Either/Or |
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Released: February 25, 1997 Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 0.43 US, 0.06 UK, 0.50 world (includes US + UK) Genre: indie alternative rock |
Tracks:Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks)
Total Running Time: 36:52 |
Rating: 4.185 out of 5.00 (average of 13 ratings)
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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The Intimate Poet“Among modern singer/songwriters there are few who can match Elliott Smith for intimacy.” RD He “was a poet of the late ‘90s, channeling a gritty and melancholic voice” PM alongside “lo-fi, home-recording techniques” RD and “delicate guitar playing” RD that drew “the listener inexorably into the artist’s world.” RD “In 2003, he died at 34 in a possible suicide, though the circumstances of his death remain murky.” EW’12The Third AlbumHis third album, Either/Or, captures an essential turning point in Elliott Smith’s career. PM This was his final independent album before signing with DreamWorks. He recorded more than 30 songs over nearly a year’s time at a variety of locations, including both his apartment and his girlfriend’s. RD It is “widely considered to be his most acclaimed album” PM and “possibly his richest work.” RD“In a voice barely louder than a whisper, the preternaturally gifted, emotionally fragile folkie…unfurled one of the most quietly devastating bedroom records ever made.” EW’12 It “conjures both grief and wonder as we see Smith fully coming into his own as an artist for the first time, a feat done with such tangible vulnerability that few artists have achieved since.” PM “The low, smoky tone of Smith’s acoustic guitar on the album feels iconic and instantly recognizable.” PM He expanded his sound with “more expansive and complex structures and themes beyond just the stripped-down acoustic reflections of his past” PM but still plays all the instruments himself. “The most alluring numbers, however, are still his quietly melancholy acoustic ones.” AM “The humbler arrangements are better suited to the sparse equipment.” AM The SongsFor example, on Between the Bars, “an ode to a whiskey bottle,” RD “he sings, in his endearingly limited whisper, of late-night drinking and introspection, and his subdued strumming creates a minor-key mood befitting the mysteries of self.” AM On the “equally ethereal” AM Angeles, his “acoustic fingerpicking spins out notes which briskly move around a single atmospheric keyboard chord, like aural minnows swimming toward a solitary light at the surface of the water.” AMThe album also features Ballad of Big Nothing, “an uplifting anthem to freedom,” RD and Pictures of Me, “a snapshot of destructive relationships.” RD “But it with the last two songs that the album really delivers…2:45 AM – documenting the terrors of the wee small hours, in achingly beautiful fashion – and Say Yes – hopelessly, wonderfully optimistic.” RD
Good Will HuntingSmith won “the acclaim of Hollywood’s biggest, brightest, and best” AM via an Oscar nomination for Miss Misery, a new song on the Good Will Hunting soundtrack. That soundtrack also featured “Angeles” and a different version of “Between the Bars.” Smith met Gus Van Zant, the director of Good Will Hunting, while living in Portland.Notes:A 20th anniversary edition of the album added five live performances from 1997 along with four other songs. |
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First posted 11/4/2025. |
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