Album · The Eels
Beautiful Freak by The Eels
Beautiful Freak is an album by The Eels, released in 1996. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 51 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Novocaine for the Soul”, on 39 lists with a best position of #16.
Beautiful Freak, released on 13 August 1996 as only the second album on DreamWorks, introduced Eels, the band Mark Oliver Everett built after two records under the name E. He went with the full band name partly so the new albums would sit near his old ones in the record-store racks, which is a very E sort of joke. Butch, the drummer he'd been working with since 1993, and bassist Tommy Walter fill out the band.
Most of it was cut between 1993 and 1995, with E, Jon Brion, Mark Goldenberg and Michael Simpson sharing production, and it's a sad-eyed, sample-stitched pop record: "Novocaine for the Soul" rides a snippet of a Tubby Chess and His Candy Stripe Twisters side, "Susan's House" borrows from Gladys Knight & the Pips, and "Flower" from Al Green. Even the big-eyed girl on the cover reminded E of Susan, his ex-girlfriend. Electro-Shock Blues came next.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Beautiful Freak on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Novocaine for the Soul | 39 | #16 | – | 1996–2026 | |
| 2 | Susan's House | 6 | #56 | – | 1996–2023 | |
| 3 | Your Lucky Day In Hell | 6 | #1823 | – | 1999–2004 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.