🎵 How Good Are They Really 🎵 Elliott Smith

[Ruffers]

He was still in high school when he wrote this. Incredible work

Elliott Smith - Where I Get it From

[zanimos]

Just wanted to put out a bit of love for Heatmiser.

They often get painted as being completely different to his solo work but that’s not entirely true. The first two albums (Dead Air & Cop and Speeder) are really decent U.S. indie rock records but don’t to my ears show any of Elliott’s personality but his songwriting and style starts to peak through in the Yellow No. 5 mini LP that followed and then much of Mic City Sons really feels like an Elliott album.

The Grand Mal compilation has solo versions of some of the MCS songs and there are also a couple of Heatmiser versions of songs that ended on his solo albums. Even the MCS songs that aren’t sung by Elliott still sound very much to me like they are very much part of his work in terms of the guitar playing and song structure.

Anyway whatever the interpretation and however much it is or isn’t down to Elliott, Mic City Sons is an amazing album. Do check it out if you haven’t dug that deep.

Heatmiser/Plainclothes Man

[Bamnan]

always loved this little clip of him casually playing Rachmaninoff

Elliott Smith playing Rachmaninoff

[Bamnan]

hard to think of anybody more talented who never showed off about it

[Zygotic]

3

He’s alright

[Bamnan]

gonna blur this one and add CW Abuse

Always cry when I hear this one. It’s impossible to imagine a more real song to him and the fact that whilst being this brave he also managed to give it a kind of uplifting and hopeful chord progression illustrates to me what I really admired in him as a human being and as an artist. The idea of taking pain and turning it into something cathartic and hopeful. Maybe I’m interpreting to much but I feel like if he had just gone with a really dark minor key feel it would have came across more insular and specific to him and less inclusive; always feel like no matter the topic he is alluding to the inclusiveness and hope comes from the universally enjoyable melodies he created. It’s the kind of music that can only come from a place of love not hate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZwmxBmUNhs

[Severed799]

goddamn I love this song:

Elliott Smith - Ballad Of Big Nothing (from Either/Or)

[BobRickerton]

Something I really liked about Elliott was the way he used drums and backing vocals in the first half of his career. Would always keep them really simple and low in the mix, and then they’d explode into the foreground (as much as they can on a four-track acoustic recording) towards the end. Good examples:

Elliott Smith - Christian Brothers

Elliott Smith-"Speed Trials" from "Either/Or"

Think Speed Trials is a contender for my favourite opening to an album ever.

[BobRickerton]

Despite the subject matter, the “Biiiig Nooooooothiiiiiing” at the end always feels so triumphant.

[Yvash]

Been sort of avoiding this thread. I struggle with listening to Elliott Smith these days - well, really for many years. His death impacted me harder than any other musician’s at the time, a loss and heartsickness matched only by Mark Linkous and Bowie later. It adversely affected my ability to listen to his music without becoming considerably upset, and I can generally listen to a lot of incredibly sad music as pure catharsis; not so in this case. It felt personal, just like his writing. I couldn’t separate the loss.
As such I find it difficult to put my thoughts to words, and while I knew there were going to be some dissenting opinions that were going to push me away, there has been some beautiful, eloquent stories from other users who’ve managed to say more than I feel capable of and I am both grateful and heartened to know that the depth of feeling is very much shared.

I first heard Elliott Smith in 1997 (I think, in my head it’s around the same time I got into Jeff Buckley, which was a scant few months before Buckley’s death), and he just slipped in without a great deal of fanfare; I was 18 and pretty into my sensitive singer-songwriters at the time, so he didn’t stand out massively at first, but you know how it goes; you build a bond over time. I was also ramping up to the first heavy depressive cycle in my adult life, so my connection to Smith’s music grew in tandem as he put to music what I felt inside, without even realising it until a minor breakdown in the second year of university. Things got progressively worse for me and, I guess, even worse for Elliott. I still can’t believe it’s been 17 years. Obviously new music emerged posthumously which I snapped up on release and then could barely bring myself to listen to (though New Moon gave me my absolute favourite Smith song in Going Nowhere), but it just doesn’t seem that far away, like his shadow is still in the room, so to speak.

