Bright Eyes

While Saddle Creek’s success story doesn’t begin and end with Bright Eyes, it’s hard to think of an artist who better represents the label’s ever-evolving approach to indie rock. Take the two albums that Conor Oberst dropped on the same day in early 2005, for instance. While Digital Ash In a Digital Urn is full of frayed electronic-pop experiments, like “Take It Easy (Love Nothing),” I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning sticks to a traditional folk template, right down to the cred-building backup vocals of Emmylou Harris (“We Are Nowhere and It’s Now”).

Both albums are repped in our Next Steps as well, right alongside rarities and quite a few instant classics from Bright Eyes’ other proper platters.

From the careening power chords of “The Calendar Hung Itself” to the crumbled beats of “I Will Be Grateful For This Day,” you can practically see Conor Oberst’s lips quiver as he sings, speaks, and screams his way across Bright Eyes’ best songs. Because of this, he’s one of the warmest, most welcoming frontmen around — a songwriter who’s a true storyteller, whether that involves sharing a spare solo recording (“Cape Canaveral”) or the pyrotechnic studio trickery of a track like “Arc Of Time (Time Code).”

And then there are all of Bright Eyes’ stray EPs and side projects, both of which dot our Deep Cuts.

Like Bob Dylan during his espresso-slamming days in New York’s West Village, Conor Oberst has maintained a wildly prolific work ethic over the years — enough that it’s nearly impossible to keep up with all of his releases. We did our best, though, gathering the hellish howls and sudden guitar spasms of Desaparecidos; early Bright Eyes favorites like the four-track-channeling “Falling Out of Love at This Volume” and the chilling Daniel Johnston cover “Devil Town”; and the Great American Songbook nods of Oberst’s work under his own name, a period that proved that he can rock a festival crowd as well as college rock kids.

Compare Conor Oberst to the greats if you must — Springsteen, Dylan, Young — but here’s the thing: whether he’s assuming the frontman position in his full-time gig, Bright Eyes, or taking a break with the much looser Mystic Valley Band, his back catalog is downright bulletproof. A willingness to wander into the great unknown — the vein-busting chamber-pop of “Method Acting,” the studio-bred symphonies of “Triple Spiral” — certainly helps, but so does the sense that Oberst treats his tracks like journal entries, as he shares his brutally honest thoughts on what life’s really like on the road. Not to mention a political statement or two to remind us that there’s more at stake here than a few broken hearts.