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ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

Essential New Music: Elliott Smith’s “Either/Or: Expanded Edition”

There is the “eBay value” of what you inherit; and then there is its emotional value to you. One could argue that two decades down the line from its debut, Either/Or is both a rare Rolex of a keepsake and one that was worn by your favorite uncle—that rare totem possessing both value and the sort of sentimental equity that has no monetary equivalent. No space is wasted, no track is filler, no detail overlooked. Whether the late Elliott Smith uses layered metaphor to weave a spell of confusion over listeners as to the chicken/egg relationship between love, misery and dependence (the album’s two devastating classics “Between The Bars” and “Say Yes”), takes detailed notes of his twilight travels around Portlandia to either comic (“Rose Parade”) or tragic (“Alameda”) ends, or plays every damn instrument in the bandroom like some sort of post-rock Brian Wilson conducting an orchestra heard only in his head (personal favorites “No Name No. 5,” “Cupid’s Trick”), this is an indisputable 10-star album with no peer and no real room for improvement. The sonic rebuffing and expansion only add to this record’s charms rather than reveal a diamond that somehow wasn’t obvious previously. The Mary Lou Lord-covered “I Figured You Out” and rare Freewheelin’-esque b-side “I Don’t Think I’m Ever Gonna Figure It Out” (plus rare live tracks and alternative versions of latergrams such as “Bottle Up And Explode!”) merely confirm that Smith’s genius wouldn’t be contained to the spiderwebby acoustica he had traded in early on, but would instead translate equally well to Abbey Road-like palettes that would still wring tears from elegantly rendered realness.

—Corey duBrowa