most direct and eloquent fusion of the album’s poetic images: “Oh, where you saw a rope swing, I saw a noose”. Here, Oberst chronicles a romantic relationship with a younger musician, highlighting how their relationship was marked by an uneasy imbalance that defies outer appearances. For example, there’s the inherent notion that Oberst rejects the idea of the ‘genius’ at the centre of the artistic process, conflating the biblical creation myth with grifting: “And then you came along, wanted help with a song / Want a peep through the curtains to see how it’s done / We’re all make believe gods like the Wizard of Oz / ‘Name the animals, let there be light’”. There’s many incredible lines here, such as when Oberst describes the couple’s dynamic: “Growing old and confused, beauty’s wasted on youth / Thеre’s too much to redact, therе’s too much to include / I hate the moon, but I’d take it from you / I want anything you have to give”. Implying that his most deep-seated qualities won’t be recognised through a young person’s perspective, and that there’s an untold story which must remain redacted, he nonetheless chooses lyrics which reflect on another: “And if I could give you the moon / I would give you the moon”.
Five Dice, All Threes is so rich, in cross references, in musical allusions and callbacks to prior Bright Eyes songs, in ideas and notions and statements that it’s impossible to grasp them all. It feels closer to the dynamic familiar with Dylan’s modus than any prior Bright Eyes (this isn’t a comparison, but a compliment: there’s a hint of Desire floating over the project). There’s a running thread of old movie samples used throughout the album – almost like a callback to Manic Street Preachers’ use of soundbites on Holy Bible. There’s appearances by Cat Power and The National’s Matt Berninger, both adding incredible emotional texture. There’s the pained, angry ballad “The Time I Have Left”, which seems purposefully barebones in its return to the very roots of Oberst’s minimalist bedroom songwriting. And there’s the harsh takedown of Los Angeles in “Tin Soldier Boy”, where the spirits of multiple Hollywood characters are recollected and weighed against a new generation: “Frank Sinatra was the best / Could put a bullet right through your chest / Well, every baby has Ol’ Blue Eyes / I guess they’re gonna live until they die”. This bitter, brilliant coda, performed alongside a chorus with the force of “Hey Jude” or Dylan’s “Joey”, exemplifies the often cathartic, thoroughly cynical outlook Oberst fosters for celebrity culture, for the decline of America – spiritually through its iconography –, for the dissolution of the Indie dream.
And that shouldn’t be a surprise. In a brilliant Conan spoof, Oberst once presented himself as forgotten and maligned has-been that would only retread the same old hollow phrases about George Bush Jr, while the crowd is more enamoured with Phoebe Bridgers’ blue eyed charms. Maybe that’s where Oberst can find confidence: in the end, all the pieces always come together.
