Smith’s songwriting really succeeds in his ability to conjure stunning imagery within his Cascadian melancholy.

XO essentially lays out the remainder of the Elliott Smith story, one seemingly scripted to perfection, playing into mythic persona he simply could no longer inhabit.

While most listeners may listen to Heatmiser primarily for its tragic co-founder, a closer listen should earn more props for his accomplished bandmates.

This is where Elliott Smith becomes the artist that we know today.

Elliott Smith wrote good songs that sound nice when sung by a guy and a girl with pleasant voices. But there’s clearly more to those songs that said guy and girl don’t quite capture.

After Elliott Smith’s death in 2003, a wall on Sunset Boulevard, where L.A.’s Silver Lake blends into Los Feliz, filled with tributes. They crept over a colorful design of an auto-repair shop’s façade, featured on the cover of Smith’s Figure 8 (2000). I drove past it often, as my wife works a few blocks away and my sons started pre-school …

Elliott Smith would have turned 45 this month. In his honor, we revisit some of the tracks we love best. “The Biggest Lie” – Elliott Smith “Oh we’re so very precious, you and I/ And everything that you do makes me want to die/ Oh I just told the biggest lie.” Those words are sad and cruel on paper, but …

“New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” by LCD Soundsystem (2007) James Murphy, the brilliant sweatpants-clad schlub behind LCD Soundsystem, seemed an improbable frontman. But for 10 years, this producer and multi-instrumentalist planted himself behind the mic at LCD Soundsystem’s raucous live shows before he abruptly pulled the plug on the project in 2011 at the height …