Album Rating: 3.5

Why this as your first? Mostly curious

Album Rating: 4.0

Probably the anniversary.

what Boney said, strict anniversary diet

Not listening to any Elliott Smith outside a few songs was a mistake I also made in the past.

Yes, this is pretty amazing.

Album Rating: 5.0

this isn't necessarily where I would recommend people start but it's his best so good pick nonetheless

Is Either/Or the starting point? It's the only one I've delved into so far but its blown me awaaaay

Album Rating: 5.0

generally yup, then you'd go back to s/t (if you want more Between the Bars/2:45 AM style tunes) or forward to XO (if you prefer Pictures of Me, Ballad of Big Nothing, Say Yes)

Album Rating: 3.5

I’n surprised this is your favourite row - love the album, but it probably ranks lowest for me.

Album Rating: 4.0

I prefer it to the debut but that’s it



Still good though, just think the Beatles‘ish psychedelia gets every so slightly too twee in places and some of the songs don’t really play to the man’s strengths (‘Mama’, ‘Mary K’, ‘Color Bars’, etc)

Album Rating: 3.5

Mama is actually my favourite on here and maybe my favourite pure Elliott rocker. I kind of agree with what you’re saying. It’s second to Basement for his most beatles’psych Inspired and I think basement does it better. Still this album rocks.

Album Rating: 4.0

The first five songs, Happiness and Better Be Quiet show this could have been his best album, or near to his best. Just didn’t quite work out



‘Mama’ is ok, I have a sneaky feeling if he’d handed it to the right performer (not sure who) they’d have done it more justice maybe, I dunno :/

Album Rating: 5.0

@phero this is one of my favourite albums ever. front to back flow is his best imo, whereas XO and (especially) the pale imitation of Basement they released just feel like songs in some order, this works as a song cycle so well you can really feel the Abbey Road influence



this album alone accounts for about half my top 10 Elliott, between Can't Make a Sound, Wouldn't Mama be Proud, Better Be Quiet Now and Son of Sam



I love this basically

Album Rating: 4.0

Can't Make a Sound is excellent too, add that to the ones I mentioned - that's a solid set of 8 tunes



The two 'Everything's are so good, esp back to back

'pale imitation of Basement' is this because it was posthumously compiled? are there unreleased tracks left off or something?

Album Rating: 5.0

yes, plenty. it's kind of a long and messy story, but the producer who Elliott had worked with for most of the sessions (David McConnell) was for some reason completely left out of the process of finishing that album (possibly because his family thought he was one of the bad influences on Elliott, but god actually knows)



whatever the reason, this led to a bunch of incredible stuff they had planned for Basement being totally left off, as well as stuff Elliott never wanted on the album being used to fill its place (Pretty Ugly Before, that horrible version of Don't Go Down, Ostriches & Chirping)



if you're curious, look up some of the fanmade bootlegs. unreleased songs from that time like True Love, Stickman, See You in Heaven and Dancing on the Highway are up there with the finest things Elliott ever recorded, if you ask me. you also had cool stuff like Shooting Star and A Passing Feeling being mixed in mono until they exploded, where the mix would have changed to stereo; again for whatever reason they neglected to use these on the final album, so we have comparatively flat mixes of those songs that do them no justice

thanks so much for that explanation, i'll definitely be checking out those bootlegs when the time is right!!

Album Rating: 4.0

'Shooting Star and A Passing Feeling'



definitely agree these seem like well written songs that fall flat on that album due to their treatments



especially Shooting Star, you feel that could have been an album standout/centrepiece

Album Rating: 3.5

A Passing Feeling is beautiful man. Even Shooting Star I love. I think Basement is probably my second favourite Elliott - near perfect. I do love the bootleg stuff though.

Album Rating: 3.5

Elliott has two of the best posthumous releases there is