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Dammit! It's a pretty fucking great album. I really did not want to like 'I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning'. Oberst is just too... I don't know, too "not-chill"/"unchill" whatever you call it? But then again, I don't really know his earlier scene. My first listen was some months ago at a friend's apartment, and I thought "Great, super indie label-guy doing a sappy, folk album. I hope you sell 5,000 records to keep your head afloat." So I read the pitchfork review when it was listed in the "best new music" category (reviewed exactly a year and a day ago), and I forgot about it for a little while... Then I listened to some of 'I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning' on-line a few months ago, and I recognized 'Bright Eyes' as a band are pretty tight. Now the last song, Oberst rips of Beethoven's 9th: 'Ode to Joy' with the entitled 'Road to Joy', (something I thought about doing in '98, bastard) and I thought, "Wait, do I like this guy?" So today I bought the album at Newbury Comics (Newbury loc), listened to it fairly intensely, and I started thinking, "Wow, great lyrics, but didn't 'Built to Spill' do this sorta thing a dozen years ago?" Then I listened for a second time at home, 4th or 5th time overall, and I hear Obert's rounded, rolled yelps, where he only lets out half of the air in his lungs, letting you know he could belt it out twice as loud. So now I'm thinking, "This is better than most of the Bob Dylan I've heard." (Note: I only have 3 Dylan albums, not an enormous fan) Still though, I haven't been into music I initially thought was "sappy folk" for a while.