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“Mall of America” – Desaparecidos
(Words/music: Desaparecidos, available on Read Music / Speak Spanish, Saddle Creek 2002)

Throwing down the word “capitalism” in a song titled after the biggest shopping center in North America conjures up immediate associations.  When it’s Conor Oberst, heir to the Dylanesque title of Angry Young Man, letting the word eek out with a healthy dose of scorn, that leap becomes easier.  Capitalism is an easy punching bag, especially when set up as the antithesis of art, and when Oberst throws out the line “there are no art forms now, only capitalism,” it’s hard to deny it as a countercultural rally cry.  In our post-Carles world, this line seems either completely tongue-in-cheek or astutely accurate (depending on how you read Hipster Runoff, I suppose), but it’s easy to connect the dots between Oberst, his side project that references disappearing dissidents in South America, and an anti-capitalist stance.

It’s not that this reading is wrong (after all, that line is hard to read differently even in context), it just feels incomplete.  Oberst, better known as the brains and voice behind Bright Eyes, made a sharp aesthestetic shift with this Desaparecidos record.  Right between the Fevers and Mirrors and Lifted… albums, Oberst was on the verge of minor indie stardom, already garnering whispers as the “new Dylan” (no matter how apocryphal they may have been).  Regardless, it’s easy to see how some would chide Oberst for abandoning the mode that was in the process of making him famous.  It’s these naysayers that Oberst addresses directly in the first line of the song: “They say it’s murder on your folk career / To make a rock record with the Disappeared.”  It’s not quite Dylan Going Electric, but it’s an impressive moment of self-awareness to dismiss his critics, declare that “there is not an image that I must defend,” and declare the “death of art” all in one verse.  Of course, it helps to have such a weighty track behind one of his most vitriolic moments, and even if it feels a bit aimless, the young Oberst was at his best and most focused when his feelings were clearest.  Even if it feels a little sophomoric now, it still feels good to scream every once in a while.

More on Desaparecidos: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm