Elliott Smith
Figure 8
Damn, this was a downer...
Not the album, cause the music's great, with Elliott Smith showing that the field of singer/songwriter is sort of a pseudo-genre. I mean, this guy is everything Badly Drawn Boy wishes he could be, and while still not sounding like Nick Drake at all he shares the same expert skills.
Also, this isn't bringing me down because of the lyrical content. Even though it's a very melancholic album it's beautiful enough to not fall down the abyss. Just trying to pick out favourites is hard as the next song seems to trump the last - even on repeat. So this is definitely an album to be heard.
Not even the fact that he's so widely recognised that the elitist in me has to acknowledge he's more mainstream than under the radar (the man almost got an Oscar for his music, goddamnit) drains the mood.
No, the thing that brought me down was that I had totally missed the sad fact that Elliott wasn't around any more.
Smith, just like the aforementioned Drake, suffered depressions which (probably) led to his death at the age of 34.
How the hell was I unaware of that?
