Eels - Souljacker

Then the Eels signed to Dreamworks and scored a left field alternative rock hit with "Novocaine For the Soul," they defined their career in one swift move. They didn’t know it at the time, but an Eels single would never again attain the massive popularity of the debut. When alternative rock faded as the music industry’s cash-cow, so did the Eels.


The band was thus forced to take a step back, and most "indie" fans didn’t really care that they had once been an MTV pop group. Despite this, the Eels struggled to gain any leverage in the community. They became part of a cluster of bands that was only quietly respected among music critics and Pitchfork-type fans such as yourself. Even as they released Electro-Shock Blues and Daisies of the Galaxies, two phenomenal records that showed them moving light years ahead of the straight ahead alt-rock that had turned listeners off of Beautiful Freak, the Eels were consistently shrugged off as insignificant, boring, and standard. People liked them, sure, but, you know, they were part of that whole "grunge" thing, weren’t they?