Everett, virginiano trasferitosi a Los Angeles, aveva gia` pubblicato due album solisti, sotto lo pseudonimo E, A Man Called E (Polydor, 1992) e Broken Toy Shop (1993), prima di formare gli Eels. Il concept A Man Called E e` una sorta di autobiografia musicata. Nell'arco delle sue canzoni il vulnerabilissimo E descrive ogni sorta di sventure (Hello Cruel World l'ouverture...), ma cio` non gli impedisce di pervenire alla Symphony For Toy Piano In G Minor. L'idea e la realizzazione erano degni di Brian Wilson (Beach Boys).

La ballata dell'album Beautiful Freak (Dreamworks, 1996) che li rende celebri, Novocaine For The Soul, e` un incrocio fra un rap depresso di Beck e una ballata stralunata dei Flaming Lips, arrangiata con riff cantabile e appena distorto di chitarra, carillon di pianoforte, maestoso motivo di violini e cadenza da cocktail lounge.
Tutti i brani sono stati registrati in maniera umile ma sfoggiano costruzioni imprevedibili e arrangiamenti sofisticati. Susan's House (forse l'apice) alterna un ritornello degno di una ballata pianistica di Billy Joel a un recitato su un filo di tromba e una cadenza hip hop. Da quel melodismo struggente prende l'abbrivo la tenera serenata di Beautiful Freak, che tanto nel testo quanto nel canto e nell'arrangiamento di tastiere e violino ricorda le tenui romanze di Lisa Germano. Spunky, ancora malinconicamente immerso in accordi maestosi di violino, pianoforte e organo, sublima quest'arte di essere umile anche quando si sovrappongono tre o quattro strumenti dell'orchestra classica.
My Beloved Monster e` quasi una novelty, bisbigliata in un assortimento di banjo, grancassa da circo, trombone e stonature assortite, e Flower ottiene un effetto metafisico campionando e riciclando persino un coro di soprano e contralto. In cotanto marasma di strumenti il canto di Everett e` imperturbabile, sempre dimesso e indifferente, mai esibizionista o trionfale.
Il disco si chiude appropriatamente con due canzoni dalle atmosfere morbose e surreali, Your Lucky Day In Hell e Manchild, in cui i trucchi di cui sopra si rarefanno fino a lasciare soltanto una cartilagine astratta di accordi, che la voce si occupa di raccordare con smaliziato mestiere.
Lungi dall'essere barocco, il sound di Everett e` la quintessenza del rock chitarristico. E` infatti l'accorto accompagnamento di chitarra ad elevare i suoi tetri lamenti a canzoni financo epiche, come succede con il malinconico e solenne riff che sospinge l'elegia di Rags To Rags.
Il disco conta, insomma, due o tre capolavori assoluti, e una mezza dozzina di brani che farebbero la gloria di qualsiasi cantautore. Everett rivela soprattutto la personalita` e la statura del grande "storyteller", dell'uomo che ha qualcosa da dire e lo sa dire in maniera superba, nella tradizione di Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Nick Cave e Kurt Cobain.

Broken Toy Shop (1993) was basically a concept about breaking up with a girlfriend.

Everett si supera con il disco successivo, Electro-Shock Blues (Dreamworks, 1998), un cupo concept album ispirato da ogni sorta di tragedie personali (una catena di morti, fra cui quelle del padre, della madre, della sorella e di un paio di amici). Ancora una volta le canzoni sono state registrate in tutta umilta` a casa propria, ma ancora una volta l'arrangiamento e` ricco di violini, fiati, tastiere, campionamenti e giradischi. Everett scodella cosi` con disinvoltura una Elizabeth On The Bathroom Floor per coro femminile e sezione d'archi, una danse macabre per sincopi metallurgiche, organo jazz e voci infernali come Cancer To The Cure, una My Descent Into Madness per organo gospel e minuetto rinascimentale di violini e tamburelli, una Hospital Food per orchestrina swing.
Ma la gara dell'effetto piu` stordente la vince Last Stop This Town il cui incantevole carillon di clavicembalo viene divelto all'improvviso da un brutale riff di chitarra (coro celestiale di sottofondo, controcanto di basso e di psicotico, violini e flauti angelici).
Il disco pullula di melodie che sarebbero irresistibili in un contesto piu` gioviale. E` invece difficile canticchiare il sinistro blues di Going To Your Funeral , l'aria pop di Climbing To The Moon o la cantilena di The Medication Is Wearing Off. Sono canzoni che sembrano esorcizzare il dolore profanando la morte.
Al nadir della depressione morale Everett si affloscia nel registro moribondo di Nick Drake: 3 Speed, Dead Of Winter, Electro-Shock Blues... sempre piu` desolate e "nude".
Il disco si chiude (con PS You Rock My World) in un'assordante orchestra di violini che suona un tema romantico mentre Everett si strugge di trovare un senso alla vita.
La sensazione, non a caso, e` talvolta quella di un requiem accorato e talaltra quella di una disperazione sfrenata.

