Product Description

'Useless Trinkets' is a collection of rarities from the off-kilter American singer-songwriter Mark 'E' Everett, otherwise know as Eels. Proof positive that often an artist's best work is hidden away on b-sides, this album is a treasure trove for Eels fans everywhere. Includes the tracks 'Dog's Life', 'Animal' and 'Stepmother'.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Novocaine For The Soul
2. Fucker
3. My Beloved Monster
4. Dog's Life
5. Susan's Apartment
6. Manchester Girl
7. Flower
8. My Beloved Mad Monster Party
9. Animal
10. Stepmother
11. Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas
12. Your Lucky Day In Hell
13. Altar Boy
14. Novocaine For The Soul By Moog Cookbook
15. If I Was Your Girlfriend
16. Bad News
17. Funeral Parlor
18. Hospital Food
19. Open The Door
20. Birdgirl On A Cell Phone
21. Vice President Fruitley
22. My Beloved Monstrosity
23. The Dark End Of The Street
24. The Cheater's Guide To Your Heart
25. Useless Trinkets

Disc 2:

1. Mr. E's Beautiful Blues
2. Souljacker Part I
3. Dog Faced Boy
4. Jennifer Eccles
5. Rotten World Blues
6. Can't Help Falling In Love
7. Christmas Is Going To The Dogs
8. Mighty Fine Blues
9. Eyes Down
10. Skywriting
11. Taking A Bath In Rust
12. Estranged Friends
13. Her
14. Waltz Of The Naked Clowns
15. I Like Birds
16. Sad Foot Sign
17. Living Life
18. The Bright Side
19. After The Operation
20. Jelly Dancers
21. I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man
22. Mr. E's Beautiful Blues
23. I Want To Protect You
24. I Put A Spell On You
25. Saw A U.F.O

Disc 3:

1. Saturday Morning
2. Eyes Down
3. My Beloved Monster
4. A Magic World
5. Not Ready Yet
6. Souljacker Part I

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8581 in Music
• Released on: 2008-01-21
• Number of discs: 3
• Formats: CD+DVD, Enhanced, Explicit Lyrics, Box set
• Running time: 182 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
From son of an internationally renowned physicist, to oddball post-grunge one-hit-wonder, to ongoing alt-rock sideshow curiosity you just can’t shut up, to engaging diarist of life at its most interesting, imagined or indeed tormented--Mark Oliver Everett a.k.a. ‘E’ a.k.a. Eels (he is effectively, for all their shape-shifting, the band incarnate) can lay reasonable claim to being one of the most notable American songwriters alive today. And given the already vast, sprawling nature of his 10-year back catalogue it will come as no surprise to discover that a few choice cuts fell between the cracks en-route. And thus, this double collection of Eels rarities, b-sides, session tracks and song re-jigs is about as delightful, if random, as any straight album he’s released. He’s always had too many sides to be a square, but even so it’s surprising to see single songs’ split personalities laid bare and equally dominant here. "Novocaine for the Soul" appears in two pleasingly alternate guises, as spoken word sub-grunge music-box and then playful, vocoder heavy robotic-minimalism, the Shrek-soundtracking "My Beloved Monster" is reinvented three times over, and "Susan’s House" is reborn as suspenseful noir-hip hop in "Susan’s Apartment". And tracks like hoarse, upbeat "Rotten World Blues", lullaby-simple "Taking a Bath in Rust" and twinkling lament "Living Life" are chart-toppers in any other reality. Trinkets are by definition a little useless, they serve no real purpose, yet with the aid of time the opposite often becomes true. Useless Trinkets, like Eels’ career, is much like that. Hold it close. --James Berry

Customer Reviews

Outstanding
E's throw aways are a damn site better than a lot of band's first choice material. Haven't stopped listening to this album, all 30 songs of it, since I bought it 3 months ago. Probably one for diehard Eels fans though. Some real gems buried in there.

a great alternative best-off
this album is a great way to revisit some old favourites afresh whilst discovering plenty of new songs and artists.

Not that many songs are listed as previously unreleased but i've got all their albums and a vast majority of their singles and had only heard about 15 of these tracks before.

the two Prince covers are excellent aand have lead me to want to buy something by him, there's also some very interesting reworkings of the songs previously released on albums - naturally these aren't as good as the proper versions but they are still good and give fresh new take on them.

there's also lots of completely original songs such as rotten world blues which is catchy enough to be a single and of course it's handy to have all those b-sides compiled.

well worth buying for the long-term fan.

For eels fans only
The versions of novocaine & the live version of "I like birds" make this a must for eels fans. The greatest hits CD is contentious but this is very interesting, even when it doess'nt work. For eels fan only but there are a good 10 or so tracks that make it worth buying, even if you haven't got all they've ever done !