I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (studio album) by Bright Eyes

The album glisters and shines with lyrical and vocal quality from top to bottom. The immediately enjoyable tracks are the singles, Lua and First Day Of My Life, but as time goes by the overall quality becomes evident through repeated listens. The presence of Emmylou Harris on three tracks provides welcome country tinged variation.

Themes of drink and death pervade the album, but the tracks are musings more than maudlin.

In terms of overall quality, one of the best releases this century. Essential.

This is an album that will not be for everyone but it is one that I enjoy revisiting and it has quite a few stand out moments. The peak of this for me is the sensational First Day Of My Life which is beautifully written and is such an emotive song. The vocals might be a little shaky in places on this album but on this song they are perfect. There are 4 or 5 more songs that are on a similar level to this and they really help to bulk up the record quality wise. However, there is a decent amount of filler and skippable tracks on here which let them down. The songs Train Under Water and Another Travelin' Song come to mind with both of them feeling unnecessary. Overall, there is quite a bit of quality to find on here but it isn't consistent enough to be amongst the greatest of all time.

From VictorVale 01/24/2023 20:40

Melodicamente muito lindo!

Grows on me more with every single listen 9.5/10

This album has some nice melodies and is quite digestible, but Conor's voice is not for me.

From Brad1770 11/18/2017 07:09

Ranked 5th best Album in 2005 I felt compelled to check it out . The opening track “At The Bottom Of Everything “ is awesome & I highly recommend you listen to this song even if you don’t listen to the rest of the album. Also the closing track “ Road To Joy” (which contains the I’m Wide Awake, Its Morning line) is similarly awesome . However the 8 songs between tracks 1 and 10 were Meh kinda ok at best. Overall I’m glad I visited this album and can see the appeal

30 seconds in, no 20, and you're hooked.

From RoundTheBend 05/29/2016 04:06

I remember the first time listening to this album and the first song made an impression on me as the story in the beginning was indeed intriguing. The lyrics were decent, but also felt a little contrived, even if lively and good.

Kinda mediocre album for me, even if it is noticeably better than most average albums.

the perfect lyrics to depict the soulful life in the modern days

From junodog4 01/08/2016 04:36

A lovely balance of poetic lyrics with pretty music. Much better than some of the dull sparse singer-songwriter stuff that's been en vogue of late.