The aesthetic of Smith is couched in the directness of such great artists like the Beatles, but refined with off-kilter changes in a predictable melody, a quick delivery or a skeletal guitar structure and countless chord changes that sculpt the song.

That this message is packaged in such a detached delivery that is subtly humming with intensity, and that it is beautiful in the same way many things in nature are - delicate, hidden from view, not understood - is what makes this music so unique. Yet Elliott doesn't pretend that this is not a consequence of getting older and we are not responsible for our failing sensitivity. Besides the ever present spectre of addiction that haunts his songs, there is such a sense of resignation and resentment for the unfairness of life. No singer songwriter I've heard is better at taking all the hardness of life, and running it through a filter of such grave beauty. Listening to 'Either / Or' without blinkers was a revelation. I became obsessed, and I hunted down anything I could find by Elliott. The turning point was hearing Waltz #1, off the album that followed this one. I was still comparing everything to the fading sound of grunge and what had followed. I didn't get it at all - it seemed too detached, too 'some guy and his guitar'. So how do I look at this album objectively? I first listened to Elliott Smith because I felt I should - he seemed to be one of those artists every indie fan liked. Because the nature of Elliott's music was so much more personal, the grief took on a different complexion - it's that goodbye you wish you'd said, that clarification you won't have, that trickling, dripping sadness that always stays with someone. When John Lennon passed, I would guess the public outpouring of grief was related to a set of aging ideals that were so intrinsically linked to him. I've heard that said in interviews with fans, and I'd always scoffed at the idea. I am embarrassed to admit it felt like a friend had passed after hearing of his death.

Elliott was that one artist I wished I knew personally. Most of us listen to a myriad of artists, and we love all of them differently.

It's difficult for me to write about Elliott Smith.

Elliott smith either or 320