Summer 2020 Album Diary: "Either/Or," Elliott Smith (1997)

"Either/Or" is enjoyable enough as music, but it's impossible to separate the album from the circumstances of the artist who created it.

For anyone unfamiliar with Elliott Smith, he died in 2003 from two stab wounds to the chest, and it doesn't appear to have ever been fully determined whether it was suicide or homicide.  His life had not been an easy one.

A lot of the album is reminiscent of some of Sufjan Stevens' work, but after a couple of listens I'm not sure it's anywhere as musically interesting.  The standout track is "Cupids Trick," which takes the same general approach but adds a dash of mystery to the proceedings (not to mention some additional instrumentation).