Daisies Of The Galaxy (Dreamworks, 2000) leaves behind Electro-Shock Blues' gloom but suffers from the success syndrome. Everett's pop talent is wasted in lame ballads that alternatively recall REM (Flyswatter, I Like Birds) and U2 (Jeannie's Diary, Grace Kelly Blues). The echo of their masterpiece's excruciating depression still hovers over Mr E's Beautiful Blues, Grace Kelly Blues and The Sound Of Fear, but this time the music is far less shocking.

Souljacker (Geffen, 2001 - Dreamworks, 2002) keeps the band in that limbo of non-essential but non-despicable rock, and adds a philosophical dimension to the music. The album's swing from hard-rock (Dog Faced Boy) and boogie (Souljacker Part One) and rockabilly (Dog Faced Boy) to ballad (Fresh Feeling) and exotica (That's Not Really Funny) does not bode well for the future of the band, that seems incapable of re-attaining the magic of their Blues masterpiece. Friendly Ghost and Bus Stop Boxer are carefully crafted songs but hardly unique (not to mention the Beck-style samples of Jungle Telegraph). This is certainly their most upbeat album yet, and the most diverse, but not necessarily the most sincere and the most consistent.

I Am The Messiah (Spinart, 2003) is a parallel project by Mark Everett, disguised under the moniker Mc Honky. The album is a collage of found sounds, sound effects and tender melodies.

Returning to the Eels, Everett displayed a lighter, more casual tone. Shootenanny (Dreamworks, 2003) feels more like a collection of notes than a profound concept. Featuring Lisa Germano, this is Eels' most atmospheric album yet. He has relented the tension but increased the magic. There is precious little invention (All In A Days Work recycles blues and soul cliches, and Restraining Order Blues, Lone Wolf , Agony and Numbered Days subscribe to a generic pensive mood, like outtakes from Electro-Shock Blues), but his songs have never sounded so "complete", finished, irrevocable. It is not a coincidence that they also sound poppier, although their melodies are hardly Beatles-ian. Saturday Morning (replete with falsetto chorus), Love of the Loveless, Dirty Girl, and the standout, Wrong About Bobby, are emotionally stable and structurally solid, as if one aspect of the music strived to convey the quality of the other.

