This review is part of a series looking back at significant albums on their anniversaries. Through the benefit of hindsight we will be viewing the album not just as it was released, but how it stands the test of time, as well as its place in the band’s discography and the genre in general.
Saddle Creek Records – 12 Feb 2002
“We need some harder shit now, the truth is getting loud.”
As Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst gained a following as an introspective, self-aware kid with an acoustic guitar and a flair for the melodramatic, when he plugged in with The Desaparecidos. Trading in his social awkwardness for social awareness, Oberst recorded an attack on American consumerism, the frivolity of marriage and the upheaval of mid-major cities like his beloved hometown of Omaha, NE.
The February release of Read Music / Speak Spanish, was overshadowed by Oberst’s release, just six months later, the Bright Eyes magnum opus, Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground. Expecting a similar somber and subdued performance will leave you unfulfilled.
Instead Oberst, along with guitarist Denver Dalley, bassist Landon Hedges, Ian McElroy on keys and drummer Matt Baum, pulled off the greatest plugging in since Bob Dylan at Newport. The only similarity between the Oberst of Bright Eyes and that of The Desaparecidos frontman is the overwrought vibrato and anguished timbre of his vocals. The acoustic strumming traded in for distortion and punk angst. Where Bright Eyes saw Oberst subdued in a wrenched heart, The Desaparecidos is his cacophonous release of years of introspection looking out at the world.
Upon release, the album was well received and I enjoyed it modestly, but over time this album has grown into one of the best releases in Oberst’s impressive discography. A blazing, straight ahead punk-imbued dirge for the small town working class of Omaha at the turn of the millennium. The Desaparecidos are done standing idly by while traditional expectations and late stage capitalism destroy their rural homesteads.
Oberst’s venom flows through all the collapsed veins we call modern America. Spewing vitriol toward technology, Disney, public schools, military, and even his own capitalistic endeavors and the shame of selling his heart in a corporate chain. The Desaparecidos are not afraid to piss all over our rose-tinted glasses.
Maybe we should have been listening harder, because the band was calling out the same nonsense in 2002 that we are facing in 2022, and not only have we made 0 progress in the last 20 years, we have allowed ourselves to regress.
Opening with possibly the most dated track on the entire album,“Man and Wife, The Former (Financial Planning),” The Desaparecidos dive headlong into the realization that fairytale endings aren’t worth shit in late-stage capitalism. The young man stresses and struggles with the traditional expectation of providing for his bride, while the crushing weight of debt stacks upon him, like a modern day Giles Corey, refusing to accept defeat. “Can’t concentrate when I’m at work/I just think and think until my head hurts/Of the payment plans I’m making/I just wanted to provide for you.” Follow-up track “Mañana,” gives insight into some of the issues that could lead to such financial ruin, with an education system that is seemingly existing solely for the purpose of pipelining higher learning and its associated higher interest loans before the spoken outro feeds into “Greater Omaha” and its Joni Mitchell-esque rumination of paving small-town paradise in favor of a Starbucks,
Oberst et al return to the tale of the aforementioned couple with “Man and Wife, The Latter (Damaged Goods).” Here we revisit the now disintegrating marriage, where the husband has become such a slave to his paycheck that he stopped noticing the wife’s loneliness and distance. It’s a story we’ve all heard about or lived through in some form, can’t provide without the paycheck, can’t love chasing the paycheck, and as the song bluntly reminds us; “The Word is Love/The word is loss/The words are damaged goods.”
Every single track follows the destructive effects of economic growth in America. “Mall of America” is a satirical look at materialism and Oberst’s own art being watered down in favor of his own economic pursuits, while “The Happiest Place on Earth” confronts American pride with American exploits. It’s easy to swell your red, white and blue chest when you examine the atrocities that brought us here and The Desaparecidos force that Jungian juggling act. It may have been written in response to W’s “You’re either with us or against us,” response to 9/11, but it works just as well now as swaths of plastic patriots are bleating to make America great again by undoing the progress of the last 250 years.
“Survival of the Fittest / Its a Jungle Out There” once again shows Oberst’s pen is mightier than any sword as he slices through the American debt cycle due to lack of universal healthcare. The aptly titled “$$$$” is another assault on Capitalistic cannibalism in America, turning the majority into an assembly line for the wallets of the smallest set of owners thanks to propaganda and advertising fear-mongering. Far removed from ignoring their own role in the society they have railed against, “Hole In One” sees The Desaparecidos facing their own failure in the face of materialistic pursuits. The band wants the big house, the swimming pool and the record sales, and they accept the hypocrisy, resigning themselves to their own selfish pursuits behind a wall of shame and disappointment.
The album worked in 2002 and in 2022 because it is full of the common American existence, the idealism and the resignation of wanting to make the world a better place, so long as it doesn’t hurt your sense of convenience. The idea of economic growth may as well become a dirty word in the modern American lexicon as it has dimmed all aspects of the human experience much to the chagrin of The Desparecidos and their audience.
Read Music Speak Spanish is built upon the disenchantment of a small-town going corporate. Constantly questioning whether the suits, ties and lattes are worth the void created throughout the community. When we replace the human experience with profit margins and call it progress, we too, translate as little more than disappeared.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