My last.fm stats tell me I haven’t listened to him since 2013 (at my computer at least). But I know his music is there for if and when I need it.

5.

[pichaelmarker]

Beautifully put.

What a guy.x

[AtTheBorderGuy]

I got into him via Kylie Minogue. I saw Good Will Hunting and, while I hadn’t paid much attention to the soundtrack during the film, I remember enjoying the vibe of it. The following month Kylie was answering reader questions in Q Magazine and was asked what the last album she’d bought was. She said the GWH soundtrack because of Miss Misery which she gave a very brief description of. That prompted me to finally buy the soundtrack on CD, closely followed by Either/Or - still my favourite album of his. I skipped XO initially but loved Figure 8 when I finally bought it towards the end of 2000 (Happiness on a free Select Magazine CD may have had something to with that). His entire back catalogue quickly appeared in my CD collection and I became obsessed for a while.

Unfortunately, I never saw him live. One of my great festival regrets is missing him not just once but twice in as many months at Glastonbury and Leeds 2000.

I struggled to listen to him for a while after he died but a trip to Fopp (who had just installed a banging new stereo system) solved that. It was the day Basement came out and I walked through the door the split second this started playing at full volume:

shooting star - elliott smith

EDIT: 5. Obviously.

[1986_and_all_that]

Someone in this thread mentioned an alternative mix of Shooting Star that was meant to open FABOTH. Is this available to listen to online anywhere?

[pinkybrain]

The mix he wanted was never made. It was meant to be mono at the start and then suddenly burst into stereo. From the original producer:

Here’s something I thought would have been groundbreaking: Two songs—"A Passing Feeling” and “Shooting Star”—were gonna be mixed in mono all the way up until a certain point where they’d break into stereo. We mixed those two songs that way, and there were moments when we cried listening to them. The impact was so profound. Anyway, the family never found those mixes for whatever reason. Also, the fact that it’s missing two of the best songs is too bad. One of them is “True Love Is a Rose” and the other one was called “True Friends / See You in Heaven.”

Keep the Things You Forgot: An Elliott Smith Oral History

So they exist, but are still unreleased. There are fan edits out there

[DaveDaveDave]

I’ve loved this thread, thank you all. Show’s the best of the community, some wonderful stories.

He’s an easy 5 for me, I don’t listen to him as much as I should but every time I do, no matter which album, he always moves me. Gonna spend some time tonight going through these videos.

[TAFH33]

@Besterberg

Alameda and A Fond Farewell would be right up there in a broader list

Alameda might be my favorite on Either/Or. That moment around 1:30 where the next verse starts before the chorus fully completes is one of those amazing but easy to overlook songwriting decisions that shows how skilled he was.

[ericVII]

Some of that reasoning seems a bit uncharitable. An album isnt just throw all the best songs on it, sometimes you have to kill your darlings. Preferred the demo people are annoying as well. The demo still exists. Feel like FOAB could have easily turned into 20+ tracks of too much of everything but just stays the right side of that. Kind of amazing it works so well as an album where most posthumous releases would fail.

[colon_closed_bracket]

I really like FABOTH. Who knows if it was the album Elliott would have wanted, but I think it works well (like all of his albums imo) in terms of track selection and order, total length, overall feel. I love how woozy it feels - for example, the mellotron coming in around 1:50 on Twilight. The contrast between the chaos at the end of Coast to Coast and the clean guitar-picking on Let’s Get Lost.

Still find it an incredibly uncomfortable listen - I’ve gone through periods of time where I’ve been unable to listen to him at all.

[pinkybrain]

The album was intended as a double album, ‘White Album’ type thing. I’d be interested to hear a version more faithful to his notes, which could be released very easily.

It’s a separate discussion from the demo-preferrers as what I’m talking about is not available

It’s still his best album imo, and I’d agree it’s in a very different lane from most other posthumous releases, which are usually pretty bad.

Of course I’ve realised through this thread you’re also dealing with a greiving family so my gripes about the album might not be so important in the grand scheme

[Ruffers]

From a Basement has the best flow of all of them but XO imho