http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=art.9089&rws=%2Fbright-eyes%2Fmusic-videos.rssBright Eyes is singer-songwriter Conor Oberst and his revolving-door cast of collaborators, which has included longtime friends from the independent Saddle Creek Records collective as well as luminaries such as Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch. Oberst gained fame in the late Nineties as one of an ongoing string of artists proclaimed the "next Dylan" &#8212; a list of ragged-voiced singers and wordy songwriters that has also included Bruce Springsteen and Beck. What set Oberst apart from the others was his youth; he was just 15 when he began recording as Bright Eyes. <br><br> Born in Omaha, Nebraska, on February 15th, 1980, Oberst is the third son of Matthew Oberst, an information manager with Mutual of Omaha, and Nancy Oberst, an elementary school principal. At 10, he learned a couple of guitar chords and began writing songs. Outside of school, he would hang out at Antiquarium Records, a hip music shop specializing in indie rock and electronic music. Oberst was 14 when he began singing and playing guitar with the band Commander Venus (which included later members of Cursive and the Faint) in 1994. His older brother and friends set up a label, which eventually became Saddle Creek Records, to release the band's first album, 1995's <I>Do You Feel At Home?</I> After a second album, Oberst left the group to concentrate on his Bright Eyes project, which kicked off with a set of solo experimental music called <I>A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997</I>. <br><br> Bright Eyes' first album as a full band was 1998's <I>Letting Off the Happiness</I>, recorded with a cast of Omaha musicians including the group's sole mainstay other than Oberst, producer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis. Oberst briefly attended the University of Nebraska before dropping out to go on tour. Bright Eyes released their second album, <I>Fevers and Mirrors</I>, in 2000, followed by some singles and EPs. But it was the third album &#8212; the long-winded <I>Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground</I>, released in 2002 &#8212; that earned Oberst his "new Dylan" accolades and profiles in major papers like <I>The New York Times</I>. <I>Lifted</I> sold more than 250,000 copies (good for such a small label), nudged its way into the Billboard 200 and reached Number 11 on the Top Independent Albums chart. <br><br> In 2004, Bright Eyes appeared on MoveOn.org's Vote for Change tour alongside R.E.M. and Springsteen, with whom Oberst sang some duets during the shows. The attention helped sales of two Bright Eyes singles, "Lua" and "Take It Easy (Love Nothing)," which wound up rocketing into the top two spots of Billboard's weekly Hot 100 Singles sales chart. The songs came, respectively, from the folky album <I>I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning</I> (Number 10) and electronic-based <I>Digital Ash in a Digital Urn</I> (Number 15), released simultaneously on January 25th, 2005. Before those two releases, Oberst relocated to New York City and started up a new label, Team Love, with his manager. Oberst and company continued putting out EPs, and the live album <I>Motion Sickness</I>, recorded during Bright Eyes' <I>Wide Awake</I> tour, came out in 2006. A month after the April 2007 release of the group's next studio album, <I>Cassadaga</I>, Oberst and friends performed a seven-night stand at Town Hall in New York, along with a laundry list of guests including Lou Reed and Norah Jones. <br><br> Oberst's experience with the MoveOn.org tour apparently tapped a political nerve. He sang a protest song, "When the President Talks to God," during Bright Eyes' performance on <I>The Tonight Show With Jay Leno</I> in May 2005. That October, at an awards show in Los Angeles, Oberst criticized the Clear Channel media conglomerate for making touring hard for independent acts, and in early 2008 he played at a rally for presidential candidate Barack Obama. Indie/Alternativeen720Wed, 9 Dec 2009 20:30:15 -0800 http://static.realone.com/rotw/images/logo_rhapsody_113x22.gif http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=art.9089&rws=%2Fbright-eyes%2Fmusic-videos.rss Bright Eyes is singer-songwriter Conor Oberst and his revolving-door cast of collaborators, which has included longtime friends from the independent Saddle Creek Records collective as well as luminaries such as Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch. Oberst gained fame in the late Nineties as one of an ongoing string of artists proclaimed the "next Dylan" &#8212; a list of ragged-voiced singers and wordy songwriters that has also included Bruce Springsteen and Beck. What set Oberst apart from the others was his youth; he was just 15 when he began recording as Bright Eyes. <br><br> Born in Omaha, Nebraska, on February 15th, 1980, Oberst is the third son of Matthew Oberst, an information manager with Mutual of Omaha, and Nancy Oberst, an elementary school principal. At 10, he learned a couple of guitar chords and began writing songs. Outside of school, he would hang out at Antiquarium Records, a hip music shop specializing in indie rock and electronic music. Oberst was 14 when he began singing and playing guitar with the band Commander Venus (which included later members of Cursive and the Faint) in 1994. His older brother and friends set up a label, which eventually became Saddle Creek Records, to release the band's first album, 1995's <I>Do You Feel At Home?