ELLIOTT SMITH EITHER OR ALBUM ART FREE

It sounds like you’re walking through a dark alley way at night.

My favorite song on the album is “Roman Candle” because I feel like it has some the darkest guitar parts I’ve ever heard. The only other artist that’s made me feel this way about a song is Johnny Cash. When you listen to the main chord progression to “No Name #2” it sounds actually very uplifting, but at the same time scary or eerie. Especially to songs like “Roman Candle”, “Condor Ave”, “Drive All Over Town” and “No Name #2”.

It has a very dark, beautiful, shadowy vibe to it. To me almost every song on this album is perfect. This album came out in 1994 and is Elliott’s very first solo album. This album might be my favorite but it’s so hard to decide. I’m going to limit myself to talk about my top 5 albums.

ELLIOTT SMITH EITHER OR ALBUM ART FREE

He was now free to pursue a fully distorted reality.Of course everyone has their own favorite songwriters and this topic is totally opinionated but I’m here to talk about MY favorite songwriter and that is Elliott Smith. He wasn't anywhere near El Lay for the recording of Either/Or - Humboldt County was as far south as he got - but he proved that his talent wasn't some parochial curio to be swaddled by a scene. It was one of an incredible five-and-a-half tunes he contributed to the soundtrack, giving the orchestral fragment of 'Bars' (an amusing premonition of his onstage Oscar treatment) partial credit. It's also a waltz here, Smith nearly merges with the the low-end plucking, compelling the listener to lean into his triple meanings and suddenly elongated phrasing. Like 'Miss Misery,' 'Between the Bars' was composed before its inclusion in Good Will Hunting (Elliott's circle had to pretend otherwise to satisfy Academy rules). 'Nobody broke your heart/ You broke your own because you can't finish what you start' is a great couplet, but better yet is 'Face down/ Bow to the champion'. 'Alameda' would've been a great leadoff: hobbling on its hollow leg, trailed by ghostly backing vocals but haunted by organ. Still, Smith's bread and butter are as nourishing as ever. (Years later, he would misgender the god Shiva on Figure 8's 'Son of Sam'.) A mid-tempo power pop track, 'Ballad of Big Nothing' splits the baleful and the bileful (the parade makes a cameo here, too), with Smith cradling his phrases like Alex Chilton, veering dangerously close to shaming. He chips off thick chords, parallels his vocal line, and bolsters his Adbusters cred by forgetting which battery company trademarked the pink rabbit. With 'Rose Parade,' he finally lets himself into the non-metaphorical light, even if he doesn't care for it much. (The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop voters still maintained a fairly rigid distinction between songs and singles the record placed 20th, but if we did it over, 'Say Yes' might rate even higher.) Even in this winsome tale of romantic transference, he can't stop showing off, turning 'see how it is' in a gorgeous little Lennon-esque eddy. Or at least as close to it as he'd come: he sews profanity mines into 'Say Yes,' a song that's adorable and rueful at once. If he gets a bit shrill in his upper register, it's bulldozed with a half-dozen lithe turns of phrase and rhyme so compressed it's practically internal.Įither/Or is also where Smith got unabashedly pretty. 'Pictures of Me' pairs white-cloud organ with another remarkable build and breakdown the brittle bridge is straight out of Three Dog Night's cover of 'One', and acoustic and electric wind around each other in another glaring signpost for XO. The solo is essentially a bar-band figure played three times, but its tossed-off mastery is startling in its own way. 'Cupid's Trick' rides a couple of seething crests to mantra-like lyrical repetition ('should've lit me up/it's my life') and madmaking guitar stasis. The night's still crushing everything, but Smith, finally, is ready to resist. Even the untitled tune is noteworthy: if George Harrison had been laid up in hospital with a demon, he's have written the harrowing, draggy 'No Name No. A case has (and will) be made that this is his greatest collection of tunes it's hard to argue with 37 minutes of taut, wounded tracks. After two albums in the basement, he moved his possessions closer to Heatmiser's floor, and the songs do not suffer for it. It's a red herring Smith played every instrument. But for the assuring tape click, a cymbal is the first sound you hear.

Elliott smith either or album art