Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold once lost a high school talent show after performing an Elliott Smith cover, but audiences are sure to be more accepting of his lovely, just-released take on the late singer/songwriter’s “Angel in the Snow,” which can be found on the soundtrack to the Amazon MGM holiday movie Oh. What. Fun. As previously […]
Ascendant rock quartet Momma are expanding their acclaimed latest Polyvinyl album, Welcome to My Blue Sky, on Nov. 14 with four outtakes and a cover of “Christian Brothers” by the late Elliott Smith’s pre-fame band Heatmiser. A head-nodding new single, “Cross Your Heart,” is out now in tandem with a video directed by Prophet Media’s […]
This article originally appeared in the September 1999 issue of SPIN. “You must be high.” We heard that a lot during the time we spent preparing this issue. Which is understandable. Pronouncing the 90 greatest albums of the ’90s is a somewhat presumptuous thing to do. When you’re measuring the music this decade is offering to […]
Not all love songs are romantic. Not all love songs are even happy. It all depends on your definition of the term. For every “My Girl” or “Your Song,” there’s at least one track with a nuanced take on the darker, more complicated sides of love — the drama of a long-term relationship, the fear […]
In the 1980s, music and film collided for cross-promotional blockbusters both transcendent (Purple Rain) and transcendently cheesy (Footloose). In the ‘90s, soundtracks continued to sell in the millions, capturing cultural moments like the Seattle grunge of Singles or the Britpop and electronica of Trainspotting. Auteurs like Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson reached deep into their […]
Elliott Smith’s self-titled debut album will be reissued for its 25th anniversary in August. And with it, comes not only a remastered version and a previously unreleased live album, but an imaginative cover from Portland’s MAITA. The DIY-inspired act, which dropped their debut album in April, has a soothing sound that mirrors that of Smith, […]