</I> After a second album, Oberst left the group to concentrate on his Bright Eyes project, which kicked off with a set of solo experimental music called <I>A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997</I>. <br><br> Bright Eyes' first album as a full band was 1998's <I>Letting Off the Happiness</I>, recorded with a cast of Omaha musicians including the group's sole mainstay other than Oberst, producer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis. Oberst briefly attended the University of Nebraska before dropping out to go on tour. Bright Eyes released their second album, <I>Fevers and Mirrors</I>, in 2000, followed by some singles and EPs. But it was the third album &#8212; the long-winded <I>Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground</I>, released in 2002 &#8212; that earned Oberst his "new Dylan" accolades and profiles in major papers like <I>The New York Times</I>. <I>Lifted</I> sold more than 250,000 copies (good for such a small label), nudged its way into the Billboard 200 and reached Number 11 on the Top Independent Albums chart. <br><br> In 2004, Bright Eyes appeared on MoveOn.org's Vote for Change tour alongside R.E.M. and Springsteen, with whom Oberst sang some duets during the shows. The attention helped sales of two Bright Eyes singles, "Lua" and "Take It Easy (Love Nothing)," which wound up rocketing into the top two spots of Billboard's weekly Hot 100 Singles sales chart. The songs came, respectively, from the folky album <I>I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning</I> (Number 10) and electronic-based <I>Digital Ash in a Digital Urn</I> (Number 15), released simultaneously on January 25th, 2005. Before those two releases, Oberst relocated to New York City and started up a new label, Team Love, with his manager. Oberst and company continued putting out EPs, and the live album <I>Motion Sickness</I>, recorded during Bright Eyes' <I>Wide Awake</I> tour, came out in 2006. A month after the April 2007 release of the group's next studio album, <I>Cassadaga</I>, Oberst and friends performed a seven-night stand at Town Hall in New York, along with a laundry list of guests including Lou Reed and Norah Jones. <br><br> Oberst's experience with the MoveOn.org tour apparently tapped a political nerve. He sang a protest song, "When the President Talks to God," during Bright Eyes' performance on <I>The Tonight Show With Jay Leno</I> in May 2005. That October, at an awards show in Los Angeles, Oberst criticized the Clear Channel media conglomerate for making touring hard for independent acts, and in early 2008 he played at a rally for presidential candidate Barack Obama. http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=mvid.20194708&rws=%2Fbright-eyes%2Fmusic-videos.rss Tue, 8 Apr 2008 15:11:07 -0700 Music Videos by Bright Eyes on Rhapsody Online mvid.20194708 mvid.20194708 Bright Eyes art.9089 http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=mvid.20194708&rws=%2Fbright-eyes%2Fmusic-videos.rss http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=mvid.20095025&rws=%2Fbright-eyes%2Fmusic-videos.rss Fri, 4 Apr 2008 16:51:05 -0700 Music Videos by Bright Eyes on Rhapsody Online mvid.20095025 mvid.20095025 Bright Eyes art.9089 http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=mvid.20095025&rws=%2Fbright-eyes%2Fmusic-videos.rss http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=mvid.9189491&rws=%2Fbright-eyes%2Fmusic-videos.rss Thu, 26 Jan 2006 12:23:20 -0800 Music Videos by Bright Eyes on Rhapsody Online mvid.9189491 mvid.9189491 Bright Eyes art.9089 http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=mvid.9189491&rws=%2Fbright-eyes%2Fmusic-videos.rss http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=mvid.9189426&rws=%2Fbright-eyes%2Fmusic-videos.rss Thu, 26 Jan 2006 12:25:14 -0800 Music Videos by Bright Eyes on Rhapsody Online mvid.9189426 mvid.9189426 Bright Eyes art.9089 http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=mvid.9189426&rws=%2Fbright-eyes%2Fmusic-videos.rss http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=mvid.5996829&rws=%2Fbright-eyes%2Fmusic-videos.rss Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:49:46 -0700 Music Videos by Bright Eyes on Rhapsody Online mvid.5996829 mvid.5996829 Bright Eyes art.9089 http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=mvid.5996829&rws=%2Fbright-eyes%2Fmusic-videos.rss