Age normally adds perspective, making it easier to see at least one version of the truth. After more than thirty eventful years in the music business, Mark Everett has chosen to recognise this cast iron conclusion via the philosophical entreaties of Cookie Monster, who once famously said ‘Me no cry because cookie is finished. Me smile because cookie happened.’
Square with this with the law of shit happens and as Everett reasonably hypothesises, you can’t go far wrong. His sixteenth album as The Eels, Cookie Happened returns his craft to basics, offering a dozen songs, most of which come in at a distraction proof three or four minutes duration.
With his audience now presumably locked in, there’s an amiable playfulness here, typified by the loser friendly opener Clobbered, whilst the Memphis styling of Bamboozled Again threads country and soul through the needle’s eye gracefully. Whilst not overtly political, the singer tackles ignorance-as-epidemic on Dum Dums ‘The world’s chock full of dum dums/And little bitches’, but the peaks here – All Forgotten, Taking Pictures’ grizzled balladry, the sparkling pop of Cap In Hand – are as good as anything Everett’s produced in a decade. Time lends perspective, and Cookie Happened offers plenty in his idiosyncratic, hard not to admire way of just carrying and keeping doing it.
You can read a full review here.
