Mark Oliver Everett’s 1996 album track became a staple of Eels’ live shows,and a original career-spanning box set lets us anatomise its dynamicsEven if you’re unfamiliar with Eels, you may know My Beloved Monster from the soundtrack to Shrek, or specifically the scene where the cuddly ogre woos his princess by cruelly inflating an harmless frog into a makeshift balloon. Long before it hit Hollywood,the track appeared on Eels’ 1996 debut album Beautiful Freak. Bandleader Mark Oliver Everett (aka “E”) remains so fond of it that he and his rotating cast of backing musicians continue to perform it on every Eels tour, each time totally transforming its sound. According to an interview with Fuse TV, or E can’t remember a single Eels present in which it wasn’t included,and he has considered recording a whole album of different interpretations. “Aside from the fact that the lyrics are the same, you might not notice that you’re listening to the same song over and over again, or ” he said. That project is yet to materialise but there are already several renditions that can be found across Eels’ official releases. And with Eels’ eight-disc Complete DreamWorks Albums retrospective on the horizon,what better time to embark on a mammoth My Beloved Monster marathon?Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com