An Introduction To ... [CD]

Like the reviewer before me, I am severely underwhelmed by the cursory nature of this collection. I wouldn't class myself as an obsessive Elliott Smith fan, so hopefully a little more objective than those who would want the full box set with unreleased tracks package, etc, but I really do think an opportunity has been missed here.

To have only one track from Figure 8 is crushing. It's one of his more uplifting albums (the usual themes but the arrangements are more striking and vivid) and has tracks that I listen to regularly now - and several of them. Choosing one is an impossible task and while they've not gone far off the mark with this particular one - I was so hoping to find that this release would contain a least a pair of CDs and some 50-60 tracks.

Rock and roll has many casualties - and the record companies always seem to enjoy creating a posthumous frenzy for artists who were neglected in their life time (often understandably so!) - so it's particularly heartbreaking to see one of the greatest talents of music history afforded such a shoddy tribute.

It's been seven long years since the death of Elliott Smith and yet his music is ever present. For many the suicide of this wonderful singer songwriter on times seemed pre determined. Even more than Ian Curtis never had an artist left so many signals about his fate deriving from open statements in his songs which charted his mental condition, depression, alcoholism, and drug addiction. Nonetheless his brutal departure from this life remains shocking and for a while back there it was almost too much to listen to these songs mixed with angst and pain but often infused with real joy and exquisite song craft.

It is therefore sad to report that this gateway CD to Elliott Smiths work is such a cursory sweep across his songbook, not so much an "introduction" as a passing glance in the street. Recently there have been two "Best of" by bands who were contemporaries to him who have been subject to much more careful and reverential treatment. Thus the retrospective of Jesus and the Mary Chain contains 44 tracks for under five quid while another "best of" by the wicked Brett Anderson and his chums in Suede co released on the same day as this "Introduction to Elliot Smith" contains 35 tracks and retails for the same price.

The result of this stinginess in terms of tracks means that Smith's work is badly represented here with only one track respectively drawn from his brilliant debut "Roman Candle", another single track drawn from the album which many consider his best "XO", and again only one from his most accessible and pop orientated album "Figure 8"? Granted "Either/or" is well represented but that is because it includes his most famous songs and even in this case the absence of "Say yes" and "Rose parade" is puzzling. But when you read across the other omissions you really see gaps open up as wide as the Grand Canyon. Thus for example no "Condor Avenue" "Bottle up and explode", "Bled white", "St Ides Heaven", "Cant make a sound" "Everything reminds me of her", "Memory lane" and with "I didn't understand" left on the sidelines I am sorely tempted to consult my solicitors.

Of course the limited songs present are great not least the self destructive love song "Between the bars"; the lovely regretful Beatlesque ode to his Mother "Waltz no 2" and most of all "Needle in the Hay", his haunting song of addiction with its torrid verse of his search for drugs, "Falling out 6th and Powell, a dead sweat in my teeth/Gonna walk walk walk/Four more blocks, plus the one in my brain/Down downstairs to the man, he's gonna make it all okay". But again faults emerge since if this is an "introduction" for new listener why include the less superior version of "Miss Misery" from New Moon? For those of you who haven't seen it also check out his awkward fragile performance of this song in an ill fitting white suit at the Oscars, surely one of the most honest things ever to appear in this festival of insincerity and high schlock.

Elliott Smith's songs are a mess of raw exquisiteness, creativity and insanity. He is by a country mile one of the greatest singer songwriters of the past twenty years. For the nearly the same price as this "Introduction" you could buy both "XO" and "Either/Or "together, get twenty six of his best songs and experience Smith in the way he deserves to be experienced with a sense of completeness and continuity. Let us hope that one day a proper primer or more importantly a "retrospective" will be pieced together with some loving care invested into it. Poor old Elliott Smith, even in death they are still taking the p**s.

The two stars I've awarded to this album are based on the product itself and not the music contained within (which undoubtedly would be at least 4 stars considering the material here....there is 5 star material elsewhere).

If Elliott Smith has piqued your interest, then simply buy 'Figure 8' (only represented by one song here).

If you like 'Figure 8' then buy 'XO' and 'Either/Or'.

If you like all these then snap up the other 3 or 4 albums.

Simples!

XO