Review Summary: A long-overdue retrospective of the short, yet still thrilling, career of alternative rock's prodigal son.
There is absolutely zero reason for me to own this. Every single song on this collection already exists somewhere in my collection - I own
Grace, both the original and the bonus disc-weilding, remastered
Legacy Edition; I've got
The Grace EPs, and I've listened to
Live At Sin-E: Legacy Edition so many times that I could, at one time, play and sing you every single note on it, and I could probably still make a good fist of it now; I've bought
Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk twice, the second time in order to replace a second disc that had begun to skip; and I own enough bootleg live albums, various assorted studio out-takes, and recording of Jeff pissing about in radio stations to know full well I own way too much music by this man. Compare him to Bob Dylan - I'm a massive fan of both, but while Dylan has been recording albums for nigh on 50 years now, Jeff Buckley only lived to see one of his released. And I own MORE songs by Buckley. Even the 'unreleased' track here, a cover of The Smiths' maudlin 1986 classic "I Know It's Over", was already on my computer in 3 seperate versions when I bought this album.
"Last Goodbye" remains one of the most glorious, joyous songs ever recorded, and "Lover, You Should've Come Over" and "Forget Her" can still bring tears to the eyes of a dead man, but I've known that for what seems like an eternity. The faster, noisier, more electric version of "Eternal Life" here will be a shock to anybody only familiar with the
Grace version, but you'll know it well if you've heard the second disc on that album's Legacy version. Ditto "Dream Brother", which sports alternate lyrics. "So Real" is played on acoustic rather than electric guitars, but otherwise it's the same as the
Grace original. "Mojo Pin" is taken from
Sin-E, as is Edith Piaf's "Je n'en connais pas la fin", while "The Sky Is A Landfill", "Everybody Here Wants You", and "Vancouver" weigh in from
Sketches. "Grace" and "Hallelujah" returns us to territory familiar to those who only own
Grace (both are the remastered versions), and "I Know It's Over" is all new for the wiser souls who avoid obsessively hunting down bootlegs. (Anybody who's seen the new video for "Hallelujah" doing the rounds should note that the new version on the video is not the version here.)
This album's been criticized for not bringing anything new to the table, for sullying Jeff's catalogue, for whatever other arguments that get trotted out every time something gets released by somebody who died (just you wait for the controversy over
Twilight: Songs From Elliott Smith in 7 year's time!). But then that's not the idea. We don't NEED to bring anything new to Jeff Buckley's legacy. Ultimately, this is music powerful, unique, holy (did I seriously just say that?) enough to turn people into faggoty, lunatics obsessives like me. It feels like "Lover" will have the same impact on me for the next 10 years that it has for the past 6 or so. Ultimately, that's the only reason I'm reviewing this. Of course this isn't how a 14-track 'Best of Jeff Buckley' would look if I were curating it - there's no "Nightmares By The Sea", no "Opened Once", no "Morning Theft", no "Calling You", no "Be Your Husband" - but that's beside the point. Every song here is a gem, and a timely reminder of exactly what was lost 10 years ago. In fact, you might even find, like me, that you overlooked some of these songs until now - was "Vancouver" always this good? What's more, the fact that more people I know care about this than the 40th anniversary tour of Sgt. Peppers shows just how his legacy has grown, and will continue to grow. You could have stuck just about any 14 songs recorded by Jeff on an album and it'd be enough - it'd appeal to newcomers, obsessive completists, and the fairweather fans all the same. That's part of the magic of what little music Jeff left behind.
But it's worth noting that this could have been so much worse than it is. For the most part, the song choice is excellent, with the alternate take of "Dream Brother" being the only minor mis-step for me. (Some may argue with the road version of "Eternal Life" - personally, I always thought this version was better.) The delicate balance between chronological and intuitive order is pulled off brilliantly - the way this album drags you from Jeff's first minor hit up to his death and then reverses the journey right back to his roots, playing his favourite songs in bars, means that this album tells a story of loss in itself, and flows much better than most greatest hits sets. This is no shameful cash-in, no ill thought-out ramshackle of songs - it's not even really an attempt to summarize or replace any of his other releases. You may be in my boat, slightly embarassed to spend money on 14 songs you already spent money on years ago, or you might not even have heard the name Jeff Buckley before. Either way, 10 years on from his death,
So Real: Songs From Jeff Buckley means there's rarely been a better time to (re)discover this wonderful, beautiful, timeless music.
The liner notes, incidentally, contain gushing tributes from some unexpected, unexpectedly varied sources. Among others, Brandon Boyd observes that he had 'one of the best voices I've ever heard', John Legend thinks 'listening to him is inspiring, moving, spiritual', Ben Folds calls him a 'world class talent', and Peter Lindgren, formerly of Opeth (!), pays tribute to him as 'a genius [who] will always remain a musical and artistic inspiration to me'.