After three relatively minor Eels releases, Mark Everett poured his entire philosophy and every musical skill he has honed over the years into the Eels' double-CD 33-song monolith Blinking Lights And Other Revelations (Vagrant, 2005), an autobiographical concept, inspired by Bergman's film "Wild Strawberries", reportedly eight years in the making, that follows his own life from birth till "stardom". His self-analysis is largely a soliloquy that does not affect the music, which is, in turn, meticulously crafted. Theme From Blinking Lights, that opens the proceedings with Everett humming a Christmas-style singalong over simple guitar and xylophone patterns, Trouble With Dreams, a breezy pop melody with a soaring organ and a rhythm of xylophone that sounds like a ticking clock, Mother Mary, that generates a jazzy-reggae rhythm from bicycle noise and then layers a psychedelic refrain on a bluesy organ, Going Fetal, a catchy joyful ditty a` la Tommy Roe that fuses stereotypes of Mersey-beat, surf music and early garage-rock, Checkout Blues, a serving of orchestral easy-listening, Old Shit New Shit, with ringing guitar, theremin-like keyboards and loud and upbeat Phil Spector-ian production, Hey Man, a fast-paced rigmarole, If You See Natalie, with echoes of John Lennon's Imagine, Railroad Man, an old-fashioned country-rock, Losing Streak, a pop clockwork at a scherzo tempo (Cars-like keyboards staccato, brass-like fanfare, ska beat, soaring refrain) radiate humanity at its most basic and universal. This core quality lasts till the end, slowly mutating into something less personal and more universal, less matter-of-factual and more meaningful, all the way till the sentimental piano dirge The Stars Shine In The Sky Tonight and the epic neoclassical finale of Things The Grandchildren Should Know, an anthem for the everyman.
Nonetheless, Everett sounds more comfortable when he captures childhood than than adulthood. A sense of magic exudes from From Which I Came, 50 seconds of cello drones and guitar reverbs lead to a catchy psychedelic melody drenched in gospel-y organ and Duane Eddy-ian twang, and Blinking Lights For Me, a Donovan-ian fairy tale.
A disturbing existential feeling is never too far from the main path, though. Besides the chamber spiritual Understanding Salesman and the chamber lied Dust of Ages (a Pachelbel-style adagio with Everett whispering over floating strings and organ), two arresting pieces that defy psychoanalysis, several songs throughout the album evoke the ghost of Tom Waits: the slow, sloppy, jazzy Son Of A Bitch, the melancholy piano ballad Suicide Life, and Last Time We Spoke (perhaps one too many Waits impersonations As the mood changes from youthful exuberance to mature regret, Everett pens the long pensive I'm Going To Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart for guitars and xylophone, and the solemn elegy to urban loneliness of Whatever Happened To Soy Bomb for guitar and cello.
There are few moments of high drama. The percussive, demonic The Other Shoe is the exception, not the rule.
The brief instrumental interludes (the lugubrious and haunting Marie Floating Over The Backyard for piano and wordless chanting, the doleful waltz of Bride of Theme From Blinking Lights, God's Silence) are sometimes more meaningful than the lyrics: they too radiate the same energy, just more of it, without the greenhouse effect of the poetic scaffolding.
Everett interprets music as calligraphy. On the downside, one can detect the perverse influence of the Apples In Stereo school of baroque pop, and occasionally even the perverse influence of the Beatles' White Album.
On the other hand, there is no question that Everett sings very confident in his ability to modulate a monotonous discourse into graceful, colorful, mesmerizing calligraphy. In a sense, that is the very reason that he does what he does on this album. He sings about himself being able to sing about himself, and turns an autobiography into a celebration of his qualities, and, indirectly, of music itself. Everett is one of the greatest living songwriters, and he knows it. This album stands not so much as a manifestation of this greatness, but of him being aware of it.

Everett used a chamber ensemble to revisit his classics on Eels With Strings (Vagrant, 2006).

Meet the Eels (2008) is a career anthology. Useless Trinkets (2008) is a collection of rarities.

The concept album Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs Of Desire (Vagrant, 2009) is almost the alter-ego of Blinking Lights And Other Revelations: a savage fresco of human passion. The dominant style is garage-rock (Prizefighter, Fresh Blood, Liliac Breeze, What's a Fella Gotta Do, Tremendous Dynamite) although the Eels can still craft bouncy pop (Beginner's Luck, In My Dreams) and Everett at this stage can't resist the modest acoustic folk litany (That Look You Give That Guy, The Longing, My Timing Is Off, Ordinary Man).

End Times (2010) is a concept about Everett's divorce, a more tragic version of Broken Toy Shop (1993), a depressing monologue in a skeletal albeit dignified style (Little Bird, In My Younger Days, On My Feet) whose main drawback is that it is consistently too straightforward to be also art (with the minor exceptions of the rocking Gone Man and the chamber-folk of A Line in the Dirt). This album continued the slide into a charming state of melancholy that had accelerated with Hombre Lobo. While more literate than either, Everett doesn't radiate the solemn epos of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska and doesn't plunge into the apocalyptic bleakness of Neil Young's Tonight't the Night: he simply drifts into an increasingly placid inner world.

Tomorrow Morning (2010) closed the trilogy of sorts begun with Hombre Lobo and balanced the suicidal mood of the previous album with a more virile stand and a lot more stylistic variety. The bouncy, syncopated, electronic funk-rock Baby Loves Me, the grand string-bathed Broadway-ish aria of I'm A Hummingbird, the simple country-rock I Like the Way This Is Going and especially the jubilant stomping gospel of Looking Up reassured his audience that he was still a musician, after all.

Extreme Witchcraft (2022) is an album of obnoxious imitations, running the gamut from Wilson Pickett's visceral soul music (Steam Engine) to funk-rock a` la Doobie Brothers (Grandfather Clock Strikes Twelve) via psych-pop of the 1960s (Amateur Hour and The Magic).