(This makes a public mourning site a curiosity.) Nowhere is this better exemplified than on Either/Or. Discovering Smith has been something of a rite of passage for certain young people, but in spite of the vast fan base he cultivated during his decade-and-a-half-long career, the music he made is so intimate, so intensely personal, it asks individual, rather than communal, engagement.

The strangest thing has always been sharing Elliott Smith. Now it is a place called Bar Angeles, which surely must be a reference to the track off the late singer’s 1997 album, Either/Or. That mural marked the site of the Solutions Audio-Visual Repair Shop with Smith’s death by apparent suicide in 2003, it also became a public site of mourning. Or, not Figure 8, exactly, but the red-and-blue mural along Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles that was the backdrop for the Autumn De Wilde-shot portrait that covered Elliott Smith’s fifth and final studio album. Food for thought.There’s now a bar where Figure 8 used to stand. My copy of Roman Candle from around 2017 is every bit as phenomenal as this pressing.

There are too many variations and Kill Rockstars has always been an excellent steward of the Elliott Smith they own and what they release. Personally, unless the seller was able to convince me or show proof that what they have is before 2002 I would not seek these copies out. This record has never really gone out of print and it looks like there are many variations but some of them have clues as to when they were pressed. My pressing sounds phenomenal all these years later, still looks glossy with faint scuff marks, no pops, clicks, surface noise, no wear on cover and I’ve played the holy hell out of it. Pretty sure I paid $12-$14 so I’ll be expecting a refund from the Record Exchange in Boise Idaho. S/T and Either Or are listed for $9 on the insert. It has canary yellow labels, doesn’t feel like 180g but close, has glossy black lyric sheet with white lettering, matches these matrix numbers, has 6808.2 lightly scratched out and an insert for Kill Rockstars 2000 releases and what they have planned for 2001.

Elliott smith either or album download